Onondaga's centennial. Gleanings of a century, Vol. II, Part 4

Author: Bruce, Dwight H. (Dwight Hall), 1834-1908
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston History Company
Number of Pages: 1094

USA > New York > Onondaga County > Onondaga's centennial. Gleanings of a century, Vol. II > Part 4

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Fisher Curtis, 1825-27; E. M. Knapp, 1828; Davenport Morey, 1829; William Avery, 1830; Ashbel Kellogg, 1831-32; Benjamin F. Williams, 1833-35; Joseph Jaqueth, 1836; Matthew Van Vleck, 1837-38; Elias W. Leavenworth, 1839-40; Rial Wright, 1841; Dennis Mccarthy, 1842; Matthew Van Vleck, 1843-44; Thomas Bennett, 1845-46; Hiram Putnam, 1847; Miles Adams, 1848; Richard Adams, 1849-50; Joseph Jaqueth, 1851-52; Isaac R. Patten, 1853-55; Samuel H. Hopkins, 1856; George Bassett, 1857; Francis Alvord, 1858-59; John Paddock, 1860; Sampson Jaqueth, 1861-64; Hiram L. Hawley, 1865; Charles W. Cornue, 1866-70; Francis Alvord, 1871-73; Sylvester D. Keller, 1874-76; George Bassett, 1877-78; Daniel Mathews, 1879; Francis Alvord, 1880-83; William Gleason, 1884; Ignatius Sawmiller, 1885-89; George Baxter, 1890; Silas Duell, 1891; Charles A. Congdon, 1892; William Gleason, 1893; George Baxter, 1894-96.

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THE TOWN OF LA FAYETTE.

The population of the town has been as follows:

In 1810, 1,259; 1820, 1,814; 1830, 6,929; 1835, 7,793; 1840, 11,012; 1845, 15,804; 1850, 2,142; 1855, 2,580; 1860, 2,409; 1865, 2,754; 1870, 2,688; 1875, 2,955; 1880, 2,888; 1890, 3,490; 1892, 3,493.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE TOWN OF LA FAYETTE.

The town of La Fayette comprises thirty-two lots of the original military township of Pompey, known as No. 10 of the Military Tract, and also twenty-two lots subsequently purchased by the State from the Onondaga Indian Reservation. The first mentioned lots, containing about 600 acres each, were numbered and drawn as bounty lands by soldiers of the Revolutionary war as follows:

No. 1, William Dunbar; 2, Cornelius Woodmower; 3, Brig .- Gen. James Clinton ; 13, John Snowden; 14, Lieut. Abraham Hyatt; 15, John List; 24, Elisha Harvey ; 25, reserved for Gospel, schools, etc .; 34, Philip Caldwell; 35, Capt. Nicholas Van Rensselaer; 36, Conrad Hilty; 45, Capt. William Stevens; 46, Leonard Chapin; 56, John Dobson ; 57, Lieut .- Col. Frederick Weissenfels; 58, David Morrison; 59, Philip Burch; 60, Edward Wright; 61, Jonathan Briggs; 62, reserved for Gospel, schools, etc .; 72, Samuel Townsend, paymaster; 73, reserved for Gospel, schools, etc. ; 74, George Alkyser; 75, Martin Rees; 76, William Dougherty; 77, Col. John Lamb; 87, Henry Elliott; 88, Othaniel Prescott; 89, John Thayer; 90, Abijah Ward; 91, Capt. John F. Hamtramck; 92, Thomas Willson.

While a number of these surnames are familiar in local history, none of the veterans mentioned became an actual settler of the town. Their titles in most instances passed into hands of speculators, often for ridiculous sums, and not infrequently caused much litigation. The pioneers, who came from New England or from the eastern counties of this State, suffered all the privations and hardships of frontier life, yet with true heroism, unfailing courage, and indomitable perseverance they gradually subdued this vast wilderness and converted it into a productive section. Upon every hand are to be seen the results of their arduous labor, and it is proper, therefore, that the present genera- tion should for a moment glance backward over a century's history and study the primitive conditions which long ago ceased to exist.

