Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York;, Part 22

Author: Wager, Daniel Elbridge, 1823-1896
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston history co.
Number of Pages: 1612

USA > New York > Oneida County > Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York; > Part 22

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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

Present Officers .- President, Hon. Charles W. Hutchinson; vice-presidents, George D. Dimon, Thomas R. Proctor, Hon. Daniel E. Wager; 1 corresponding sec- retary, Hon. Chas. W. Darling. A.M .; recording secretary, W. Pierrepont White, LL. B .; librarian, M. M. Bagg, M.D .; treasurer, Warren C. Rowley.

Agricultural Society .- The first agricultural society in Oneida county was formed in 1818, under the title of the Oneida County Agricultural Society. Col. Garrett G. Lansing was its president and Elkanah Wat- son, vice-president. The first fair was held at Whitesboro October 18, of that year, which was largely attended ; addresses were made by Mr. Lansing and Mr. Watson and a grand ball was given in the evening. The premiums given were mostly in cash or silver ware. There are no accessible records as to the after life of this society.

The present Oneida County Agricultural Society was organized in 1841, in which year its first annual fair was held. These continued many years, usually alternating between Utica and Rome Grounds were enclosed in Rome and in 1850 admission was charged to all who were not members. These grounds were the property of Col. E. B. Armstrong and comprised ten acres. From a date soon after the close of the war the fairs were all held in Rome. In 1872 the society became joint owner of Riverside Park with the Rome Riverside Park Driving Association, and in 1878 the agricultural society purchased the entire property. The park encloses about 50 acres and has an excellent driv- ing track and commodious buildings.

New York State Cheese Manufacturers' Association .- It may not be generally known that the first cheese factory in the United States was put in operation in Rome, Oneida county, during the war, by Jesse Williams. To this man is given much of the credit of founding a sys- tem of dairying which has been of incalculable benefit to the agricultu- ral communities, and to none more than the region of which Oneida county forms a part. Interest in the work of Mr. Williams increased, and on January 6, 1864, a meeting of dairymen was held in Rome, where a Dairymen's Convention was organized with the following of- ficers :

President, Jesse Williams, of Oneida County; vice-presidents, Lyman R. Lyon, Lewis; L. Warner, Ontario; Daniel Smith, Montgomery; A. L. Fish, Herkimer; Alonzo Peck, Madison; D. W. Maples, Cortland; M. R. Stocker, Otsego; Geo. C.

1 Died April, 1896.

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PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.

Morn, Erie; D. H. Goulding, Chautauqua; A. D. Stanley, Jefferson ; Alfred Buck, Oneida; Dwight Ellis, Mass .; A. Bartlett, Ohio; secretaries, B. F. Stevens, Lewis; Geo. W. Pixley, Oneida.

Representatives were present from sixty-nine cheese factories, and resolutions were adopted organizing the New York State Cheese Man- ufacturers' Association. At the second annual meeting this association was merged in the American Dairymen's Association, an organization extending throughout the United States and Canada. It is an unqual- ified honor to Oneida county that this great and useful association found its inception here. Horatio Seymour was its president many years, and addresses and essays have been given at the annual meetings by men eminent in dairy work from various parts of the country.

The Central New York Farmers' Club .- This association of farmers was organized in Utica January 21, 1870, at which meeting a commit- tee was appointed to prepare a constitution and by-laws. The follow- ing persons were elected officers :

President, Hon. Samuel Campbell, of New York Mills; vice-presidents, Horatio Seymour, of Deerfield; John Butterfield, of Utica; Henry Rhodes, of Trenton; Morgan Butler, of New Hartford; M. Quinby, of St. Johnsville; Harris Lewis, of Frankfort; S. T. Miller, of Constableville; Josiah Shull, of Ilion; Stephen Thomas, of Cassville; recording secretary, T. D. Curtis, of Utica; corresponding secretary, W. H. Comstock, of Utica; treasurer. L. L. Wight, of Whitestown ; librarian, Wmn. Ralph, of Utica.

Besides these a board of eight directors was chosen, to serve from one to four years respectively. Meetings of the club were held twice each month for discussions, reading of papers, etc. The organization has accomplished a vast amount of good for its members and others.

