Landmarks of Orleans County, New York, Part 7

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

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But better times and conditions were near at hand. The energetic clearing away of the forests and further tillage of the soil, both gave the settlers larger crops and more area to cultivate, and at the same time diminished sickness. Mills, schools and churches were founded ; news- papers were established, the Gazette in Gaines in 1822, and the Newport Patriot in 1824; the roads were improved ; the formation of the several towns progressed-Ridgeway and Murray in 1812, Gaines in 1816, Barre and Shelby in 1818, Yates and Carlton in 1822, and Kendall in

ORLEANS COUNTY.

1837. The details of all these subjects will receive proper treatment in later pages of this volume.

Meanwhile the all-important topic of the Erie Canal had absorbed public attention during many years, and the great project was nearing completion when Orleans county was organized under the act of November 12, 1824, as before noted. The first election of county officers was held with the following result: Elijah Foot, first judge ; S. M. Moody, Cyrus Harwood, Eldridge Farwell and William Penni- man, judges; William Lewis, sheriff; Orson Nicholson, county clerk.

CHAPTER VII.

Modes of Transportation and Travel in Early Years-Opening of the Erie Canal -Changes Wrought by this Waterway-Early Public Legislation -- The First and Second Locations of the County Seat-The First Banks-Railroads-The " Hard Times " of 1837-38-A Deplorable Accident.

Before the building of the Erie Canal and the railroads, public travel was mainly by the old stage coaches, which were driven over the princi- pal thoroughfares of the State. Stage lines existed early in the century westward from Canandaigua, either direct to Buffalo, or by way of the Ridge road, Lewiston and the Falls. The latter route was established in 1816. Coaches ran one each way every day and carried great num- bers of passengers. They were kept running until about 1850, the rivalry between them and the packet lines on the canal being very spirited. In 1828 a number of men living principally in Rochester, who looked upon the running of stages on Sunday as a violation of that day, organized an opposition line to run on week days only ; it was called " The Pioneer Line," and the route left the Ridge road at Wright's Corners for Lockport, and thence west to the Falls and Buffalo. The competition between these rival lines was very active ; but the first mentioned company reduced its fares, and when the second company failed to get the contract to carry the mails, it closed its business. Gaines, in this county, was a point for changing horses, the stopping-

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place being the old Mansion House, which was succeeded by the Gaines House. Gaines is 250 miles from Albany and the trip usually required about forty-three hours. With the opening of the railroads, the glory of the stage and packet lines departed ; but there are men still living who delight to talk of the coaching days and the pleasures of bowling along over the turnpike behind spirited horses guided by a skillful driver, the sharp crack of whose whip echoed in the forest by the roadside. But time in those days had not acquired the value ascribed to it in these later years.

A detailed history of the conception and building of the Erie Canal is not required in these pages; every person of intelligence who knows aught of the history of his own State of New York is conversant with it. The subject of water communication between the Hudson and the great lakes was discussed early in the present century, 1 and even before that the great necessity for better ways of transporting goods to and from Albany westward led to the organization of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company in 1792 and the improvement of water communication up the Mohawk River, through Wood Creek, Oneida Lake and Seneca River, a work in itself of vast benefit to the State at large.

The project of a canal from the Hudson to Buffalo seems to have found its inception in the mind of Jesse Hawley in 1805. A native of Bridgeport, Conn., he was in 1805 and some years afterward, buying wheat in the Genesee Valley, transporting it east to Seneca Falls, where there was a large grist mill. having it ground and then shipping the flour to Albany. He wrote a series of newspaper articles in favor of the project which created considerable favorable influence.

The claim is also made that Gouverneur Morris suggested the canal to Simeon De Witt, then surveyor general, as early as 1803, and that De Witt, like most others at that time, considered the scheme wholly visionary. He talked with James Geddes, of Syracuse, about it and

1 Governor Colden as early as 1724 expressed the hope that sometime the western part of the State might be penetrated by boats independent of Lake Ontario. In his memoir on the fur trade, writ- ten in that year, occurs the following remarkable passage : There is a river which comes from the country of the Sinnekes and falls into the Onnondage River, by which we have an easy carriage into that country without going near the Cataracqui (Ontario) Lake. The head of this river goes near to Lake Erie and probably may give a very near passage into that lake, much more advan- tageous than the way the French are obliged to take by the way of the great fall of lagara.

