USA > New York > Genesee County > Our county and its people : a descriptive and biographical record of Genesee County, New York, v. 2 > Part 9
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MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.
(Residing in Genesee county).
1813, Samuel M. Hopkins: 1817, Benjamin Ellicott ; 1825, Parmenio Adams; 1827, Phineas L. Tracy: 1833. George W. Lay, 1532, Harvey Putnam; 1939, Seth M. Gates; 1813, Albert Smith: 1947, Harvey Putnam ; 1851, Augustus P. Hascall : 1853, Benjamin Pringle: 1867. John Fisher; 1871, Seth Wakeman.
Some conception of the industrial status of Genesee county at the close of the nineteenth century may be gained by a perusal of the ap- pended list of the taxpaying corporations in the county in 1898:
TOWN.
NAME OF CORPORATION, Valuation
Alabama,
West Shore Railroad Co. $ 65,200
..
National Telegraph Co 2.050
Alexander,
New York Central and Hudson River R R. Co 75,000
Erie Railroad Co 130,500
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western R. R. Co 140.000
Bell Telephone Co 1,000
..
American Telegraph and Telephone Co. 5,000
Western Union Telegraph Co. 2,000
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Assessed
TOWN. NAME OF CORPORATION. Valuation
Batavia,
New York Central and IIndson River R. R. Co 809.317
Erie Railroad Co 85.549
..
Lehigh Valley R. R Co 312,627
..
Johnston Harvester Co
315,000
First National Bank of Batavia
77.000
..
Bank of Batavia
147,000
..
Consolidated Gas and Electric Company
30,000
..
Batavia Club
6,000
Baker Gun and Forging Co
70,000
Bell Telephone Co
17,500
..
Western Union Telegraph Co
7.990
Batavia and New York Wood Working Co
30,000
Wiard Plow Co
95,000
..
Batavia Preserving Co
7,500
..
Batavia Carriage Wheel Co
40,000
Bergen,
..
West Shore Railroad Co
40.000
:
Western Union Telegraph Co. 4.495
Bethany,
Erie Railroad Co $ 52,670
:
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western R. R. Co 181,340
..
Western Union Telegraph Co
1,000
..
Lackawanna Transportation Co. 75,000
American Telegraph and Telephone Co 6,000
246,000
West Shore Railroad Co.
40,600
Western Union Telegraph Co
3,380
..
Bell Telephone Co 50
Erie Railroad Co 1$0,000
..
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western R. R
150,000
New York Central and Hudson River R. R. Co 110.000
130,800
American Telegraph and Telephone Co
8.000
Bell Telephone Co
1,500
4 4
Victor Mineral Spring Co
1,000
..
Western Union Telegraph Co
7,000
Elgin Co-operative Creamery Co
1,500
Elba,
West Shore Railroad Co
50,000
Western Union Telegraph Co
1,780
..
Bell Telephone Co. 450
National Bank of Genesee 1,000
..
First National Bank 3,900
Le Roy,
Erie Railroad Co 100.000
Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg R. R. Co. 105,000
E. N. Rowell Co
24.000
New York Central and Hudson River R. R. Co
260,000
Byron,
New York Central and Hudson River R. R. Co
Darien,
Lehigh Valley R. R. Co
Bank of Genesee 41,800
445
CIVIL LIST.
Assessed
TOWN.
MAME OF CORPORATION. Valuation
Le Roy.
New York Central and Hudson River R. R. Co ..
60.800
Lehigh Valley R. R. Co 205,000
Le Roy Salt Co
40,000
Le Roy Gaslight Co
25,000
Bank of Le Roy
103.000
Bell Telephone Co
5,000
Western Union Telegraph Co
Lehigh Salt Mining Co 2,500
70.000
Randall Fence Co
3,000
Genesee Pure Food Co
25 000
Oatka Chemical Co
5.000
Le Roy Chemical Co.
2,500
Improved Dash Co
500
..
Hydraulic Electric Light Co 8,000
..
Le Roy Power and Milling Co 18,000
. .
Citizens' Bank of Le Roy 50.000
..
W. D. Matthews Malting Co 70,000
Oakfield,
West Shore Railroad Co
35.500
. .
Bell Telephone Co
2,000
Western Union Telegraph Co 1,700
Oakfield Fertilizer Co 13,975
Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg R. R. Co .. " 80,000
200 000
..
Western Union Telegraph Co.
1,800
Le Roy Salt Co.
3,000
..
