USA > New York > Wayne County > Landmarks of Wayne County, New York, Pt. 1 > Part 8
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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
1 There is a tradition that Governor Colden as early as 1724 expressed the hope that sometime the western part of this State might be penetrated by boats independent of Lake Ontario. In his memoir on the fur trade, written in the year just named, cer- tainly occurs the following passage: " There is a river which comes from the country of the Sinnekes and falls into the Onondaga River, by which we have an easy car- riage 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 advantageous than the way the French are obliged to take by the way of the great falls of Niagara." It seems possible that the old governor had a faint vision of clear water communication to Lake Erie.
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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 suffi- cient supply of water might be obtained from Oak Orchard Creek and other streams. In this he was mistaken; the summit was found to be seventy-five feet above Lake Erie, and to be supplied with no adequate feeder.
It is entirely probable that the canal could never have been a suc- cess 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, 1811. 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 operations. 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 under- taking; but in 1815, it was revived and public meetings were held in various parts of the State, where enthusiastic speakers advocated the speedy completion of the work. The Legislature of 1816 appointed a new canal commission, and in the next year Governor Clinton pre- pared 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 examina- tion of the course adopted from Rochester to Pendleton and made some modification east of Oak Orchard Creek in Orleans county. 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 contract in 1821. The work was pushed energetically and dur- ing the autumn of 1825 the canal was navigable as far west on the western section as Holley (Orleans county), and during the following season reached the foot of the ridge at Lockport. The great rock-cut- ting at the latter place was the last piece of work finished between
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Buffalo and Albany. William C. Bouck, afterwards governor of the State, was the commissioner in charge of the construction of the west- ern portion of the canal. On the 29th of September, 1825, he wrote from Lockport to Stephen Van Rensselaer, 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 Septem- ber, 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, permits me to congratulate you.
By extra exertion the final filling was finished on the 25th of Octo- ber, and in the forenoon or the next day a flotilla of five boats left Buf- falo, 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, whence all sailed on eastward. 1 Enthusiastic crowds of people, among them, we may be sure, many who had ridiculed and opposed. the undertaking, met the fleet at the various villages -- Newark (what there was of it), Palmyra, Lyons, and Clyde- in a general celebration of the event."
The Erie canal was at first 362 miles long, and its original cost was $1, 143,780.86. Under an act of Legislature of May, 1835, the canal was enlarged from a width of forty feet at top and twenty-eight at bottom, to seventy feet at top and fifty-two and one-half at bottom, and so much straightened as to reduce its length to 350 and 1-2 miles. The cost of the enlargement was more than $30, 000, 000.
"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.
2 At the prominent points from Rochester to Albany, where the fleet was to pass by daylight, celebrations had been arranged: there were processions, congratulatory addresses, firing of cannon, music and other demonstrations of popular enthusiasm ; even when small villages were passed in the night, crowds were assembled, and some form of greeting tendered. "It was," said one of the western committee men, "like a continuous or protracted Fourth of July celebration."
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This great waterway was quite generally known in early years as "the grand canal;" and its wonderful influence upon the material con- ditions in Wayne county and Western New York generally, it was "grand" indeed. Those who had from the first ridiculed the project, were now either silent or converted into enthusiastic eulogists, as they saw the laden freight boats and the well-patronized packets silently and rapidly (as compared with other existing means of travel) floating east- ward and westward along the turbid tide. Wayne county lands, even to the lake shore, appreciated in value; farmers were encouraged to new energy and to extend their planting and sowing; money became more plenty, and freights fell from $100 per ton to Albany, to ten dol- lars; a new era of prosperity began. Villages along the canal line that already had an insignificant existence, took on new life and growth, while others sprang into being around the warehouses and docks that were built especially to accommodate the active traffic. Clyde, Lyons, Newark and Palmyra, with other points of shipment in the county, promptly felt the influence of the canal (while Newark may be said to owe its existence to the same influence).
