USA > New York > Tioga County > Owego > Owego. Some account of the early settlement of the village in Tioga County, N.Y., called Ah-wa-ga by the Indians, which name was corrupted by gradual evolution into Owago, Owego, Owegy and finally Owego > Part 7
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
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with paralysis and rendered entirely helpless and incapaciated for busi- ness. He died at the home of his brother, Charles T. Bell, in east Main street. April 20, 1876,
Mr. Hand came to Owego in 1829 from Otsego county and entered the lumber business with John R. Drake. later purchasing judge Drake's in- terest. He died in Owego April 27, 1874, aged 73 years.
Upon the dissolution of the partner- ship of William H. Bell & Co. Mr. Hollenback continued the mercantile business with two of his sons, Geo. F. and John G. Hollenback, until the fall of 1871, when they sold their stock and directed their attention to the sale of crockery exclusively. In October, 1873, they sold their stock to D. C. Tuthill and retired from busi- ness.
For many years and until 1856 all the ground on the south side of Front street east of Paige street was one vast lumber yard, where lumber was piled for shipment down the Susque- hanna, while on the river it was being continuously made into rafts for ship- ment down to a market upon the first rise of the water.
Mr. Hollenback married Miss Jane Gordon, of Bradford county, Pa., in 1837. She died in Owego April 14. 1881. The family lived several years in the house which John Carmichael built on the Stephen Mack lot in Front street. In the summer of 1553 Mr. Hollenback built the large brick house on the south side of Front street, east of John street, where he lived until his death on December 30, 1878.
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Mr. Hollenback was three years a member of the board of village trus- tees and president of the village of Owego in 1854. He was supervisor of the town of Owego in 1850, 1851, and 1855. He was a man of public spirit and did much to improve the eastern part of the village, laying out new streets and contributing to the gen- eral improvement.
Mr. Hollenback's children were Wil- liam H., George F., Charles E., and John G. Hollenback, and Misses Alice and Mary H. Hollenback.
The Taylors came to Owego from Florida, Orange county, N. Y. Col. Wm. C. Taylor entered Dr. Jedediah Fay's drug store as a clerk in 1833. Daniel G. Taylor came in 1836 and the brothers the next year entered into the mercantile partnership with Wm .- H. Bell. Col. Taylor was for many years station agent for the New York and Erie railroad company at Jersey City. He died April 9, 1892, in Brook- lyn, aged 78 years. In 1861 when Gen. D. C. McCallum was appointed military superintendent of the rail- road of the United States, Wm. C. Taylor was appointed manager of all the military railroads, to attend to their construction, repair, etc., with the rank of colonel.
Daniel G. Taylor lived during the latter part of his life in Chicago, Ill., where he died April 28, 1898, aged 89 years.
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THOMAS COLLIER.
Thomas Collier came to Owego with his family about the year 1808. He was born in Boston, Mass., Feb. 20, 1761. His father, Richard Collier, was a brazier. He began an apprentice- ship at the printer's trade in the of- fice of his uncle, Thomas Draper, who printed one of the earliest newspa- pers in Boston. His aunt, Margaret Draper, an English woman, after the death of her husband, Thomas Dra- per, conducted the newspaper estab- lishment in her own name until the beginning of the revolutionary war. when, being a royalist in her senti- ments, her paper was made the medi- um of royal denunciations against the 'rebels." She suffered some pecuni- ary loss on account of her loyalty to the king and was compelled when Boston was evacuated by the British to leave some of her effects behind, and among them her printing estab- lishment, which fell into the hands of the "Yankee rebels." On her return to England she was rewarded with a liberal pension from the crown.
John Trumbull,the poet of the revo- lution, in his famous "modern epic poem," McFingal, written in Hudi- brastic verse and published in 1775, immortalized Mrs. Draper, speaking of her as "Mother Draper" in the first canto of the poem. The lines read as follows:
" Did not our grave judge Sewall hit The summit of newspaper wit. Filled every leaf of every paper Of Mills and Hicks, and Mother Draper. Drew proclamations. works of toil, In true sublime, of scare-crow style. Wrote farces, too. 'gainst sons of freedomt. All for your good. and none would read 'em. Denounced damnation on their frenzy. Who died in Whig impenitency ?"
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Thomas Collier did not favor the cause of the rebels, so he left Boston with his father, under the permis- sion given by Gen. Gage after the bat- tle of Lexington. He soon entered the printing office of the "Norwich Packet." a newspaper published at Norwich, Conn., by Alexander and James Robinson and he later com- pleted his apprenticeship in the office of the "Gazette" at New Haven, which was published by Thomas Greene and was then the oldest newspaper, with one exception, in Connecticut.
While living in Boston, before the outbreak of hostilities, he witnessed some of the most exciting events. He was present when the tea was thrown overboard into the harbor, and he became personally acquainted with many distinguished officers.
Mr. Collier went from New Haven to Litchfield, where he conducted the "Litchfield Monitor," a good old- fashioned, orthodox, federal paper, until 1807. Several writers of a high order of talent were among its cor- respondents, and the paper ranked among the leading journals of the union.