Hall Associations 300
American Telegraph and Telephone Co. 5.000
Pavilion Salt Co. 11,500
1,500
Pembroke,
New York Central and Hudson River R. R. Co
364.752
Lehigh Valley R. R. Co
48.000
Western Union Telegraph Co
5,850
..
Corfu Gas Co 1 000
Stafford,
New York Central and Hudson River R. R. Co 245,000
Erie Railroad Co 52.500
Lehigh Valley R. R. Co 152,000
Western Union Telegraph Co 3,950
.4
Bell Telephon Co
1,125
Pavilion,
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western R. R. Co
..
..
=
Bell Telephone Co.
Bell Telephone Co 1,100
Beechnut Creamery Co
446
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PRIMITIVE MAN IN GENESEE COUNTY.
BY SAMUEL P. MOULIHLOP, PRINCIPAL WASHINGTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL, ROCHESTER, N. Y.
. "But I behold a fearful sign. To which the white man's eyes are blind; Their race may vanish like mine And leave no trace behind. Save ruins o'et the region spread And the white stones above the dead."
Writers of antiquity tell us of four successive ages; but the archaeolo- gist finds that ages have succeetled each other, and that memory only begins at a somewhat advanced stage of the development of the race. It has no consciousness of earlier conditions. For instance, the Mound- builders wrought the native copper of Lake Superior, with stone ham- mers, without the aid of fire, long before the day when the Peruvians east weapons and bronze statues.
These tribes belonged also to the Stone Age, generally conceded to be the first stage of civilization. This age has been divided into two periods given the names, Paleolithic, or Age of Rough Stone, and Neolithic, or Age of Polished Stone.
The Paleolithic Age was contemporaneous with the mammoth, musk-ox, and other animals, now extinct, or found only in the ex- treme north. A fossil specimen of the ox, which was pronounced by the authorities at Washington as belonging to an extinct species, was found by Dr. Whiton of Byron and loaned to the writer.
Prof. Steenstrup, in a most conclusive way, has proven that the Bos- primigenius was contemporary with the ancient forests. In a forest peat moss of the island of Moen, he discovered an entire skeleton of a primitive ox, buried, so to speak, in a shroud of needles of the Scotch fir.
He has further concluded from the presence of arrow-heads in these bones, which during the life of the animals had been covered by a new
أ
447
PRIMITIVE MAN IN GENESEE COUNTY.
growth of bone, that man had pursued and wounded, but had not killed them. He was, therefore, contemporary with them.
In Genesee county, remains of the extinct mastodon have also been found. I have found, in peat bogs in Stafford, paleolithic implements in stone. Such are frequently being picked up by observing farmers, furnishing proof of the occupancy of this county by man, during the Paleolithic period.
In our day, groups of men exist, who are still in their lithic age, and who are in intimate relations with people who have attained an ad- vanced stage of civilization. Such are some of the Australian tribes. who cling persistently to their savage life, and continue to use weapons of stone, in the presence of modern weapons introduced by the Eng- lish. The New Caledonians employ iron implements, concurrently with axes of well polished stone, and still hunt with stone-headed arrows, though they cultivate sugar cane and fruit trees.
One should, therefore, before pronouncing an opinion as to the real age of a flint implement, be thoroughly acquainted not only with the place where it was found, but the circumstances attending its discov- ery. Facts show that flint imp'ements are not, in themselves, evi- dences of a very remote epoch. The important point should be to establish principal landmarks.
The true nathire of flints has been known only within the recollection of some of the olden archaeologists. The ancients knew of their exist- ence, and gave them names that expressed a strong nation; that they had fallen from the skies with the thunder claps, or were formed in the earth by fire. They were afterwards looked upon as freaks of nature. In 1934, Matindel ventured to say that they were the weapons of ante- diluvian man, but this assertion was received with ridicule.
Buffon, in 1:18, affirmed again that the first men began by sharpen- ing, into the forms of axes, these hard flints or thunderbolts, which were believed to have fallen from the clouds and to have been formed by the thunder.
This just theory passed unnoticed at that time, but science has deter- mined the truth of the first part of the statement. It is readily seen, by one accustomed to look for stone points, that the idea of their fall- ing from the clouds during a storm would be accepted, since, now, one accustomed to search for them, will select a time just after a heavy storm of rain. They may be more readily seen after the rainfall has washed the earth away, leaving the sharp flint raised above the surface.
448
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
This has been the experience, not only of the writer, but of many others, who have searched before the storm with poor success and have found them in abundance after it.
