USA > New York > Wayne County > Landmarks of Wayne County, New York, Pt. 1 > Part 26
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Rev. J. R. Harding. Among the memorials placed in the church are windows to Dr. Hiram Mann and family, and Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Parshall (parents of Hon. De Witt Parshall), and tablets to Hon Ambrose Spencer and John Adams. The parish has about 260 com- municants.
The First Baptist Church of Lyons was organized at a very early day and reorganized October 30, 1833, with fifty-eight members by Revs. Norton and Barrett. Early meetings were held at a school house, at Masonic hall, and at the court house until the erection of a church edifice on William street. In 1834 Rev. Mr. Hosford, became pastor, and the Ripley house was secured as a parsonage. December 5, 1835, the society was legally organized by the election of Nathaniel Mead, John Mitchell, Moses Austin, Cullen Foster, and Hugh Jameson as trustees. In 1840 a brick church edifice was begun and used until in need of repairs, when it was leased to the Disciples. The society then practically suspended, though meetings were held regularly, but was subsequently revived and now has about ninety members under the pastoral care of Rev. R. Osgood Morse.
The German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lyons was organized at the Kregar school house July 18, 1830, with nineteen members. Meetings were held there and in the court house until 1832, when a frame church was erected on Broad street on the subsequent site of Deacon Gilbert's shop, the building committee being Louis Studer and Philip and Dietrich Ehrhardt. In 1850 the society purchased the old brick Presbyterian church, which was repaired, a basement built under it, and an organ added at a cost of $1,800, and which was occupied until April 20, 1885, when it burned. It was then valued at $6,000. The present elegant brick edifice was then built on the site. . The corner " stone was laid September 15, 1885, and the church was dedicated Sep- tember 26, 1886, by Rev. J. H. Asbeck. The Sunday school was organized in 1848. The first pastor was Rev. D. Willers, and among his successors have been Revs. J. J. Bailharz, P. H. Dennler, C. A. Ebert, Thomas, Huschman, C. Berger, C. H. Thompson, F. L. Schoeppe, J. Schmalzl, Charles G. Manz, and others. The society now has 200 communicants under Rev. P. Spaeth as pastor.
The German church of the Evangelical Association of North America of Lyons was formed as a class at the house of George Stoetzel in 1835, by Rev. M. F. Mees, with the following members: George H. and Sa- loma Ramige, Michael and Rosina Faulstich, George and Dorothea
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Stoetzel, George and Catharine Humbert, George and Barbara Ramige, and Philip Lang. The church met strong opposition for a period from German people, to whom its tenets savored much of revolution. From 1835 to 1845 there was preaching by the Revs. M. F. Mees, J. Kehr, J. Riegel, P. Henneberger, Christian Hummel, M. Lehn, D. Fisher, M. Sindlinger, Christian Holl, and Fr. Kroecker. In 1840 the first German camp meeting was held east of Lyons on the farm of Joseph Cole. The Rev. John M. Sindlinger, presiding elder, had charge. The society was regularly organized at the Pearl street school house in January, 1844, and soon afterward the present Catholic church was purchased and fitted up for religious services. February 4, 1844, the society was in- corporated, and Louis Schneider, Henry Miller, Fred. Hamm, Michael Faulstich, and Philip Althen were chosen trustees. The next year a Sabbath school was started with twenty scholars. In 1850 the old church was sold to the Catholics, and the present edifice erected and dedicated in December by Bishop Joseph Long. It is of stone and brick, two stories high, and cost $6,000. The lot on which it stands, on the corner of Spencer and Hawley streets, was purchased of James and Rhoda Agett for $500. In 1872 a parsonage was built on Hawley street. In 1875 the church was thoroughly repaired. Among the pastors have been Levi Jacoby, William Mentz, Peter Alles, Theobald Schneider, Werner Oetzel, David Fisher, August Klein, George Rott, Solomon Weber, John Schaaf, A. Stoebe, Adolph Miller, John Grenzebach, Philip J. Miller, Jacob Siegrist, Levi Jacoby, Michael Lehn, Andrew Holz- warth, Adam Schlenk, David Fisher, Michael Pfitzinger, and others. The society has about 170 members.