At this time Rev. Azel Backus, of Bethlehem, afterward president of Hamilton college, who was a contribu- tor to the paper, was indicted with Mr. Collier at the same term of the district court for libelling Thomas lef- ferson, then president of the United States. They were arrested sooll after Jefferson's election by a mar- shal and taken to Hartford, one for preaching and the other for publish- ing "false, scandalous, and defama- tory matter." Mr. Collier took his presses and type to the jail at Har-
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ford, where with Dr. Backus as col- laborator, he issued a paper which made the air of the nutmeg state blue with his denunciations of Jefferson. Dr. Backus was the grandfather of Charlie Backus, the famous negro minstrel and comedian.
While still conducting the "Litch- field Monitor" Mr. Collier established the "Gazette" at Troy, N. Y., which passed into the hands of Wright Goveneur & Stockwell. One of the members of this firm, John C. Wright, married a daughter of Thomas' Col- lier.
When the Colliers came to Owego they at first lived in a red house, which stood where F. C. Hewitt's residence now is, near the southeast corner of Front and Church streets. The Collier children were John A .. James, Daniel, Hamilton A., Mar- garet, and Nancy Collier. They af- terward removed to a house which stood on the north side of Main street, where Dr. D. S. Anderson's house is now, and there Mrs. Collier conducted a private school for chil- dren. James and Daniel Collier re- moved to Ohio.
Thomas Collier removed with his family to Binghamton about 1827. That year John A. Collier built a house in Franklin street in that city in which his parents lived the rest of their lives. In 1828 he became asso- ciated with Abial C. Cannoll in the publication of the "Broome County Republican," which had been estab- lished in 1823 by major Augustus Morgan. Cannoll & Collier published this paper until 1830, when Mr. Col- lier was succeeded by Edwin T.
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Evans, Mr. Collier died in Bingham- ton in 1842.
John A. Collier, who became the most prominent of Thomas Collier's sous was born Nov. 13, 1787, at Litch- field, Conn. He was graduated from Yale college, studied law at Troy, and came to Owego for the purpose of practising his chosen profession, but there were at that time fewer law- vers in Binghamton than in Owego, so he went to Binghamton ;1 1809, where he became one of the foremost lawyers in this part of the state. He was district attorney of Broome county in 1818, and in 1830 he was elected to Congress. In 1844 he was elected comptroller of the state. During the presidency of Mil- lard Fillmore he was offered the col- lectorship of the port of SanFran- cisco, but declined it. He died in Binghamton March 24, 1873.
When Mrs Margaret Draper went to England she took with her her niece, a sister of Thos. Collier, then a little girl. The niece lived with her aunt in London until she was grown. and then married a man named Hanı- ilton, who was for some time clerk of the house of lords. It was in honor of him that Hamilton A Collier re- ceived his name.
Hamilton A. Collier opened a gen- eral county store in the fall of 1823 in the white store at the northwest corner of Lake and Front streets. The next spring he removed to the south side of Front street opposite where the Ahwaga house now stands. He later removed into judge Drake's building, opposite Lake street. In 1827 he removed to Binghamton and began the study of law in the office
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MAJOR HORATIO ROSS.
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of his brother, John A Collier. In 1829 he was admitted to the bar. He was district attorney of Broome county from April 10, 1833, to the 20th of the following May, and again from Dec. 1, 1837, to Feb. 12, 1842. He was appointed surrogate in Feb- ruary, 1840, and held the office four years. He subsequently removed to Oberlin, Ohio, where he died in 1865.
MAJOR HORATIO ROSS.
Major Horatio Ross, a bachelor, was fifty years old when he came to Owego in 1805. He was accompanied by his two maiden sisters, Misses Margaretta A. and Nancy Ross. They came from Frederick, Maryland, with ninety thousand dollars in their pos- session, of which sum each owned $30,000. The father of the Rosses owned one of the largest iron works in Virginia and was a man of great wealth.
Major Ross and his sisters brought two slaves with them. He began a general mercantile business here and made large investments. He pur- chased land on the south side of Front street, west of the west line of Lake street. On the lot how occupied by the fifth store west of the Lake street line he built a large wooden store and painted it red. The build- ing was two stories high in front and three stories in the rear, and back of it on the river was a wharf, where produce, etc., were loaded into arks and shipped down the Susquehanna to a market.
Major Ross was unsuccessful in business and in 1818 he failed, losing all his own money and that of his two sisters also. His real estate was
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all sold on a mortgage foreclosure in February, 1819. His store was subsequently occupied by W. T. Coit, dealer in dry goods, groceries, and crockery. In the winter of 1826-27 the building was burned.
Among Major Ross's clerks were Charles Talcott, who afterward be- came one of the most successful mer- chants in Owego; Chas. Trowbridge, who went from Owego, to Detroit Mich., and John J. McDowell, who in 1830 and 1831 represented Tioga county in the assembly. After his failure in business Major Ross con- tinued his residence here. He had charge of the Tioga county clerk's of- flce as deputy clerk from 1823 until his death in 1828.