As soon as man knew how to polish his hammers and axes, he con- ceived the idea of drilling a hole for the handle; but this idea was of late birth, and, during the whole of the Neolithic Age, it was seldom put in practice. Flint knives were variously constructed; sometimes the cutting edge was straight, occasionally curved; sometimes the han . dle was a continuation of the stone itself, the blade often no longer than that of a pocket-knife; others were as long as a hunting knife, one; found near Conesus Lake, being twelve inches in length.
The axes varied in size and form, being constructed of all kinds of stone, the finer of green jade; others of flint, quartz and obsidian; gouges or chisels, intended for hollowing wood, were made with a semicircular edge, more or less wide. Many Indian tribes now use them to remove charred wood from logs, when building canoes. Drills were made from flint inserted in bone handles and are used by the Esquimaux at the present time; saws, for cutting bone and wood, were constructed by notching the edges of flints.
The mortars and pestles, used by primitive men of the Stone Age, in Genesee county, for bruising and cracking corn and other grains, were similar to those of the modern Indian found here by the early set- tlers. They were made from hard rock, such as granite or diorite, with the upper surface more or less hollow. The pestle was also of stone, spherical or oval in form, or else clubshaped.
One of the finest pestles found in this country was picked up and presented to the writer by Chas. Pratt, of Batavia, this being a coun- terpart of those found among the ruins of the Swiss Lake dwellers. Joly and Figuier both claimed that those belonged, incontestably, to the most ancient Lake-dwellers.
Prof. Steenstrup, of Copenhagen, has proved in a most original way, that the dog was the first wild animal domesticated by man. He says that the dog hunted with man and shared his repasts, at that remote epoch, when the savage inhabitants of Denmark heaped up, along the coast of the Baltic, the enormous kitchen middens. He has given the dog bones to gnaw, and found that they almost invariably leave them in the shapes of those found in the lowest remains of man's feast.
Townsend says: " The dog is the greatest conquest man ever made ; the dog was the first element in human progress. Without the dog,
1
449
PRIMITIVE MAN IN GENESEE COUNTY
man would have been condemned to vegetate eternally in the swad- dling clothes of savagery. It was the dog which effected the passage of human society from the savage to the patriarchal state, in making possible the guardianship of the flock. It is to the dog that man owed his hours of leisure, in which he made observations that led him to advance and rise in the scale of human beings."
As Joly says: " It might be objected, certainly, that the bones of birds, which form part of the kitchen refuse, could have been gnawed by wild dogs, wolves or foxes; but the fact is too general and tallies too exactly with the experiments undertaken in proof of the professor's theory, to'allow of our refusing to attach any faith in the latter."
Canine teeth, found plentifully in the earliest works here, furnish indications that in Genesee county similar conditions existed.
(1) It is evident that to the Indian there is a mystery surrounding his ancestry.
(?) Could there have been one like Hon. Lewis H. Morgan, Prof. Ilenry Ward, or George H. Harris, among the first settlers of this region, to have patiently explored and investigated mound fortifications (now nearly obliterated), or traced traditions then extant among the aborigines, much more light would have been furnished for our guid- ance at the present time.
(3) Of the two lines of investigation mentioned by Morgan as inde- pendent, that of inventions and discoveries made by primitive man and his successors is the most satisfactorily followed by the student of arch- æology and ethnology.
(1) The conclusion that man commenced his career at the bottom of the scale and worked his way from savagery to civilization forces itself upon the student as he finds traces of progress, as shown in the frag- ments of pottery found, that give unmistakable evidence of having been used by primitive man, the use of which pre-supposes village life. From the wicker marked fragments the advance is easily traced by well defined attempts at ornamentation, commeneing with plain marking made simply to relieve a plain surface gradually through a course of lines and markings to systematic decoration, showing skill and certainly a knowledge of number and measurements.
(5) Some writers claim the invention of the bow and arrow before that of pottery. It is certain that the first pottery was made with a basket of wicker for a mould.
(6) Early writers claim that the attempt to make the baskets hold 29
450
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
liquids, by using clay, resulted in a new discovery. The heat finally destroyed the basket, leaving the clay outside as a separate vessel.
(7) A navigator who visited the southeastern coast of South America in 1503, says that he found the natives using vessels and utensils of wood; even the boiling pots were of wood, but plastered with a kind of clay a good finger thick, which prevented the fire from burning them.