The Church of Christ of Lyons had its inception in a Sunday school 'formed by Miss Addie Clapp in the fall of 1869. Missionary services and this school were held in the then vacant Baptist Church, which was leased in 1874 for five years at a rental of $500 annually. It was re- paired, and opened on December 18 by Rev. A. B. Chamberlain. The society was formally organized April 16, 1876, with thirty members, and with Rev. 'A. S. Hale as pastor. It flourished for a time, but finally weakened and disbanded.
St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church of Lyons was legally incorpor- ated April 20, 1869, by Bishop McQuaid, Vicar-General James M. Early, Rev. John P. Stewart, Patrick Miles, and John O'Keefe. Rev. Mr. Stewart, the first pastor, was followed by Rev. Peter O'Connell, and in 1874 by Rev. Charles L. M. Rimmels. Catholic services, however, had
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been held in Lyons for many years prior to the formal organization. The first mass in the town was said at the house of James Ford, and the first priests were Fathers Gilbride and Towhay. In 1850 the German Methodist Church was purchased for a place of worship. The present pastor is Rev. D. W. Kavanaugh.
St. John's Lutheran Church of Lyons was organized May 4, 1877, by Rev. G. Manz, who became the first pastor. The corner stone of the present handsome edifice was laid July 10, 1877, and the structure was dedicated January 2, 1878. It is of brick and cost $14,000. The society has over 400 communicants and a Sunday school of 130 scholars. The present pastor is Rev. H. Hartwig.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF GALEN.
The town of Galen was organized by a division of Junius, in Seneca county, February 14, 1812; on the 11th of April, 1823, it became a part of Wayne county; on November 24, 1824, Savannah was set off, leaving it with its present area of 35, 299 acres. It is the second town in size in the county, and is bounded on the north by Rose and Butler, on the cast by Savannah, on the south by Seneca county, and on the west by Lyons. It comprises township number ?? of the old Military Tract, and received its name of Galen from being reserved for the physicians and surgeons of the New York regiments in the Revolutionary war; more definitely speaking, it was named in honor of the professional fol- lowers of Claudius Galen (or Galenus), a celebrated Greek physician who was born A. D. 130. With the other portions of this vast tract, it was originally surveyed into farm lots of 600 acres each.
The surface is broken into high hills and level marsh, the latter cov- ering a total of over one-fifth of the town. The soil of the highlands is a sandy, gravelly loam, while that of the lowlands is a black muck. It is very productive, and except the marshes is susceptible of easy cul- tivation. Almost the whole area was originally covered with a dense growth of hardwood timber, the sugar maple predominating, and during the earlier settlements, a number of saw mills found profitable employ-
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ment in manufacturing lumber. The principal drainage is afforded by the Clyde River, formerly called the Canandaigua outlet, which enters the town from Lyons, flows northeasterly to Clyde village, and thence runs southeast into Seneca county. It has several small tributaries, the largest being Black Creek, which flows through the northwest part of Galen and joins the river one-fourth mile cast of Lock Berlin. Marsh Creek courses southward through the east edge of this town and enters Savannah near the New York Central Railroad. In 1822 a project was instigated for the drainage of Black Creek with a ditch seven miles long, ten feet wide, and four feet deep, costing $4000. This was the greatest effort of the kind ever attempted in the town. Several appropriations have been made by the State to drain and reclaim portions of the marsh lands. In the spring of 1855 a freshet inundated the banks of the Clyde River and other streams, and caused considerable damage to buildings, bridges, and adjacent property. March 30, 1873, a similar flood occurred, in which two brothers, Michael and Fenton Kelly, were drowned while trying to reach land on a raft from the Fox malt house in Clyde.