The town of La Fayette was for many years a part of the famous 121

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ONONDAGA'S CENTENNIAL.

Onondaga country, the seat of the central government of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the scene of notable Indian gatherings, ceremonies, and traditions, the history of which has been detailed in previous chapters of this work. Adjoining the present Onondaga Reservation on the south and east, to which portions of the town formerly belonged, the territory under consideration is rich in aboriginal lore as well as interesting in missionary and colonial achievements. Ample evidences of former occupancy were discovered by the early settlers, and even after their arrival the Indians often visited the section in quest of game and adventure. The dense forest abounded with bears, deer, panthers, wolves, foxes, and other wild animals, while the two principal streams, Onondaga and Butternut Creeks, flowing northerly through the valleys on the west and east sides of the ridge respectively, together with their small tributaries, supplied plenty of fish. One of the latter water- courses, Conklin's Brook, descends 500 feet within the space of a mile.

The first settlement in what is now La Fayette, and likewise the first within the military township and the late civil town of Pompey, was made by a Revolutionary soldier, John Wilcox, on lot 13, in 1791, in which year his daughter Amy was born, which was the first white birth in the territory under consideration. He located on Haskins Hill, a little east of an abandoned Indian orchard, which he owned, and which covered about twenty acres of land. This old orchard was in full bear- ing at the time of his arrival, and was situated on a commanding eminence, on the place later owned by Cornelius Vandenburg, and on the highway leading from La Fayette to Jamesville, as subsequently laid out, and from it he supplied his neighbors with apples for several years. It produced large quantities of fruit until near the middle of this century, when it went to decay. On lots 76 and 91, in Sherman Hollow, was another old Indian orchard, when the Shermans, James Pierce, and Solomon Owen settled there, and one of the early enter- prises in that locality was raising nursery stock for the settlers, even for Otisco and other remote towns, from seeds of the Indian apple trees.

The second settler was Comfort Rounds, who came in 1792 and took up his residence about two miles north of the center of the town. He was a plain and pious man and attained the great age of 105 years. The first marriage was that of Solomon Owen to Lois Rounds, Com- fort's daughter, in 1793, at which time Owen settled in Sherman Hollow. In 1792, also, William Haskins located on and gave his name

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THE TOWN OF LA FAYETTE.

to Haskins Hill. The same year Daniel Danforth arrived and cleared and improved the farm later occupied by his nephew, Thomas Danforth. Another prominent settler of 1792 was Asa Drake, of the fourth gen- eration from Benjamin Drake, who migrated from England to America in 1680. Asa Drake was born near Boston, Mass., December 13, 1765, and first visited this section in 1785, when he purchased of Capt. Elisha Harvey one-half of the latter's lot, No. 24, upon which he permanently located in 1794, bringing with him from the east a considerable store of household and other necessities. February 11, 1799, he married Experience Esty and they had six daughters and two sons. In 1806 he built a large frame barn and in 1811 a commodious brick house, the brick for which were burned on his own land, and which is still stand- ing. Honest, hospitable, and enterprising, he was long an influential citizen, active in church and school affairs, and died here at the age of eighty-three. His grandchildren are Mrs. Martha Sherwood Edwards and Asa L. Sherwood, of Skaneateles, and the late wife of Gen. R. M. Richardson, of Syracuse, a daughter of the late Hon. Thomas Sher- wood, of Jamesville. Another grandson, Capt. John Drake, son of the late E. Stephen Drake, of Jordan, was killed at Gettysburg, while lead- ing his company in the 111th N. Y. Vols.

In 1793 James Sherman located in and gave his name to Sherman Hollow, in the east part of the town; he kept a tavern in his house and soon afterward built the first saw mill in La Fayette on Butternut Creek. From the time of his arrival the itinerant M. E. preachers found a wel- come and a shelter at his home and a willing helper in the person of his wife, Lucina Sherman. They were the parents of Dr. J. De B. Sherman, a prominent physician of Pompey Hill, and of Joseph Sher- man, who served as justice of the peace from 1830 to 1840.