Oneida County Farmers' Alliance .- This association, comprising prominent farmers of this county, was organized at a meeting held in the Utica court house March 13, 1878, at which a committee was ap- pointed to prepare constitution and by-laws. Meetings were to be held alternately in the various towns of the county, for the discussion of gen- eral agricultural topics and particularly to promote legislation and awaken interest in freight charges, taxation, and kindred subjects for the improvement of agricultural interests.

The Utica Board of Trade .- The subject of forming boards of trade for the sale of dairy products was discussed in the winter and spring of 1871, and on March 6 a meeting was held in Little Falls, where a reg-

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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

ular market was maintained, at which preliminary action was taken. At another meeting held April 14 new articles were prepared and added to the constitution and by-laws and the New York State Dairymen's Asso- ciation and Board of Trade was organized. The first transactions under this organization between buyers and sellers took place on May 1, 1871, when 2,000 boxes of cheese were offered. This was the first interior board of trade organized for the sale of cheese and butter in the United States. In February, 1871, a call was issued for a County Dairymen's Association, which should "frequently and practically discuss the sev- eral questions that naturally arise during the dairying season." The first meeting was held at Bagg's Hotel March 1, 1871, and an organiza- tion effected under the title of the National Dairymen's Club; T. D. Curtis was elected president. The next meeting was held March 17, when a constitution and by-laws were adopted The first sale day was . May 29, although the original plan of the club did not anticipate any connection with establishing a market. The club was governed by a carefully prepared code of regulations. At the annual meeting of 1875 the name of the organization was changed to The Utica Dairymen's Board of Trade and the original purposes of the club were largely abandoned. The marketing of dairy products in Utica soon became very large, increasing from about 40,000 boxes in 1871, to 100,000 in 1873; 155,000 in 1874, and over 200,000 in 1877. This board has accomplished more for the best interests of dairymen in Oneida county than any other influence.

The Oncida County Bible Society .- The inception of this society dates back to 1810, when, on the 15th of November, the Oneida Bible Society was organized in the Presbyterian church in Utica. That was six years before the organization of the American Bible Society. A constitution was adopted at that meeting, the first article of which could not be repealed and was as follows: "The object of this society shall be the distribution of the Holy Scriptures in the com- mon version, without note or comment." The earliest officers were Jonas Platt, president ; Rev. Asahel S. Norton (of Clinton), vice pres- ident ; Rev. James Carnahan (Utica), secretary ; Rev. Amos G. Bald- win, treasurer. There were also sixteen directors. In 1849 the consti- tution was revised and the name of the society changed to Oneida

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County Bible Society. The county has been several times thoroughly convassed by agents or members of the society with a view to discover and supply every family not having the Scriptures with a copy. Annual meetings have been held, with the exception of the years 1833 to 1836 inclusive. The good accomplished by the society cannot be estimated.

CHAPTER XXI.

CANALS AND RAILROADS.

CANALS -Nothing has contributed so much to the growth and pros- perity of New York State as its canal system. It greatly enhanced the value of farming lands, enriched the farmer, the merchant, the mechanic, the laboring man, and in fact all classes of persons, and largely in- creased all kinds of business. It is not easy to specify in detail the various and numerous methods by which this State and its citizens have been benefited by our canals, or to summarize in figures the untold wealth and prosperity which have been thereby added to the county. At an early day shrewd observers and far-seeing statesmen predicted an auspicious future to the country, and particularly to New York, if the natural waterways leading east and west could be connected by short canals, and trade, travel and commerce thereby find a cheap and expeditious transportation between the seaboard and the western lakes ; but even the most sanguine, the most earnest and enthusiastic never looked far enough ahead to believe that there was in store such a glori- ous future as was actually realized. As early as 1724 Cadwallader Colden, surveyor-general of New York, suggested plans for inland navigation. In 1761 General Schuyler, while in England, witnessed the construction of a canal, which to him was suggestive of improve- ment of the Mohawk, and the construction of canals around the rifts, shallows and rapids, of that stream, and across the portage at Fort Stanwix; on his return to America he urged that scheme. Taking the