Wheat long constituted the chief agricultural production, but within recent years it has been largely superseded by mixed farming, the strength and fertility of the soil, enabling the husbandman to raise a variety of crops indigenous to this latitude. Fruit growing has been an important industry from an early day, and the apples produced here have given the town, as well as the county, a leading place in distant markets. Raspberries are also cultivated with profit, and peppermint is extensively grown, especially upon the wet or marshy tracts. The largest vineyard in Galen is owned by A. F. Devereaux. In 1858 the town produced 31, - 148 bushels of winter wheat and 199, 093 bushels of spring wheat; 3, 806 tons of hay; 19,546 bushels of potatoes; 48,588 bushels of apples; 140, 558 pounds of butter; 16,278 pounds of cheese; and 1, 271 yards of do- mestie cloths. It contained 1,373 horses; 1, 961 oxen and calves; 1,649 cows; 8,814 sheep; and 4, 198 swine.
For twenty years or more following the advent of white settlers, the Clyde River was the avenue of considerable commerce; it conveyed the bateaux of the pioneers, brought them merchandise, and carried their produce to market. Previous to that its waters had long floated the canoe of the aborigine, for it is evident on good authority that one or more Indian villages existed within the borders of the town. On the Joseph Watson farm numerous relics have been found and several deep black spots in the earth, indicating fireplaces, were discovered. Half
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a mile east, on the old Adrastus Snedaker place, were similar evidences of an Indian encampment. In the road near the Catholic Cemetery is now a stone five long, two and one-half feet wide, and sunk deep into the ground ; its surface is dug out to form a basin, in which it is claimed the Indians pounded their corn. . In the immediate vicinity many arrow- heads and other relies of wigwam days have been picked up.
The present site of the village of Clyde is historic ground. A little east of the Central depot, during a part of the eighteenth century, there stood a block house, so called from its construction. The date of its construction is unknown, but it was used as a trading post by the French prior to the French and Indian war in 1754. From that time until the Revolution it was occupied by other traders; it then fell into the posses- sion of the Tories, who used it as a station for smuggling goods from Canada via Sodus Bay. But before the war closed the government made a descent upon the place, arrested some of the smugglers and drove the others away. In the mean time quite a number of lawless characters had squatted in the immediate vicinity, and by hunting and smuggling, by the aid of friendly Indians, carried on a profitable busi- ness. They boldly kept out all persons unfavorable to their illegal traffic and being distantly removed from any regular settlement they prosecuted their trade with little fear of molestation. The best evidence extant indicates that the block house was burned during or soon after the government raid, notwithstanding the many assertions made that it was seen by white men as late as 1820. Captain Luther Redfield once said that when he and others were passing in a boat, about 1804, the charred remnants of the old building were plainly visible; even its cor- ners and shape could be distinguished. In 1811 Jonathan Melvin, jr., erected on the south side of the river the first log dwelling within the present village limits. This was also known as a block house, which accounts for the statement referred to above. The location of the original block house has advanced the theory that this was formerly a Jesuit mission, but this is incorrect. If this were true it would undoubt- edly have been mentioned in the Jesuit Relations.
The Erie Canal opened in 1825, not only drew all the shipping busi- ness from the Clyde River, but also aided materially in advancing the settlements and promoting various industries. This was followed several years later by a project to connect this waterway with Great Sodus bay by a ship.canal, locally known as the "Sodus ditch." In 1841 General William H. Adams organized a company, obtained a charter,
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and began work a half-mile west of Clyde, After digging a portion of the channel, the waters of the streams and marshes were turned in to wash out the ditch. The general's property was all expended in further- ing this enterprise, but it was never completed and the whole work was finally abandoned. Evidences of the great ditch are still visible.
January 22, 1853, a company, capitalized at $150,000, was formed for the purpose of building a railroad from Clyde to Sodus Bay; a survey was made, but the clashing of individual interests caused the abandon- ment of this project also.