ORLEANS COUNTY.

Mr. Geddes, who was a practical surveyor, believed the plan feasible, and corresponded with surveyors and engineers on the subject. Gen- eral interest was awakened and the project worked its way into a political issue and was taken in hand by Hon. Joshua Forman, of Syra- cuse, who was elected to the Assembly on the "canal ticket." Mr. Forman from that time on until the canal was an accomplished fact, was its enthusiastic advocate and to him as much as to any other person is due the credit for the great work. He secured a small appropriation of $600 and Mr. Geddes received authority to make a preliminary survey. As between the two proposed routes, the one by way of Lake Ontario and the other direct to Lake Erie, Mr. Geddes reported in favor of the latter. This took the line directly across Orleans county, and we quote as follows regarding the local features of the project :

Mr. Geddes suggested that there might be found some place in the Ridge that bounds the Tonawanda Valley on the north, as low as the level of Lake Erie, where a canal may be led across and conducted onward without increasing the lockage by rising to the Tonawanda swamp. The latter difficulty was involved in the route that had been contemplated by Joseph Ellicott. He supposed the summit on that line would not be more than twenty feet above Lake Erie, and that upon it a sufficient supply of water might be obtained from Oak Orchard Creek and other streams. In this he was mis- taken ; the summit was found to be seventy-five feet above Lake Erie, and to be sup- plied with no adequate feeder.

It is entirely probable that the canal could never have been a success through Western New York, except for the discovery through the great genius of Mr. Geddes, that it could follow the course finally adopted, permitting a continuous flow eastward from Lake Erie.

Commissioners were appointed at the Legislative session of 1810 to thoroughly explore the proposed routes of water communication across the State, which they did and reported on the 2d of March, 18II. They recommended the route favored by Mr. Geddes. The estimated cost of the work was $5,000,000. The Legislature approved this report by continuing the commission and voting $15,000 for further opera- tions. Attempts to obtain congressional aid for the undertaking failed and in the following year the Legislature authorized the commissioners to borrow $5,000,000 on the State credit, for the construction of the canal. The oncoming of the war with Great Britain put a stop to the undertaking ; but in 1815, it was revived and public meetings were

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held in various parts of the State where enthusiastic speakers advocated the speedy completion of the work. The Legislature of 1816 appoint- ed a new canal commission and in the next year Mr. Clinton prepared an act authorizing the beginning of the work. The canal was divided into three sections, eastern, middle and western, Mr. Geddes being made chief engineer of the western section. Up to the year 1820 nothing but the survey had been accomplished on this division, aside from the adoption of the route advised by Mr. Geddes. In 1820 he was succeeded by David Thomas, who in that year made an examin- ation of the course adopted from Rochester to Pendleton and made some modification east of Oak Orchard Creek. A more important change was made in reference to the point of passing the mountain ridge in Niagara county, and which determined the site of the city of Lockport. The whole western part of the canal was put under con- tract in 1821. The work was pushed energetically and during the autumn of 1823 the canal was navigable as far west on the western section as Holley and during the following season reached the foot of the ridge at Lockport. The great rock cutting at the latter place was the last piece of work finished between Buffalo and Albany. William C. Bouck, afterwards governor of the State, was the commissioner in charge of the construction of the western portion of the canal. On the 29th of September, 1825, he wrote from Lockport to Stephen Van Rens- selaer, another commissioner, as follows :

SIR :-- The unfinished parts of the Erie Canal will be completed and in a condition to admit the passage of boats on Wednesday, the 26th day of October next. It would have been gratifying to have accomplished this result as early as the first of September, but embarrassments which I could not control delayed it.

On this grand event, so auspicious to the character and wealth of the citizens of New York, permit me to congratulate you.