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hint from General Schuyler, Sir Henry Moore, governor of the colony of New York in 1768, presented the same views to the Legislature. In 1772 Christopher Colles lectured on the subject, and in 1784 went over the same route and presented to the Legislature an elaborate re- port in favor of the plan. In 1783 George Washington, when he visited Lake Champlain and also Fort Stanwix, as narrated in another chapter, gave expression to his earnest views in the same line of thought. Next came Elkanah Watson, an ardent supporter and earnest advocate of in- land lock navigation. Extracts from his papers elsewhere published in this volume show what a rosy view he entertained of that project. Governor George Clinton was also an earnest advocate of the measure, and on his recommendation the Legislature passed an act, March 24, 1791, authorizing the Land Commissioners to cause to be explored and survey to be made, at a cost not to exceed one hundred pounds, of the ground between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek at Fort Stanwix and also between the Hudson and Wood Creek in Washington county, and to estimate the expense that would attend making the canals for loaded boats to pass, and to report the same to the Legislature. On the 30th of March, 1792, the Legislature incorporated two companies for lock navigation purposes, one called the "Northern Inland Lock Navigation Company," to connect the waters of Hudson River with Lake Champlain; the other the "Western Inland Lock Navigation Company," to connect the waters of the Hudson with Lake Ontario and Seneca Lake; the latter company to improve Mohawk River, Wood Creek, and cut canals where needed along that route. August 14, 1792, the directors of the company appointed a committee consist- ing of General Schuyler, Elkanah Watson and Goldsboro Banyar, to examine the state of the Mohawk River to Fort Stanwix and across the portage to Wood Creek. That committee commenced its labors Monday, August 20, accompanied by Moses De Witt, a surveyor, and. proceeded in a bateau up the river. In the report made by them in September thereafter to the directors, a minute account is given of the rapids, rifts, impediments and obstructions in the river from Schenec- tady to Little Falls, a distance of fifty-three miles. At this point, a canal must be cut mostly through solid rock, of three-quarters of a mile ; the height of the falls here is reported at thirty-nine feet two inches.

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The distance from thence to Fort Stanwix is placed at forty-five miles with no serious impediment to navigation, except at Orendorf's and Wolf's Rifts, east of Herkimer, and these not hard to overcome. Across the portage at Fort Stanwix to Wood Creek a canal must be cut through swamp and level ground. The water in the Mohawk about two feet higher than the water in Wood Creek. The length of the canal at this portage is placed at 5,352 feet. The estimate of the cost of this canal was 3,000 pounds. The estimate of the work at Little Falls, including five locks, was 10,500 pounds ; and the whole expense from Schenec- tady to Wood Creek was estimated at 39,500 pounds. It was estimated that the expense of removing the timber obstructing Wood Creek from Fort Newport (late U. S. Arsenal) to Oneida Lake, would be about 1,000 pounds. The committee reported that the water in Wood Creek was very low at that time, and that General Schuyler descended that stream in a bateau and found the obstructions down to Fort Bull quite trifling ; but that the creek was so shallow the bateau could not have passed without the aid of the water collected in Dominick Lynch's dam on the creek (near where Edward Evans's brewery now stands). From Fort Bull to Canada Creek the rapids were reported as many and sharp, with little water, and the obstructions from timber trifling. From Can- ada Creek was water sufficient for half a mile, but after that navigation was greatly impeded to Oneida Lake by timber in the creek, as well as by many short turns. Wood Creek was a very crooked stream and many isthmuses had to be cut to make navigation easy or practicable.

Work was commenced at Little Falls in 1793, upon the following plan : A canal at that place 4,752 feet long, of which 2,550 feet was through solid rock ; upon it were five locks with a total rise of forty- four and one-half feet. Another canal of one and a quarter miles long with a lock at Wolf Rift, German Flats. A canal one and three- quarter miles long at Fort Stanwix ; and four locks on Wood Creek with a total depth of twenty five feet. The work had to be stopped in 1794 for want of funds. It was reported to the Legislature (and so recited in the act of March 31, 1795) that only 743 shares of the stock of the Western Company had been taken, and that 240 shares had been forfeited. That act authorized the State treasurer to subscribe for 200 shares of the stock in behalf of the State, and those shares were so sub-