In 1853 the New York Central Railroad was completed and opened and added a new impetus to the development of the town. In 1822 the Pennsylvania and Sodus Bay Railroad, from a point in Pennsylvania, via Seneca Falls and Clyde, to Sodus Bay was projected; and to aid in its construction it was proposed to bond this town for $70,000. Contracts were let in 1873, but soon afterward the whole plan fell through. In 1884 the West Shore Railroad was completed and opened, with a station at Clyde.
Roads were opened in Galen prior to 1810, and as settlers increased in numbers they were improved and extended. Probably the first one was the military trail or State road, leading from the block house north- easterly and easterly to Salina. The State road proper ran through the north part of the town. The eastern plank road from Clyde to Port Byron, running north of Savannah village past the salt works there, was graded and opened at an early day, but it was planked eastward only to a point south of Crusoe Lake in that town. Laomi Beadle, the pioneer settler, was instrumental in constructing the Montezuma turn- pike from Montezuma to Lyons about 1820. It ran through the south part of Galen and became an important mail route and stage line. The Clyde and Rose Plank Road Company for several years maintained a plank road between those two villages, but discontinued it soon after 1877, at which time the officers were: P. J. Thomas, president; Seth Smith, secretary; J. M. Nichols, treasurer. The highways in the vicinity of Marengo were among the earliest opened in Galen. There are now 105 road districts in the town.
In 1818 mail was brought from Geneva to Marengo on horseback, and in 1820 the mail route was extended to Clyde. About this latter year a line of stages was established, and in 1830, when the first newspaper was printed at Clyde, the business was in full blast under the proprietor- ship of James M. Watson. He ran a stage between these points thrice
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weekly each way. In 1833 Mr. Watson sold to William F. Pierce of Clyde, who disposed of the business a few years later to S. Salisbury. In 1841 the latter sold to Adrastus Snedaker, who operated it until 1844, when the route between Rochester and Syracuse through Clyde was discontinued. The travel between Clyde and Geneva necessitated a daily stage, and Mr. Snedaker sold a one-half interest to Lewis & Colvin of Geneva, who continued the route until 1854, when stages were aban- doned. The mail route was kept up, however, and the business again passed to Mr. Snedaker, who sold it in 1857 to B. Hustin. The latter had several successors. Stage routes are now maintained between Clyde and Junius in Seneca county.
The assessed valuation of real estate in Galen in 1823 was $385, 531, and the personal property, $7, 499. In 1858 these were $1,381,393, and $367,578, respectively. In 1858 the town had also $24,301 acres of improved land, 2, 706 male and 2, 475 female inhabitants; 924 dwellings, 995 families, and 490 freeholders. In 1890 its population numbered 4,922, or 539 less than in 1880. In 1893 the assessed valuation of real estate aggregated $1,360,347 (equalized $1,423,940); village and mill property, $949, 250 (equalized $988, 806) ; railroads and telegraphs, $836,- 281; personal property, $173,950. Schedule of taxes, 1893: Contingent fund, $3,388.01 ; poor fund, $750; special town tax, $2,820; school tax, $3, 131.77 ; county tax, $7, 493. 12: State tax; $4, 129.11 ; State insane tax, $1,065.23; dog tax, $97.50. Total tax levied, $28, 196.01 ; rate per cent., .00842853. There are five election districts, and in 1893 the town polled 946 votes.