Among the settlers of 1794 were Isaac and Elias Conklin, John Hotaling, Amaziah Branch, Benjamin June, James Pierce, Samuel Hyatt, Amasa Wright, and Reuben Bryan. The Conklins located on Conklin's Brook, which was named from them, and on which they soon erected a saw mill and in 1798 a grist mill, which is said to have been the first in the town (then Pompey). Amaziah Branch was a Con- gregationalist from Norwich, Conn., and had studied for the ministry, but was not licensed to preach. Nevertheless, being a man of piety, he held religious meetings in private houses and barns for several years, and was the first school teacher in town. He located in Sherman Hol- low and died about 1818. Benjamin June, of French descent, was a

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ONONDAGA'S CENTENNIAL.

Revolutionary soldier, as was also Samuel Humphrey of later date, and both were pioneers. Mr. Bryan was the father of Hon. John A. Bryan, who served in the State Legislature, was assistant postmaster- general under President Tyler's administration, chargé-des-affaires to Peru, and auditor of the State of Ohio. The first death within the present town was that of Major Moses De Witt, whose remains are buried near the Jamesville reservoir, between the highway and the railroad track. His grave is marked by a time-wrecked tombstone, which bears the following inscription :

Here lies the remains of Moses De Witt, Major of Miltia, and Judge of the County Courts, one of the first, most active and useful settlers of the county. He was born on the 15th day of October, 1766, and died on the 15th day of August, 1794, being nearly 28 years of age.

The early settlers found the present town of La Fayette a somewhat attractive and picturesque section, covered with dense forests of hem- lock, maple, beech, birch, pine, basswood, ash, etc., which supplied abundant timber for building and other purposes and long afforded lucrative employment to numerous saw mills and lumbermen. Several water privileges were utilized, even before the opening of the present century, and proved valuable auxiliaries in developing the natural re- sources, not only of this town, but of adjacent territory. Wild game abounded and often harassed the settlements, but for many years bounties were offered for the destruction of certain animals, such as wild cats, wolves and bears. Stories of adventure are still extant, not- ably one in which Dr. Silas Park figured as a hero, when one of the party was so thoroughly frightened at sight of a huge bear that he actually tumbled down hill and fired his gun in the tree tops. Paul King and Erastus Baker killed a large wolf in Christian Hollow near the Tully line, while George King slew another in the vicinity of Suy- denham Baker's, near the present village of La Fayette. As the for- ests receded agriculture superseded nearly all other interests. The soil, composed of calcareous loam intermixed with vegetable mold, proved very productive and easy of cultivation, even on the highest hills. In various parts of the town iron ore, petrifactions, corals, shells, and other deposits were brought to light, while in several places sul- phur springs, some of them emitting sulphureted hydrogen gas, have been discovered and sometimes used mechanically. These springs were often favorite deer-licks in early days.

Early in 1795 Michael Christian, a Revolutionary soldier who had drawn lot 18, Tully, arranged with Phineas Henderson, his neighbor

----

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THE TOWN OF LA FAYETTE.

in New Jersey, agreeing to give him 100 acres of his grant if he would build on it and begin a clearing. Henderson came in the spring with his wife, one child, horse, cow, and some household goods, built a log house, and commenced making improvements. His location was about a mile south of the Tully and La Fayette town line. In a few years Christian came to settle on his claim, but first sold the land improved by Henderson and offered the latter another 100 acres on an undesir- able portion of the same lot. From Christian is derived the name of Christian Hollow, which extends northward into this town.