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scribed for. The work was then resumed and pushed ahead, so that boats first passed the canal and locks at Little Falls November 17, 1795, and on that day and the next eight large and 200 small boats were passed, at a total toll of 80 pounds, 10 shillings, exclusive of nine that passed free the first day. The chambers of the locks were 74 by 12 feet and allowed boats of thirty two tons to pass; but other impedi- ments limited boats to a burden of ten or eleven tons. Light boats could go from Schenectady to Fort Stanwix and back in nine days, but the larger boats required fourteen days to make the round trip. In 1795 Wood Creek was cleared of obstructions and thirteen isthmuses were cut across, shortening the channel seven miles. April 11, 1796, an act was passed reciting that, as the waters of the Mohawk and Wood Creek were about to be connected by means of a canal and locks at Fort Stanwix, the State advanced to the Western Company, for naviga- tion purposes, 15,000 pounds, to be paid in January, 1803, and to be secured by bond and mortgage of the real estate of that company at Little Falls; and also loaned the company a quantity of powder (one and one-half tons). In 1796 boats passed through to Oneida Lake and the work in 1797 had cost $400.000, of which the State had paid $72,- 000. The great cost required high tolls, and in 1812 only 300 boats passed, with 1,500 tons, at Little Falls. In 1808 the company gave up its rights, west of Oneida Lake, and in 1820 sold out to the State, when the work on the Erie Canal was in progress, for $152,718.52. The foregoing facts as to the cost and progress of this work are taken from the report of William Weston, who came from England to superintend, as engineer, the construction of these inland canals.

The canal through Rome, which connected the Mohawk with Wood Creek, commenced at that river, about a mile east of the business por- tion of the city of Rome, on the northerly side of the highway leading to Stanwix Village (formerly Newville), and across that road from and opposite places known 100 years ago as the William Colbraith (first sheriff of Oneida county) place; later the Dr. Stephen White place ; later the House place, and still later the Phineas Abbe and Robert Mc- Cutcheon place. At that point of starting is yet standing a frame dwell - ing, one and a half stories high, said to have been erected before 1800 by one George House, and occupied by him as the lock tender, and

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later by William Riley. The canal crossed that highway as shown by the indentation in the ground, to where the present Erie Canal is, and followed the present route of the last named canal until George street is reached. There it diverged from the present course of the Erie Canal and ran parallel with but nearer Dominick street than the Erie. An indentation in the ground and in the rear of the tier of the lots which front on Dominick street westerly of George street, indicates where the inland canal ran 100 years ago. It connected with Wood Creek near where the U. S. Arsenal was erected in 1815. There was a lock or gate at each end of this canal, viz .: one at the Mohawk and one at Wood Creek. About midway of the length of this canal was a feeder to aid in supplying it with water. From the Mohawk nearly opposite Old Fort Stanwix, a ditch was cut (starting near River street) and followed a route nearly parallel with, but easterly of, the present Black River Canal, and so on near the site of the present brass and copper mill, and on southerly to the inland canal. Old residents dis- agree as to the exact route of this feeder. Some locate it as above, while others say, that while it started as above, it went towards Fort Stanwix until it struck the channel of " Spring Brook " (now the route of the Black River Canal) and followed that course until its waters were discharged into the inland canal, and that near "Lock No. I" of Black River Canal was a bridge over that feeder (a little southerly of the present Dominick street), and under that bridge was a gate to regu- late the flow of water in the feeder.

The boats up the Mohawk and over this water route to Oneida Lake were at first from thirty-five to forty and fifty feet in length, and were pushed forward by long poles, set against the banks or bottom of the water ways, and the other end against the shoulders of the boatmen. Four men on each side of a boat were able to make from eighteen to twenty miles a day upstream, and much more down the current. These were flat bottomed boats with a plank around them for boatmen to walk on ; the usual weight was four and a half tons. Later these boats were worked by oars and a mast and sail, and could make six miles an hour against the current. The journey from New York to Albany as late as 1807, took two to five days, at a cost of $6 to $10 for each passen- ger, including board. For bulky freight the charge was forty cents a

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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

hundred pounds. Up the Mohawk freight was conveyed from Schenec- tady to Utica for seventy-five cents per hundred. From Utica to Oswego the distance was 113 miles and took nine days. This water route turned out to be expensive and large tolls had to be imposed. The result was that land transportation was a formidable rival. In No- vember, 1804, the Albany Gazette says :

A wagon load of wheat was brought by four yokes of oxen from Ontario county to Albany, a distance of 230 miles. The wheat was bought for 62} cents a bushel, and sold for $2.15}. It took 20 days to go and return.