The first town meeting was held at the house of Jonathan Melvin, jr., in April, 1812, and Mr. Melvin was elected the first supervisor. The records covering the years intervening between 1812 and 1862 have been burned and therefore it is impossible to give the names of the other first officers or a list of the successive supervisors. The town officers elected March 4, 1862, were as follows: Albert F. Redfield, supervisor; Jacob T. Van Buskirk, town clerk; Hiram P. Jones, justice of the peace; Charles E. Elliott, assessor; Levi Lundy, commissioner of highways; Ambrose S. Field and Timothy S. Brink, overseers of the poor; James Murphy, collector. Supervisors since then have been: Albert F. Red- field, 1862-63: Porter G. Denison, 1866; Matthew Mackie, 1867; Ste- phen D. Streeter, 1868; Edward B. Wells, 1820-21; Matthew Mackie, 1842; E. W. Gurnee, 1823; E. W. Sherman, 1814-15; Thomas P. Thorn, 1875; Elijah P. Taylor, jr., 1877-78; Adrastus Snedaker, 1879; Albert
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F. Redfield, 1880-81; M. S. Roe, 1882; George G. Roc, 1883-84; Will- iam Gillette, 1885; Ward H. Groesbeck, 1886; Alexander Graham, 1887 -88; Milton J. Blodgett, 1889; Charles H. Ford, 1890-91; Edwin Sands, 1892-94. The town officers for 1894 are: Edwin Sands, supervisor; Frank A. Haugh, town clerk; Albert M. Van Buskirk, J. M. Lieck, W. H. Gilbert, justices of the peace; A. H. Gillette, W. A. Groescup, Har- vey HI. Benning, assessors; William E. Mead, collector; Archibald Bar- ton, highway commissioner; Willard Crawford, overseer of the poor. The town Board of Health was organized August 15, 1881.
Mention has been made of the hunters, trappers, and smugglers who squatted in the vicinity of what is now the village of Clyde, and who were driven away by the government soon after the Revolutionary War. The squatters made no substantial improvements, and when the actual set- tlers arrived it is said that not a sign of any former habitation save the ruins of the original block house could be seen.
The first permanent white settler was Laomi Beadle, who located on land which his father, Thomas Beadle, of Junius, owned at Marengo in 1800. He built the first log house in Galen, planted the first orchard, and on the little stream at that point he erected the first saw mill. In 1801 the families of David Godfrey, Nicholas King, and Isaac Mills, consisting of thirty-three persons, settled on lot :0. Dr. James Young, the brother of Mrs. King's mother and a surgeon of the Revolution at Albany, drew military lots 28, 37, 70, and 87, and offered 100 acres to his nephew if he would settle thereon. The three men selected lot 20 . in 1800, built two log cabins that fall, returned to their home at Aurel- ius, and brought their families hither the next spring. October 13, 1801, David Godfrey was accidentally killed, and in February, 1802, his son Isaac was born, these being the first death and birth respectively in town.
These settlers were followed in 1803 by David Creager and J. King. from Maryland. Mr. Creager built a log house in the northwest corner of Galen, which became the oldest of the kind in town. He was a vet- erinary surgeon and one of the first assessors, an office he held seven- teen years; he died here in 1854. Isaac Mills was killed by a falling tree; his son Nathaniel served in the war of 1812, and in 1835 he sold the homestead to John and Manley Hanchett and moved to Ohio.
In 1804 Capt. John Sherman, Elias Austin, Mr. Payne, and Jabez Reynolds came in. Captain Sherman and Mr. Payne, while coming by way of Clyde River, encountered an insurmountable obstacle of logs
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and brush in a bend of the stream, called "big wood reef." They changed the course of the river, and lessened the distance half a mile, by cutting a channel twelve feet wide across the bend; this was long known as the "old canal." Jabez Reynolds and Polly, daughter of Isaac Mills, were married in 1805, the first marriage in the town.
Among the settlers of 1805 were Asaph Whittlesey, William Fore- man, a Mr. Rich, Salem Ford (at Lock Berlin), Isaac Beadle (at Ma- rengo), and Aaron Ford. In 1810 Abraham Romyen located south of Lock Berlin, and Jonathan Melvin, jr., settled at Clyde. The latter in 1811 erected on the south side of the river a log dwelling, which was known during its existence as the block house. . In it was held the first town meeting. Mr. Romyen had settled in Lyons in 1808. He died here in 1839; his son Thomas T. died February 9, 1885.
In 1809 James M. Watson moved from Schoharie county to Junius, Seneca county, whence he came with his family in 1810 to lot 95, near Marengo, and finally became stage proprietor, as before stated. Joseph Watson, his son, was born in 1800, came to Clyde in 1814, married a daughter of Capt. Luther Redfield in 1822, and died March 22, 1881. He was a mason, a merchant, and a farmer. Levi Watson, born in Galen in 1835, died on his father's homestead November 18, 1890.