In 1795 Ebenezer Hill became a settler in the north part of the town. He was a man of powerful physique, a noted hunter, and on one occa- sion killed a wolf in Christian Hollow for which he received a State bounty of $18. Among other settlers in or before 1800 were Col. Jere- miah Gould, Gen. Isaac Hall, Lemuel Smith, and Erastus Baker. Col- onel Gould erected the first frame house in the town in 1800. General Hall arrived before that year from Great Barrington, Mass., and settled one mile south of La Fayette village, where he built the second frame dwelling in 1801. It is said that he brought hither a half bushel of sil- ver dollars, and for some time was the wealthiest man in all the region. He purchased about 1,200 acres of land, gave his attention to raising stock, and at his death in 1830 left some $70,000 worth of property. It was his custom to let cows, sheep, etc., to his neighbors to double. Lemuel Smith was the first blacksmith in the village of La Fayette in 1800 and died there in 1817. His shop occupied the site of the Pres- byterian church. He was the father of Rev. Marcus Smith. Deacon Erastus Baker was the father of Charles A. Baker, who was born in Lenox, Mass., in 1798, came here with his parents in 1800, and died in Syracuse in 1881.

During the first decade of the town's history little effort was made towards the establishment of passable roads except what became abso- lutely necessary from time to time in connecting the several communi- ties. Improvised thoroughfares were opened to Danforth's at Onon- daga, to Pompey Hill, to Jamesville, and perhaps to a few other nearby points, but it was not until the first years of this century that regular highways were laid out. The settlers arrived mainly over the Indian trail from Utica, previous to the construction of the turnpike, and for some time found their way through the forests by means of blazed trees. Grain was carried long distances to mill on a man's shoulders or on horseback, and mail and household necessities were brought in

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ONONDAGA'S CENTENNIAL.

and distributed in the same manner. The first routes of travel and many of the subsequent roads nearly or quite conformed to the original Indian trails, which traversed the town in all directions. In 1801 a State road from Cazenovia to Skaneateles, passing through La Fayette Square, as it was then called, and Cardiff, was surveyed and opened, and Colonel Olcott, the surveyor, was suddenly taken sick and died at the house of Erastus Baker. About this same time an epidemic of small-pox ravaged the region, causing a number of deaths in the town. This road afforded the first important means of communication with distant centers of population, and was long the scene of considerable activity.

The year 1802 brought to the town of La Fayette many valuable set- tlers, among whom were Clark Bailey and his wife Sarah, with several sons and one daughter, several of them married. They came from Rhode Island, and brought thither a fair property. Clark and his son Richard settled on lot 88 in this town, and the other sons on lot 8, now of Tully. The father laid out, donated, and dedicated the cemetery near by; his son Stephen opened a tavern, and soon built and managed the large hotel so long a place of exchange for stages between Syra- cuse and Cortland; John conducted a general store and an ashery, both much needed and prized by the inhabitants, and Richard built and placed in operation the saw and grist mills now known as the Tully Valley mills.

The south slope of the hill known as Bear Mountain, on the west side of Christian Hollow, was infested with rattlesnakes, and for many years a party of a dozen or less, generally under direction of Richard Bailey, a skilled hunter, would go to the mountain on a warm summer day in May and carefully examine the flat slabs of stone for snakes, and when one was out in the sun often others were found under loose stones. On one hunt fifteen of the poisonous reptiles were slain. The last one cap- tured in that vicinity was by Solomon White in 1854.

The opening of the Cazenovia and Skaneateles State road in 1801 was the signal for the systematic laying out of the then hamlet of La · Fayette Square, now La Fayette. Upon all sides and upon the site thriving settlers were rapidly subduing the wilderness, and the natural consequence was the founding of a centrally located trading point. In accordance with an old New England custom, Caleb Green and Erastus Baker donated a plot of ground for a public square, which Dr. Silas W. Park cleared of its virginal forest. Around this the village was built

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THE TOWN OF LA FAYETTE.

up. Johnson Hall, son of Gen. Isaac Hall, and Harvey G. Andrews, his partner and brother-in-law, were among the earliest merchants, their store being a part of the present Presbyterian parsonage, and situated on that corner. Dr. Park, who practiced medicine here dur- ing his lifetime, lived on the southwest corner of the cross-roads, near where George L. Hoyt resides, while diagonally opposite stood the famous tavern of Orange King, in front of which was conspicuously displayed a sign board with "O King" painted upon it in large letters. This old hostelry was preceded by an inn kept by a Mr. Cheney, as was also the store of Hall & Andrews, by a small mercantile affair opened by Rice & Hill about 1802.