(S) Most of the pottery we have found is of very good material, and appears to have been worked with a great deal of taste and skill. It is found in great abundance in the old fortification at Oakfield, Genesee County, N. Y. Mr. Charles Pratt, of Batavia, found a very fine clay pipe and several finely marked fragments of vessels.
(9) The material used in all aboriginal pottery is composed of clay, tempered with pounded quartz, shells or fine sand, to prevent shrinkage and resist the action of fire. Most of it is well burned, but does not show glazing. One fine fragment is of what is known as the black incised pottery, produced by placing the utensil over a fire made from pitch pine, the oily black smoke coloring and partially glazing.
(10) The clay pipes are often fancifully moulded and ornamented. some bearing the forms of animals, the distinctive features of which are well preserved; others are fluted and dotted with regular figures.
(11) Early writers state that, whenever pottery was buried with the dead, or left behind when moving from one location to another, or when driven away by a stronger tribe, the vessels were broken, so as to be rendered useless.
(12) Investigators at the present time will readily assent to this belief, as nothing but fragments are found, except in Central America and Mexico, where pottery has been in use during the present century, In shape they were mostly constructed with gourd-like bottoms, with a ridge or groove around the top to allow for suspension. In some cases they have flat bottoms.
(13) The usual size was from one to four quarts. The markings were evidently made with a bone instrument, constructed with points and grooves for that purpose. Mr. M. B. Turpin found in Seneca Park a little bone marker which fitted the grooves in the marked pottery found with it, which from its high polish had evidently been used for that purpose.
(14) There is some question as to whether the pottery made by the aborigines was hardened by fire or cured by the simpler methods of
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A
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Cut X is the representation of a basket par affe Covered ach t'as, and was restotel trop a It is ment uf pottery which bear- glaubted evidence of De manter m all the best pottery wy nette ed by primitive man. Frem for niture of the markings visibh on the fragment, we bech tint framework of wicker was trethis. . not into the dested form and pon dered . ... clay until of the requisite the mess Travelers speak of having seen natives condios With wood plastered with city as a protection from hre, and also of poffert with portions of the bist st remaining. The fragments shown in the ants were all found in what is now known is tioneste ruchu farger one, marked A, was pokud up near Tonawanda Creek, four m Estar Batman side of the tienesee River Not : the old fatturaation at Oukid, and Se ! nghe ser ++ walk No I was found at Fort Fill De Los. add No S was unearthed in Sement Park Usee River
451
PRIMITIVE MAN IN GENESEE COUNTY.
drying. Analysis shows us that so far as chemical constituents are concerned, it agrees very well with the composition of hydraulic stones.
(15) Most of the pottery found in mounds is composed of clay, sand and fresh-water shells pulverized. Vessels formed of it harden without being burned.
(16) The fragments of shells served the purpose of gravel, used at present in the manufacture of concrete. Pieces of pottery taken from the site of an ancient village located in Seneca Park contain a good pro- portion of crushed quartz, together with bits of shell. The fragments found, ranging from wicker work or basket pottery through successive stages to finely finished and neatly glazed black incised vessels, would indicate this as a place inhabited not only by primitive man, but by succeeding tribes to a time contemporaneous with the natives found on the continent by Columbus.
(11) The utensils commonly found would indicate that primitive man in Genesee county was well advanced in the manufacture of pottery. The fragments found correspond with those found in the Old World. They are ornamented in the simplest and most uniform way, with de- signs in relief, or impressions made with the finger nail or the top of the finger, with pieces of wood or string pressed in the fresh clay.
(18) On the more recent vessels these are in the form of straight or zigzag lines, dots, parallel lines, squares and triangles.
(19) The instinct of imitation was much stronger among the people of the new world than those of the Old World of the same age. Joly says the modern pottery of certain American tribes has retained the same character in spite of contact with Europeans. The finest speci- mens in my collection were found in the ancient work at Oakfield, for- merly Elba, N. Y.
(20) After the commencement of European intercourse, vessels of iron, copper, brass and tin superseded those of pottery, and its produc- tion was discontinued: but the Indian pipe was still preferred as being superior to that of European manufacture.
(21) The partially village Indians who were barbarous, such as the Iroquois, Choctaw and Cherokees, made it in smaller quantities and in a limited number of forms. But the non-horticultural Indians who were in a state of savagery, such as the Athabascan tribes of California and in the valley of the Columbia, were ignorant of its use.
(22) The introduction of this art brought a new epoch in human progress in this direction, improved living, and increased domestic con- veniences.