The first boat on this division of the canal left the basin on the east side of the Genesee River at Rochester, loaded with flour for Little Falls, on the 29th of October, 1822. The first cargo of wheat from Ohio reached Rochester in 1831, the vanguard of the great current of western grains that have since gradually grown into active, if not ruinous, competition with those of New York State. When navigation opened in 1823, 10,000 barrels of flour were shipped eastward from Rochester in the first ten days after the opening.
Among those who were early engaged in the canal trade in this county were Joel and Levi Thayer, of Palmyra, who built a number of freight boats. The two men were twins, and on that account one of their boats was named "The Twin Brothers." Davenport, Barnes & Co. were extensive produce and commission men at Jessup's Basin, and were succeeded by S. L. Thompson & Co. Aaron Griswold built a boat near King's Bridge in 1822, which plied between that point and Lyons and was the first boat to run into the town. Mr. Griswold, in association with Stephen Ferguson, built two boats in 1826, near Lock Berlin, one of the settlements that was born of the canal. Griswold was an early merchant at that place. Seymour Scovell was an early merchant of Palmyra; became a canal contractor and built the boat "Myron Holley," one of the early crafts on the canal. Esbon and Ran-
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som Blackmar were merchants and extensive shippers by canal in New- ark, a village that was practically created by the great waterway. There were occasions during the most active period of canal business, previous to the opening of railroads, when fifty or more teams were in waiting to unload produce at the warehouses and docks in Newark. The active market for grain and kindred products thus established, led to the building of quite a number of flouring and grist mills in Lyons and elsewhere within the county. In March, 1827, the Palmyra Manu- facturing Company was incorporated, with $30,000 capital, to produce flour, etc., by George Palmer, Joel McCollum, and Thomas Rogers, 2d; and in the same spring the Pultneyville Steam Mill Company was incorporated by Daniel Grandin, Joseph Granger, Andrew Cornwall, Russell Whipple, Roswell Nichols, Jeremiah B. Selly, and Philander B. Royce. The capital stock was $15,000 and the purpose to grind grain.
Every phase of this condition of prosperity was shared, either directly or indirectly, by all the towns of Wayne county, and the influence thereof is felt to the present day.
Following soon upon the opening of the canal, and on April 14, 1827, the Legislature incorporated the Canal Turnpike Company, to build "a good and sufficient road along the north bank of the canal from Lyons, through Clyde, to intercept the Montezuma turnpike on the Cayuga marsh." The capital of the company was $20,000. In April of the following year (1828), commissioners were named in an act of the Legislature to lay out a road between Palmyra and Man- chester in Ontario county. Other similar improvements followed in later years.
The immediate and unequivocal success of the Erie Canal inaugu- rated what may be termed a period of "canal fever" `throughout the State of New York and to a less extent in several other States. During the ten years succeeding the opening of the Erie, the various Legislatures were besieged with petitions and bills for the incorpora- tion of canal companies, as they were a little later in the interest of railroads. The first of the canal schemes having a direct bearing on Wayne county was the Sodus Canal Company, incorporated March 19, 1829, with capital stock of $200,000. This company was authorized to construct a canal from the Canandaigua outlet, or Seneca River, "where the Erie Canal crosses said streams, near Montezuma, to such convenient place on Great Sodus Bay as is accessible to vessels navigating Lake Ontario." This canal was to be finished in ten years,
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and was designed to open a large waterway from Lake Ontario to the head of Cayuga Lake, at Ithaca, with a possibility of future connection with the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay. It was a most attractive scheme! In Tompkins county, and especially at Ithaca, it commanded widespread attention, as that place was belived to be the one that would be most benefited by it. Eloquent speakers advocated the project and inspired visions of future commercial greatness for the little village at the head of the lake, as well as for the less important trade centers of Wayne county. An old painting of Ithaca and the lake in that vicinity, made just after the canal was projected, shows the