Erie Canal .- It is uncertain who first originated the idea of construct- ing a waterway through Central New York which subsequently cul- minated in the Erie Canal. The early efforts were directed via Mohawk River, Wood Creek, Oneida Lake, and by the rivers to Lake Ontario. About 1800 Gouverneur Morris suggested ideas regarding a plan of connecting Hudson River with Lake Erie, and in 1803 he sub- mitted the outlines of such a project to Simeon De Witt, then surveyor- general of the State, but the latter looked upon it as visionary. Mr. De Witt told James Geddes, a learned surveyor of Onondaga county, of the chimerical plans of Mr. Morris. Mr. Geddes did not so consider it, and the latter conferred with Jesse Hawley on the subject ; the result was that Mr. Hawley, between October, 1807, and April, 1808, wrote a series of articles for publication in an Ontario county newspaper, in favor of Mr. Morris's scheme. This and other early ideas were crude and not well digested, and seemed to favor an inclined plane from Lake Erie eastward, by which the water was to be sent to the Hudson. As the geography and topography of the western part of the State became better known, more enlarged and practical views were developed. Judge Jonas Pratt, State senator from Oneida county from 1810 to 1814, says :

As to the merit of the first design of a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson, it be- longs in my opinion exclusively to no person. It was gradually developed to the minds of many who were early acquainted with the geography and topography of the west- ern part of the State.

Some twenty-five years ago Benjamin H. Wright, a Roman, a son of the noted engineer, wrote a series of articles for the New York Observer as to the "origin of the Erie Canal," in which much valuable informa- tion is given and in which the son justly claims that his father should

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be placed, if not in advance, in the foremost rank of those to whom the gratitude of the country is due. Judge Benjamin Wright, the noted engineer, was an assemblyman in 1807-08 (as he had been a number of years before) from Oneida county. He was a room mate at Albany that year with Joshua Forman, a leading member from Onondaga county. Judge Wright was a subscriber to Rees's Cyclopedia, then being published ; one number was just issued, which had the subject "Canals," and Judge Wright and Mr. Forman one morning discussed that subject, resulting in an agreement between them, that on the mor- row Mr. Forman should introduce a resolution in the Assembly, for the survey of a canal route from Lake Erie to the Hudson, the resolution to be seconded by Judge Wright. The latter had had great experience in land surveying all through this and the northern parts of the State, and he had also surveyed before 1800 more than one hundred miles of the Erie Canal route. Under his supervision the locks on Wood Creek had been constructed, when the Western Inland Canal was built in 1794-5. The resolution for a survey was passed in February, 1808, and $600 appropriated, to be under the supervision of Simeon De Witt. Mr. Wright and Mr. Geddes in fact made the surveys and the favorable re- port made by them attracted universal attention. That resolution for a survey was the first legislative action taken in favor of the Erie Canal. In 1810, on motion in the Senate of Senator Jonas Pratt, of Oneida, commissioners were appointed to explore the whole route for a canal. In 1811 an act was passed to provide for internal navigation of the State. June 19, 1812, the commissioners were authorized to borrow $5,000,- 000 with a view to build a canal through the State. The war of 1812 suspended further operations. On the return of peace the canal project was revived with great earnestness and yet met from the beginning with bitter opposition. It was characterized by its opponents as "Clinton's great folly," or "Clinton's big ditch." In 1815 a large public meeting was held in New York city in favor of the canal, which was addressed by Governor Clinton, Jonas Platt and others. In 1816 a board of canal commissioners was created by the Legislature, and in the spring of 1817 the law was passed authorizing the canal to be constructed. The act passed the Senate by a vote of eighteen to nine, and the Assembly by a vote of sixty-four to thirty-six. It passed the Assembly April 15,

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1817 (the last day of the session), and the contract for the middle sec- tion, from Seneca River to Utica was let in June, 1817, to John Rich - ardson, of Cayuga county, and work commenced at Rome, July 4, as elsewhere stated. October 22, 1819, the first boat passed from Utica to Rome, and what is chronologically narrated in another chapter need not here be repeated. Most of the canal through Oneida county ran through a boggy morass. The length, width and almost impassability of the " Rome swamp" have been described in another chapter.

Dr. O. P. Hubbard, now of New York city, was a resident of Rome from 1810 to 1828. He is now in the neighborhood of ninety years of age, yet he has a retentive memory and a mind as clear as spring water. He writes to the author as follows :

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Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York;, Part 22

Author: Wager, Daniel Elbridge, 1823-1896 Publication date: 1896 Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston history co. Number of Pages: 1612

Author: Wager, Daniel Elbridge, 1823-1896
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston history co.
Number of Pages: 1612