James W. Humeston, James Dickson, Henry Archer, D. Southwick, Arza Lewis, and E. Dean also settled at or near Clyde about 1810. Soon afterward Edward Wing, Benjamin Shotwell, Nathan Blodgett, and Samuel Stone located near Marengo. , Mr. Humeston died in Michi- gan in May, 1893. Mr. Blodgett engaged in the manufacture of pot- ash.
The war of 1812 checked the tide of immigration, and we find few set- iers to notice until 1815. In that year, in March, Simeon Griswold, sr., purchased of Judge Nicholas, of Geneva, 300 acres of wood land on lot 69, and settled his family upon it. Aaron Griswold, his son, was born in Fairfield, N. Y., December 1, 1299, came to Phelps, and thence to Galen with his parents, taught school, and died in February, 1883. In 1822 father and son built and floated on the Clyde River and afterward on the canal the first canal boat (the "Gold Hunter") ever owned in town. In 1826 Aaron Griswold built two other canal boats at Lock Ber- lin, and for a time was associated in the business with Stephen Fergu- son. In 1828 the two contracted to build three sections of a canal on the Juniata River in Pennsylvania, and in 1831 a half mile section on the Camden and Amboy Railroad in New Jersey. In 1831 he started a
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mercantile business at Lock Berlin with William Ford, who sold his in- terest in 1832 to Alfred Griswold, a brother of Aaron. In 1836 he came to Clyde, and in 1840 bought the Clyde Hotel. He subsequently en- gaged in milling, banking, merchandising, and manufacturing. April 30, 1825, Mr. Griswold joined the Lyons lodge of Masons, and was deputy grand master of the State in 1864-65. He was candidate for county clerk in 1855, for member of the State Legislature in 1851, and for member of Congress in 1858. He held several other positions of trust and responsibility.
Sylvester Clarke came to Galen prior to 1820, for on November 5 of that year his son, Sylvester H. Clarke, was born here, and is now the oldest native of the town. The latter is a writer of marked ability, and an authority on local history. He has in his possession the initial num- ber of the first newspaper (the Standard, January 6, 1830), ever pub- lished in Clyde. The house in which he lives on the south side of the river, in Clyde, was built by his father for a store; the upper story was occupied by the Masons and by the Presbyterian Church Society.
Among the settlers between 1815 and 1825 were Luther Redfield, Abraham Knapp, William S. Stow (mentioned in the legal chapter), Dr. John Lewis, John Condit, James B. West, Rev. Jabez Spier, Levi and David Tuttle, Daniel Dunn, Harry West, Moses Perkins, Rev. Charles Mosher, Elias R. Cook, Melvin and J P. Pailey, William Hunt, Samuel M. Welch, Eben Bailey, Lemuel C. Paine, George Burrill, and others. Thomas J. Whiting was born in New York city in 1801, came to Clyde in 1825, and died here February 22, 1881. He was a shoemaker and a merchant.
Henry Van Tassel, who was born in September, 1807, became a farmer and later a merchant in Rose, settled in Clyde in 1864 and en- gaged in the dry goods business, and died January 4, 1875. David E. Garlic, the son of a captain in the Revolutionary war, came to Galen in 1814, and erected two and one-half miles east of Clyde the first frame house in the town. He died May 6, 1884. Captain Chester Smith, born in 1801, came here about 1860, and died September 9, 1892. Stuckley Ellsworth, who became prominent in State politics, was his neighbor. Isaac Wiley was a pioneer settler at Marengo, where he died in January, 1889. He lived for a time in Clyde and was a justice of the peace two terms. J. Stevens, a blacksmith, and Bryant Hall, a carpenter and hotel keeper, died at Marengo in 1887. Both were early settlers and the former was the inventor of a ditching machine and cider mill.
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