water thickly studded with vessels, many of them apparently large sea-going ships. . A little work was done on the canal at Sodus Bay, after subscriptions to the stock had begun, and later the State Legis- lature was asked to aid the undertaking. This request was refused and the project began to languish. Capitalists did not support it as had been expected, and in 1861, after repeated amendments and extensions, the charter expired by limitation. In 1862 a new aet was passed pro- viding that if the general government would supply money to finish the canal, it should have perpetual right of transit through its waters for government vessels, free of toll. But Uncle Sam declined the speculation and the Great Sodus Canal, like very many other similar projects, died from lack of nutrition. It is probable that this canal scheme was in some measure due to lingering influence of the carly hopes we have before alluded to, of a southern water outlet for the products of the Genesee country:
The only other canal company in which Wayne county felt a direct interest was called the Ontario Canal Campany, which had its incep- tion at a public meeting held in Canandaigua August 24, 1820. There the plan was discussed of building a lateral canal from Canandaigua Lake to "the Grand Canal." A committee was appointed consisting of John C. Spencer, James D. Bemis (long a conspicuous newspaper publisher of Canandaigua), Asa Stanley, Dudley Maryin, and William II. Adams, to locate a route for the canal. Their report was made December 21, 1820, to the effect that the proposed waterway would be nineteen and one-half miles long; that its northern terminus should be at the Erie Canal three and one-half miles west of Palmyra village; that the descent from the lake to Ganargwa Creek was 225 feet, requir- ing twenty-three locks in the canal; that the gross cost would be not more than $60,000. The proposed capital of the company was $100,-
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000. A committee of fifteen persons was then appointed to petition the Legislature for an act of incorporation, and the desired act was passed March 31, 1821. Stock subscription books were opened May 23, by Commissioners Nathaniel Gorham, Zachariah Seymour, Asa Stanley, P. P. Bates, and William H. Adams. Subscriptions were liberal at the first, and ultimately reached about $50,000, when the following persons were elected directors of the company: Evan Johns, 11. B. Gibson, Israel Chapin, Asa Stanley, John C. Spencer, Mark HI. Sibley, Robert Pomeroy, and H. M. Mead. At this stage for some reason the project was abandoned. It is propable that the extensive shipping facilities supplied by the Erie Canal led to the conclusion that the lateral canal would not prove a paying investment.
The next event of importance in chronological order, with which we are interested, was the erection of Wayne county on the 11th of April, 1823. (For act of Legislature creating the county sec Session Laws, 1823). The new county, with Ontario, Seneca and Yates, was made to constitute the Twenty-sixth Congressional District, and with Cay- uga, Onondaga, Ontario, Seneca and Yates, constitute the Seventh Senatorial District. By subsequent enactments changes were made in these districts as follows: By act of June 29, 1832, Wayne and Seneca counties became the Twenty-fifth Congressional District; by act of Sep- tember 6, 1842, the same counties were made the Twenty-seventh District; act of July 19, 1851, Cayuga and Wayne were made the Twenty-fifth District; act of April 23, 1862, Wayne, Cayuga and Sen- eca were made the Twenty-fourth District. In 1836 Cortland county was added to those above named as constituting the Seventh Senatorial District. (Lists of the various officials of the county will be given in their proper place on a later page).
Closely following the formation of the county the various courts were established, as described in a later chapter; civil officers were elected, and all the machinery of county government was soon working harmoniously. A kind of local enthusiasm pervaded the inhabitants of the county, as would naturally follow their separation from the larger and more widely-diffused population of Ontario county, and various public improvements were inaugurated to closely precede the oncoming of the first railroad-and Mormonism.
A legislative act of February 15, 1825, divided the town of 1 .2005 and erected Arcadia; and on April 18; of the same year, the town of Williamson was divided and the town of Winchester (now Marion)
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erected. February 25, 1826, the towns of Butler and Rose were erected from Wolcott; and April 20, 1829, Walworth was erected from Ontario.