By extra exertion the final filling was finished on the 25th of October, and in the forenoon of the next day a flotilla of five boats left Buffalo, laden with the highest State officers and other prominent men. Cannon had been stationed a few miles apart along the whole line of the canal, to be discharged in order as fast as they were reached by the boats. A few boats had started westward from Lockport, about the time of the sailing of the flotilla from Buffalo, and met the latter in Tonawanda Creek, convoying the flotilla from there eastward. En-

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thusiastic crowds of people, among them many who had from the first condemned the project as impracticable,1 met the fleet at the various villages, Lockport, Medina, Albion, Holley and Brockport, in a gener- al celebration of the great event.

The Erie Canal was then 363 miles long, and its original cost was $7,143,780.86. Under an act of May, 1835, the canal was enlarged from a width of forty feet at top and twenty-eight at bottom, to seventy at top and fifty-two and a half at bottom, and so straightened as to re- duce its length to 3502 miles. The cost of the enlargement was more than $30,000,000.

The effects of the opening of this great waterway are too well known to need recapitulation. It immediately became a means of transporta- tion to and from the eastern markets of all kinds of produce and mer- chandise, in which capacity its value can never be estimated. The set- tlers of Orleans county, as well as elsewhere, saw the beginning of a new era of prosperity for them, and their anticipations were measur- ably realized. Passenger travel by the packet boats was also made delightful and more rapid than by the former stage coaches. These boats, while not large, were fitted up with all necessary comforts for passengers during a protracted ride, and one can hardly imagine a more agreeable voyage than on one of those packets from Albany to Buffalo. Seymour Scovell built the first packet west of Montezuma, which he called the "Myron Holley," and Oliver Culver the second one, called "William C. Bouck."

Of the immediate consequences of opening the canal, Judge Thomas wrote as follows :

To no part of the State of New York has the Erie Canal proved of more benefit than to Orleans county. Although the soil was fertile and productive, and yielded abundant crops to reward the toil of the farmer, yet its inland location and the great difficulty of transporting produce to market, rendered it of little value at home. Settlers who had located here, in many instances, had become discouraged. Others who desired to emigrate to the Genesee country, were kept back by the gloomy accounts they got of life in the wilderness, with little prospect of easy communication with the old East-

1 It was considered an impossibility to make the Erie Canal. People said it might be possible to make water run up hill, but canal boats, never. Some said they would be willing to die, having lived long enough when boats in a canal should float through their farms ; but afterwards when they saw the boats passing by, they wanted to live more than ever to see what would be done next .- Reminiscences of George E. Mix.

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ern States. As soon as the canal became navigable, Holley, Albion, Knowlesville, and Medina, villages on its banks, were built up. Actual settlers took up the unoccupied lands and cleared them up. No speculators came here and bought up large tracts and left them wild to rise on the market. The lumber of the country found a ready market and floated away. Wheat was worth four times as much as the price for which it had been previously selling. Prosperity came in on every hand; the mud dried up, and the mosquitos, and the ague, and the fever, and the bears left the country. Farmers paid for their lands, surrendered their articles and took deeds from the company. Good barns and framed houses, and houses of brick and stone, began to be built as the com- mon dwellings of the inhabitants. "The good time coming," which the first settlers could not see, but waited for with a faint and dreamy but persistent hope, had come in- deed. The price of lands rose rapidly, making many wealthy, who happened to locate farms in desirable places, from the rise in value of their lands. From this time forward rich men from the Eastern States and older settlements began to come in and buy out the farms and improvements of those who had begun in the woods and now found themselves, like Cooper's Leather Stocking, "Lost in the Clearings," and wished to move on to the borders of civilization, where hunting and fishing were better, and where the ruder institutions, manners and customs of frontier life, to which they had become attached, would be better enjoyed among congenial spirits.