452
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
The so-called old fortification at Oakfield was very graphically de- seribed by the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who visited it in 1788. A por- tion of this work remains the same as when seen by him. The place was called, by the Senecas, Tegatamasghque, meaning a double forti- fied town, having a fort at each end ; the one contained about four acres of ground; the other, about two miles distant from this and situated at the other extremity of the ancient town, encloses twice that surface. The ditch around the former was about five or six feet deep. A small stream of living water, with a high bank, circumscribed nearly one- third of the enclosed ground.
There were traces of six gates and a dugway near the works to the water. The ground on the opposite side of the water was, in some places, nearly as high as that on which they built the fortification, which might make it necessary for the covered way to the water. A considerable number of large oaks have grown up within the enclosed ground, both in and upon the ditch and embankment. Some of them appear to be at least three or four hundred years old. In some places, at the bottom of the diteli, one could dig down five or six feet, before reaching the original soil.
Kirkland says that, near the northern fortification, are the remains of a funeral pile. Indian tradition says, also, that these works were raised, and a famous battle fought, in true Indian style, with Indian weapons, long before their knowledge and use of firearms. The na- tions used, at that time, bows, arrows and spears, the war club and death mall. A fine specimen of the latter was found in Stafford, N. Y.
When the arrows were expended they came into close engagement, using the death mall. Their shield, or dress, for this method of fight- ing, was a short jacket made of willow sticks laced tightly around the body. The head was covered with a cap of the same kind, but com- monly worn double for the better protection of that part against a stroke from a war club.
Some affirm that in this battle eight hundred were slain. All the historians agree that the battle was fought here; some say four, others. five ages ago, an age being reckoned as one hundred snows or winters.
The other best preserved work of primitive man is the one that is known as Fort Hill, three miles north of Le Roy, on a point of land formed by the junction of a small stream, called Fordham's brook, with Allen's creek. The best view of this fortification is had at the north of it, on the road from Bergen. From this point it needs but little to im-
453
PRIMITIVE MAN IN GENESEE COUNTY.
agine that it was erected asa fortification, by a large and powerful army looking for a permanent and an inaccessible bulwark of defense.
From the centre of the hill, in a northwesterly course, the country lies flat; north and east, the land is also level for one hundred rods, when it rises nearly as high as the hill, and continues quite elevated for several miles.
In approaching the hill from the north it rises abruptly, but not per- pendicularly, to the height of eighty or ninety feet, extending about forty rods on a line east and west, the corners being round and continu- ing to the south on the west side for some fifty or sixty rods; on the east side for about half a mile, maintaining the same elevation on the side as on the front, beyond which distance the line of the hill is that of the land around.
These are undoubted evidences that it was resorted to as a fortifica- tion, and of its having constituted a valuable point of defense to a rude and half-civilized people. Years ago an entrenchment, ten feet deep and twelve or fifteen feet wide, extended from the west to the cast end, along the north or front part, and continued up each side twenty rods, when it crossed over, and joining, made the circuit of entrenchment complete. At the present time a portion of the entrenchment is easily perceived.
It is certain that the inhabitants of the Genesee country in what is now known as Genesee county, before the settlement of Joncair, who is conceded by all to be the first white settier west of the Genesee river, were a people who had attained a high rank among the Red Men.
Their captives were many, their raids often extending as far west as the Mississippi and south to Virginia and the Carolinas. On their res- ervations may still be found descendants of the Cherokee, Seminole, Illinois and Catawba captives; in fact, of all the tribes with which they had been at war in early times. Tradition furnishes their genealogy far more accurately than we, with written records, are able to keep.
Our admiration and wonder are attracted to them when we learn that, in all the numerous cases of captivity, escape from the captors was never undertaken. If of their own race and color, he soon forgot that he was in the wigwam of strangers. Social and political courte- sies were extended to him. Were his family left behind, they were supplied him. The interests of the adopter and the one adopted were identical. So it was in a great degree with our own race, many of whom were made captives, but not degraded, and there being no restraint or coercion, the desire for escape entirely disappeared.
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Turner says that during his boyhood he had listened to the stories of the eaptive whites among the Senecas, and they invariably pre- ferred remaining, rather than to return to their own kindred. The freedom of outdoor life and absence of restraint were, undoubtedly, factors, but the influence of kindness was the great lever that produced this state of affairs. The Indian mother knew no difference between the natural and the adopted child; no discrimination, or, if any, in favor of the ward.
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