In 1803 Thomas Baker settled in Sherman Hollow, and about the same time Amos Palmeter located a mile south of the village. In 1804 came Joseph and Lemuel Baker, of whom the former very soon went on to Otisco and the latter to the far west. The Baker family has long been a prominent one in the town, and much of their landed property is still vested in the name. James, Joseph, and Asa McMillen, brothers, and carpenters, settled about a mile north of the Square at a very early day. Joseph and James built the first frame hotel in La Fayette, which was kept by Stoughton Morse, and which succeeded a log tavern kept by James Higgins. Morse also had a small store, while William Farren was an early blacksmith. Another pioneer carpenter and joiner was Nathaniel Sterling, who built the Baptist church at Pompey Hill, and the Presbyterian edifice in La Fayette village; took an active part in religious and educational matters, and died in Connecticut.

Among the pioneers in the northeast part of the town were Isaac Keeler, Col. Jeremiah Gould, Elkanah Hine and Noah Hoyt (on the farm later occupied by George Bishop), Joel Canfield, Job Andrews, Ezekiel Hoyt, Minnah Hyatt, Ebenezer Carr, Joshua Slocum (where E. V. W. Dox subsequently lived), and Calojius Vinell. In the west part were such settlers as Samuel Coleman, Nathan Park, Ozias and Zenas Northway (tavernkeepers), John and Archibald Garfield, Grandus Cuddeback (whose wife was a niece of Maj. Moses De Witt), William Sniffen, Hendrick Upperhousen, and John Hill. The last two men- tioned were Hessian soldiers, who were captured from the British army in the war of the Revolution. In the south part of La Fayette were Gen. Isaac Hall and Amos Palmeter (previously mentioned), Jacob Johnson and son Jacob, William Alexander, Capt. Joseph C. Howe (on what was later the Cole farm), Abner and Rufus Kinney, Peter Abbott,

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ONONDAGA'S CENTENNIAL.

Elijah Hall, and Obadiah Johnson. In the vicinity of La Fayette vil- lage there were the Bakers-Erastus, Thomas, Seth, and Suydenham- all prominent men from Massachusetts, Joseph Smith, Jeremiah Fuller, Daniel Share, Mr. Paine, Dr. Silas W. Park, Joseph S. and Daniel Cole, John Carlisle, Caleb Green, Orange King, Joseph Rhoades, Gershom Richardson, and Paul King.

These settlers, imbued as they were with sterling Christian princi- ples, early planted the standard of religious worship among the several communities. The arrival of James and Lucina Sherman in 1793 and of Amaziah Branch, a zealous school teacher and gospel worker, in 1794, was the first impulse given to the inception and growth of local chris- tianity, and from that time onward itinerant missionaries held occa- sional services in barns, private dwellings, and school houses. Between 1798 and 1805 the central ridge, extending north and south near the center of the town, was settled by a cultured class of citizens largely from Massachusetts. On the 14th of October, 1805, the Columbian Congregational Society was organized. In October, 1809, the Con- gregational church (now Presbyterian) of La Fayette was formed by Rev. Benjamin Bell at the tavern of Stoughton Morse where the Tem- perance House afterward stood. The society consisted of Deacon Noah Hoyt, Deacon Nathan Abbott, Ezekiel and Philander Hoyt, Polly and Mary Hoyt, Anna and Sally Baker, Apollos Hewitt, Esther Maxwell, Corrinna Abbott, Achsah Johnson, Rebecca Bates, Anna Hewitt, and Sally Danforth. Other early members were the Halls, Porters, and Coles. In 1819-20 a church was erected, to which a session house was added in 1846. The latter was replaced in 1861 by a similar structure costing $1,000, which has also been used as a town hall. The site was donated by Capt. Joseph Rhoades and Erastus Baker. The property is still owned by the Columbian society; the church has been under the " plan of union " since 1808, and the name Congregational was main- tained until August 24, 1884, when the First Presbyterian church of La Fayette succeeded. Early in this century a Methodist Episcopal church was organized and a house of worship erected about a mile east of Onativia Station. In 1853 the site was changed and the edifice moved to and rebuilt near that hamlet, where it remains fully equipped for church work. Among those early prominent in this society were Rev. H. A. Case, Enoch Everingham, Lyman Bush, Charles Johnson, Thomas Weller, Lucina Sherman, and Rev. E. M. Mills, D. D., who served as its pastor for three years.