During the progress of these events Orleans county was advancing in many other material respects. A legislative act of April 18, 1826, gave to the county, one member of assembly and made it a part of the eighth senatorial district, and in the following year both the village of Albion and the Gaines Academy were incorporated. The new court house and jail were finished in 1828, and an act of April 18, of that year, directed that the Courts of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace, "shall after the passage of this act, be held at the court house in Albion on the third Mondays of January, June and September." The subject of railroad communication was also rapidly becoming a prominent one in the minds of progressive people, and although it was several years before a line was constructed through this county, there are early indications that the project was under consideration. On the 17th of April, 1832, the Albion and Tonawanda Railroad Company was incorporated by David E. Evans, Gaius B. Rich, Henry Edgerton, Alexis Ward, and Nehemiah Ingersoll. The object of the company was to construct a single or double track road from Albion to the Ton- awanda Creek at Batavia. The capital was $200,000. Again on the 5th of May, 1834, the Medina and Darien Railroad Company was in- corporated, its purpose being to build a road between the village of

ORLEANS COUNTY.

Medina and the Alexander or Buffalo road. The company was ob ligated to spend $10,000 in two years from incorporation and to complete the road in five years ; the capital was $100,000. This com- pany established a horse railroad running from Medina to Akron, in Erie county in 1826. The enterprise did not prove profitable and the track was taken up in a short time. In the same year the enterprising people of Medina projected a railroad to run from their village to the mouth of Oak Orchard Creek. For this purpose the Medina and Ontario Railroad Company was incorporated; but the line was never built. These and many other projects were at least temporarily aban- doned wholly or partly on account of the financial distress of 1837-8.

Meanwhile in 1832-33 the cholera swept over the country leaving death and despair in its track. Orleans county, while it did not suffer greatly from the scourge, had its share of anxiety and fear, for it was well known that the disease was approaching from the East and West along the line of the canal.

The general law of June 22, 1832, made it the duty of the common councils of cities and the trustees of villages in all counties bordered by any of the lakes or canals of the State, where there was not an existing board of health, to forthwith appoint one of not less than three nor more than seven members, with a competent physician as health officer.

Communities which were essentially agricultural in character suffered less from the financial overthrow of 1836-38 than the commercial centers. The causes of that memorable revulsion lay in the very found- ation of the government, as developed in the policy of President Jack- son, and in antagonism to that policy by the United States Bank and its connections. The period of speculation and dazzling expectations began about two years before the crash, and in cities and large villages prices of real estate were forced upward beyond reason, amid a fever of financial delusion that now seems to have been absolutely unaccounta- ble. Buffalo, for example, was a veritable hot bed of speculation and wild anticipation. Banks multiplied, money was plenty and recklessly spent, rates of interest rapidly advanced, and the demand for money, even at the high rates, was unprecedented, through the mania for bor- rowing funds with which to speculate, and the prices of various goods rose in proportion with the rest. Everybody, professional men, teach-

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ers, lawyers, doctors, even ministers, as well as the rank and file, were drawn into the whirlpool, and the crash was proportionately over- whelming.1

As before indicated, Orleans county did not suffer in this period of stringency equally with localities where business interests were larger, or where expectations of a large influx of population to build up com- mercial centers were indulged. The Bank of Orleans, at Albion, had been organized in 1834, and it passed successfully through the crisis. It was "hard times" with the community in general ; but actual busi- ness disaster and suffering were not prevalent.

Many years since a railroad between Batavia, Albion and Oak Orchard Harbor was talked of and some preliminary surveys were made. In 1884 a company was organized, a route was surveyed, and much of the right of way secured. Nothing more was done, and the project still sleeps.2

In 1835 the Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad Company began building a railroad between those two points. The road was built in the same manner as the Albany and Schenectady line, opened in 1831, and the Schenectady and Utica, opened in 1835. Sills were laid length- wise of the road and flat rails thereon. The cars were small, holding either sixteen or twenty-four persons, and with only four wheels. On the 10th of December, 1850, the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad Company was organized, and in 1851 purchased the Lockport and Niagara Falls line. The track of the latter company was taken up and subscriptions opened to build a new road. About $225,- 000 were secured and the road was built. The first board of directors were Joseph B. Varnum, Edward Whitehouse, of New York; Watts Sherman, of Albany ; Freeman Clarke, Silas O. Smith, A. Boody, of Rochester ; Alexis Ward, Roswell W. Burrows, of Albion; and Elias B. Holmes, of Brockport. The directors and a few others passed over the road by train June 25, 1852, and regular trains began running on

1It is related thatia Buffalo doctor whose brain was dazed by his exalted expectations from his various real estate investments, called to leave medicine for a patient. When asked how it was to be taken , the physician replied in a preoccupied manner: "One-third down and the remainder in three quarterly installments."