An attempt, which was not very successful, was made under legis- lative sanction of April, 1825, to drain Crusoe Lake, in the town of Savannah. Andrew Chapin, David Arne, jr., and Merritt Candee were appointed commissioners to direct the work, which was to consist of cutting ditches to the channel of " the stream which runs to Lake On- tario through the town of Wolcott, on which the furnaces in Wolcott are situated."
On the 20th of April, 1825, William Patrick, John G. Gillespie, and Paul Reeves were named by the Legislature as commissioners to lay out a road from Lyons to the Ridge road "near the dwelling of P. Reeves, in the western part of Williamson;" and in April, 1826, a road was authorized from Main street in Canandaigua to Palmyra, the com- missioners being Nathan Barlow, of Canandaigua; Stimson Harvey, of Farmington; and Thomas Rogers, of Palmyra.
Meanwhile evidences of prosperity were visible in all directions. The several villages of the county were growing, though their relative status and prospects were soon to be changed by the railroads; schools and churches multiplied in number and improved in character and in- fluence; banks were established; additional newspapers were founded, and other institutions indicating healthful growth came into being. What was called the Palmyra High School was incorporated in March, 1829, by James White, Ovid Lord, Henry Jessup, and others. It was a stock organization with capital of $12,000. This school absorbed the house and lot of district number one. The Wayne County Bank, at Palmyra, was chartered April 30, 1829, and the Bank of Lyons was in- corporated May 14, 1836. Miller's Bank was established in Clyde in 1837. These financial institutions, as well as the people at large, and particularly tradesmen, were destined to suffer considerably from the financial stringency and succeeding revulsion which swept over the country in 1836-8; but Wayne county was, as it is at present, largely agricultural, and hence felt the effects of the stringency less severely than many other localities.
The first railroad in the State of New York was built between Albany and Schenectady by the Mohawk and Hudson River Railroad Company, and was finished in 1831: its length was sixteen miles. The cars were at first drawn by horses, but soon after the completion of the road a steam locomotive was brought from England and the first steam rail-
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road passenger train in America was run over the road. In spite of the very many objectionable features of this pioneer railroad and its equipment, it was clear to sagacious men that a rival of the canal was at hand. The Auburn and Rochester Railroad was chartered in 1836, but the construction was not commenced until 1838. The first time table for this road was made public September 8, 1840, and trains were run on the 10th over a part of the line. The work of construction was energetically continued and on July 5, 1841, an excursion train passed over the road between Rochester and Seneca Falls. In November, of that year trains were running between Rochester and Albany.
As yet no railroad passed through Wayne county; but the immediate success of the existing lines led to the early agitation of the subject of building many others. As early as 1836 a meeting was held in Lyons to consider the project of constructing a road that should extend east- ward from Rochester and pass through Palmyra, Lyons, Clyde, etc., to Syracuse. While it was several years before further steps were taken in this direction, it was a foregone conclusion that sooner or later the rich territory now traversed by the direct road, as it is termed, between Rochester and Syracuse would be favored with railroad com- munication. A company was finally organized under the corporate name of the Rochester and Syracuse Direct Railroad Company and the road was rapidly pushed to completion. This company with the Auburn and Syracuse, and the Auburn and Rochester companies were consolidated in 1850 as the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad Company. The first regular passenger train passed over the road on May 30, 1853. The improvement was welcomed in general rejoicing in the several vil- lages of Wayne county and elsewhere. An act of Legislature passed April 2, 1853. authorized the consolidation of several companies then existing, as follows: Albany and Schenectady, Syracuse and Utica direct, Sche- nectady and Troy, Utica and Schenectady, Mohawk Valley, Syracuse and Utica, Rochester and Syracuse, Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Rochester, and Buffalo and Lockport. This consoli- dated company took the name of the New York Central Railroad Company, which in later years absorbed various other lines and added " Hudson River" to its title. The consolidation described went into effect on the 12th of May, 1853. The combined capital of the company was $23,085,600. This road was laid with a double track in 1849 and with two additional tracks during the seventies. It was the first railroad in the world having four tracks and is in other respects one of the most extensive and best managed railroad in the United States.