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THE TOWN OF LA FAYETTE.

The war of 1812-15 spread no little excitement among the settlers of this town, yet they were sufficiently distant from the actual scenes of conflict as to escape the trials which disturbed the more contiguous communities. Richard Bailey, who was captain of infantry for the then west half of Pompey, was twice called out with his command on alarms-once from Oswego, when the company proceeded as far as Oswego Falls, and once from Sackett's Harbor, when they reached Ellisburg, some fifteen miles beyond the Salmon River. The sword owned and carried by Captain Bailey is now the property of his grand- daughter, Mrs. Rose Rude, of Minnesota. Closely following this war- like struggle came the celebrated " cold season " of 1816, which proved so disastrous everywhere to all growing crops and caused wide-spread suffering to both man and beast. Succeeding years, however, revived general prosperity, which has continued almost uninterruptedly down to the present time.

Among the first settlers in Tully Valley, which extends northward into this town, were Clark Bailey and his family from Rhode Island. Regular religious meetings were soon instituted, being often held under the direction of "Aunt Sally," a zealous Baptist, as Mrs. Bailey was then called. In 1818 this Baptist group united with others from Tully vil- lage and Vesper in constituting the Tully Baptist church and erecting a house of worship at Tully Center. In 1835 a church of thirty-seven members, nearly all from this society, was organized in Tully Valley as the First Baptist Church of La Fayette and held services in a school house near the Tully Valley mills. The pastors were Rev. Randolph Streeter seven years, Rev. Barton Capron two years, and Rev. A. R. Palmer, then a licentiate, about three years. The names prominent on the records of the church are Gaylord, Haynes, Irish, Palmer, and Shue. Both Streeter and Palmer were in great request as teachers of public schools. The church never owned any real estate, and although receiving double the number of new members that it had to begin with, yet in eleven years its membership was diminished owing to a decrease in the population and the settlement of the younger element in other places; so in 1846 the society disbanded, most of the members joining churches either at Tully or Vesper.

By the year 1825 the territory under consideration contained about 2,400 inhabitants, and embraced not only the thirty-two lots of town- ship No. 10. Pompey, as previously noticed, but also twenty-two smaller lots which had been purchased by the State from the Onondaga Indian

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ONONDAGA'S CENTENNIAL.

Reservation-lots 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, about 4,000 acres, on the east side, on February 25, 1817, and lots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, 800 acres, from the south end, February 11, 1822. All these lots were sold by the State to white settlers, and excepting the two tracts named the town never comprehended, for civil, judicial, and administrative purposes, any part of the Reservation as originally defined. On the 25th of April, 1825, the State Legislature created the present town of La Fayette by passing the subjoined act :

That from and after the second Monday in March next, all that part of the town of Pompey lying west of a line running north and south, on the east line of lots num- ber 3, 15, 25, 36, 46, 62, 77, and 92, together with so much of Onondaga as lies south of a line running east and west on the north line of lots number 13, 14, and 15 of the State's purchase of the Onondaga Indians in 1817, and through a portion of land now owned by said Indians to a line running north and south on the west line of lots number 1 and 4 of the State's purchase of the aforesaid Indians in 1822, shall be and the same is hereby erected into a separate town, by the name of La Fayette.

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Onondaga's centennial. Gleanings of a century, Vol. II, Part 4

Author: Bruce, Dwight H. (Dwight Hall), 1834-1908 Publication date: 1896 Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston History Company Number of Pages: 1094

Author: Bruce, Dwight H. (Dwight Hall), 1834-1908
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston History Company
Number of Pages: 1094