2 There is, however, at this time (1894) much talk of building such a road and about $60,000 has been subscribed toward its capital stock.

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the 30th of that month. This road went into the consolidation which formed the New York Central May 7, 1853. The branch from Lock- port Junction to Tonawanda was built by the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Company in 1852, and opened in January, 1853.

Western New York, in common with most other parts of the country, had its period of what may be termed the plank road mania, beginning about 1845 and continuing several years. These roads, built at a time when most country highways were even worse than at present, and ex- tending into localities where railroads were not likely to go, were of considerable benefit, especially to farmers. A few of them paid reasonable dividends, through collection of tolls, but more were losing investments and soon abandoned.

In October, 1856, the Orleans County Agricultural Society was or- ganized ; it was destined to be of great benefit to the farmers and others in the county. A proper account of it is given in another chapter.

The year 1859 was made memorable by a terrible accident which happened in the village of Albion. The date was September 28, when the annual fair of the Agricultural Society was in progress, to attend which a large crowd of people were present. A young man from Brockport had stretched a rope across the canal, from the Dyer block to the Mansion House and advertised a rope walking exhibition. To witness this a crowd of people gathered on the canal bridge. The bridge fell with its living load, precipitating about 250 persons into the water, many of them beneath the timbers. Fifteen persons were killed and as many more injured. Following is a list of those who lost their lives : Jane Lavery, Albion ; Lydia Harris, Albion ; Joseph Cade, South Barre; Perry Cole, Barre; Annie Viele, Gaines ; Edwin Still- son, South Barre; Adelbert Wilcox, West Kendall ; Sarah Thomas, Carlton ; Caroline A. Martin, Carlton; Harry Henry, Carlton; Ran- som L. Murdock, Gaines; Thomas Alchin, Canaan, Can .; Thomas Handy, Yates; Sophia Pratt, Toledo, O .; Charles Roosevelt, Sandy Creek. This disaster cast a pall of sadness and regret over the entire com- munity which was not wholly lifted in many years.

During the period under consideration in the foregoing chapter, the stone quarrying industry, which has since been of such paramount im- portance to the county, was thoroughly established and several quarries

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were in active working. The opening of the canal made the shipment of the valuable sandstone east and west comparatively easy and cheap, and a rapidly spreading demand for paving and flagging purposes was inaugurated. This industry will be further described in later chapters.

But a cloud was gathering in the southern sky, soon to burst with overwhelming fury upon the prosperous country.

CHAPTER VIII.

Outbreak of the Great Civil War-Enthusiasm of the People-Prompt Response to Calls for Volunteers -- The First Organization to Leave this County for the Seat of War -- Formation of other Organizations -- Number of Volunteers from the Various Towns --- Death Roll of Orleans Volunteers.

The long reign of prosperous peace in America was rudely and ruthlessly closed when citizens of one of the Southern States fired the first hostile gun upon Fort Sumter in 1861. Almost before the echoes of that cannonade had died away, a tide of patriotic enthusiasm and in- dignation swept over the entire North, and the call to arms found an echo in every loyal heart, while thousands, young and old, rich and poor, native and alien, sprang forward to offer their services and their lives at the altar of their country.

The history of the civil war has been written and rewritten, and al- most every intelligent citizen is familiar with the story of the great contest. Were this not true, it would manifestly be impossible in a work of this character to follow the course of the various campaigns in which Orleans county soldiers bore arms, or to trace in detail the career of those brave officers and privates who fell on the field of battle. Such historical work must be left to the general historian, who has un- limited space at his command. It remains for us here only to give such brief notes of the several military organizations in which the large majority of Orleans county men enlisted as our space will admit, and such statistics and information as will be valuable for reference.

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Landmarks of Orleans County, New York, Part 7

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