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The Sodus Point and Southern Railroad was projected during the fall of 1851, by a company bearing that title, and was to run directly through Wayne county in a general northern and southern direction, from Newark to Sodus Bay. A general survey was made, the right of way was secured without much difficulty and the work of construction was begun. The company became embarrassed for funds and work was suspended in 1854, leaving a long line of grading, which was afterwards utilized and is now a part of the road.
The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad, as it was originally termed, traverses the northern tier of towns of Wayne county and has been of great utility. Its termini are Oswego and Lewiston. The company for its construction was organized in Oswego March 17, 1868, and Gerrit Smith was elected president; Oliver P. Scoville, vice-president; and Abraham P. Grant, treasurer, De Witt Parshall, of Lyons, was a member of the first board of directors. Work was begun at Red Creek August 23, 1871, amid the firing of cannon and the cheers of a mul- titude of people. The road was finished in 1876. It finally passed under control of the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad Com- pany, and with the other lines operated by that company, was absorbed by the great New York Central and Hudson River system.
The New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad was completed from New York to Buffalo and opened on January 1, 1884; but about two years later it was leased by the New York Central. It never espe- cially affected Wayne county, running as it does, nearly parallel with the Central.
THE MORMON HILAL -- From an Old Print.
Most readers of this work, it may be presumed, are familiar with the general history of Mormonism; but from the fact that its originator
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lived within the limits of what is now Wayne county, and that his early operations were conducted in or near Palmyra village, it seems proper that it shall receive brief mention in these pages, for future reference, if for no other reason. It will also preserve for reference by future generations, facts regarding the beginning of what became a stupend- ous religious movement, which might otherwise be lost. For this pur- pose we can do no better than condense from the writing of the late (). Turner in his history of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase (1851) :
"Joseph Smith, the father of the prophet, Joseph Smith, jr., was from the Merrimack River, N. II. He first settled in or near Palmyra village, but as early as 1819 was the occupant of some new land on 'Stafford street,' in the town of Manchester near the line of Palmyra. 'Mormon Hill' is near the plank road about half way between the vil- lages of Palmyra and Manchester. The elder Smith had been a Uni- versalist, and subsequently a Methodist ; was a good deal of a smatterer in scriptural knowledge; but the seed of revelation was sown on weak ground; he was a great babbler, credulous, not especially industrious, a money-digger, prone to the marvellous; and withal a little given to difficulties with neighbors and petty law suits. Not a very propitious account of the father of a prophet-the founder of a state; but there was 'a woman in the case.' Mrs. Smith was a woman of strong, uncultivated intellect; artful and cunning; imbued with an illy-regu- lated religious enthusiasm. The incipient hints, the first givings-out that a prophet was to spring from her humble household, came from her; and when matters were maturing for denouement, she gave out that such and such ones -- always fixing upon those who had both money and credulity-were to be the instruments in some great work of revelation. The old man was rather her faithful co-worker, or ex- ecutive exponent. Their son, Alva, was originally intended or desig- nated by fireside consultations and solemn and mysterious outdoor hints, as the forthcoming prophet. The mother and father said he was the chosen one; but Alva, however spiritual he might have been, had a carnal appetite; eat too many green turnips, sickened and died. Thus the world lost a prophet and Mormonism a leader; the designs impiously and wickedly attributed to providence, defeated; and all in consequence of a surfeit of raw turnips. Who will talk of the cackling geese of Rome, or any other small and innocent causes of mighty events, after this? The mantle of the prophet which Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Smith and one Oliver Cowdery had wove of themselves . every thread of it-fell upon the next eldest son, Joseph Smith, jr.
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