Major Ross was a polished south- ern gentlemen of the old school, and he lived in a manner commensurate with his wealth. With his sisters he occupied a large white house which stood on the north side of Main street, nearly opposite Park street. This house was later owned and occu- pied by the widow of Gen. John Lan- ing.
In June, 1805, Dr. Samuel Barclay purchased the lot on the northwest corner of Front and Ross streets of John Hollenback. There was no Ross street there then. Dr. Barclay gave a mortgage for a part of the purchase. The mortgage was fore- closed Oct. 10, 1807, and Major Ross purchased the property for the third one of his sisters. Mrs. Arianna Steu- art. The house that Dr. Barclay had built thereon was occupied by Major Ross and his sisters, and when Ross street was opened it was named Ross street in his honor. This house was
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for many years after Major Ross's death the residence of judge Thomas Farrington and is now owned and oc- cupied by Mrs. Benj. W. Loring.
While living in this house Miss Nancy Ross died in July, 1817, aged 45 years, and her body is said to have been the first one buried in the Presbyterian burying ground in Tem- ple street. After her death Mrs. Steuart came from Maryland and ilved with Major Ross and his sister. Miss Margaretta Ross. Mrs. Steuart was a woman of wealth and practi- cally supported the whole family un- til Major Ross's death in November. 1828, at the age of 73 years. His body is buried in the Presbyterian churchyard.
In February, 1829, after major Ross's death, Mrs. Steuart sold the Ross house to Charles Talcott, and then removed with her sister, Mar- garetta, to Washington.
Mrs. Steuart's only child, Arianna Steuart, became the wife of Gov. Smith, of New Hampshire. It is said that there was a fourth sister, who became the wife of an English earl.
The portrait of Major Ross accom- panying this article is from a photo- graph made by Mr. LaSon from a water color owned by Wm. H. Ellis. The painting was given by Major Ross to Charles Talcott and by him to Geo. B. Goodrich. It is not known who the painter was, but he was an artist of good ability, as the portrait is a finely executed one.
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ELEAZER DANA.
The first practising lawyer in Owe- go was Eleazer Dana, who came here in 1800 and who was the youngest son of Rev. Anderson Dana, who lost his life in the massacre of Wyoming.
Rev. Anderson Dana was a grand- son of Richard Dana, who was born in France April 15, 1612, and who died at Cambridge, Mass., in 1690. Jacob Dana, his son, who was born in 1664, had a son also named Jacob Dana, who was born in 1698. Rev. Anderson Dana was a son of Jacob Dana (2) and was born in 1733. His wife was Susanna Huntington.
Rev. Anderson Dana was a lawyer of handsome attainments. He removed in 1773 from Ashford, Conn., to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where he became a clergyman and was active in estab- lishing free schools. In April, 1778. he was elected a member to the gen- eral assembly, which met at Hart- ford, Conn., in May. The Wyoming massacre was on July 3, 1778.
Mr. Dana had just returned from his duty as a member of the Hart- ford assembly. He mounted his horse and rode from town to town, arous- ing the people for the coming con- flict. Although exempt by law from military duty, he entered the ranks with his neighbors and rushed into the fray. He fell dead early in battle. brained by an Indian's hatchet. His son-in-law, Stephen Whiton, a young schoolmaster from Connecticut, who had but a few weeks previous married Mr. Dana's daughter, also fell.
Soon after the massacre Mrs. 'Dana, with Mrs. Whiton, and Mrs. Dana's seven young children, on foot and suf-
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fering many hardships, returned to her former home at Pomfret, Conn., after an absence of five years.
Rev. Anderson Dana had five sons. One of them, Daniel Dana, was in school at Lebanon, preparing to enter Yale college, at the time of his father's death. He afterward lived in this state and was a judge of the courts.
Anderson Dana, Jr., was nine years old at the time of the massacre. He afterward returned to Wyoming to take charge of his father's estate and lived on the homestead until his death.
Another son, Sylvester Dana, lived at Concord, N. H.
Eleazer Dana, the youngest son, studied law in the office of Vincent Matthews at New Town (now El- mira) and after his admission to the bar, in 1800, came to Owego, where he became distinguished in his pro- fession.
In September, 1806, he purchased the lot on the north side of Front street, on which the residence of Lewis H. Leonard now stands. This property extended north to Main street, which was then known as "the back street," and contained two acres of land. There was a barn on the west end of the lot and a small vel- low house, in which Mr. Dana lived several years. His law office was in a small building on the bank of the river on the opposite side of the street. Mr. Dana later built in the place of the yellow house a large white house, in which he lived until his death in 1845.
Thomas I. Chatfield several years afterward became owner of the Front
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street part of the property. He built the present large brick residence on the lot, after the Dana house had been removed to the west side of Cen- tral avenue, where it was for several years the large double house in the row of old wooden buildings, a monu- ment to the architectural taste and thrift of Dr. James Wilson.
Mr. Dana was a leading spirit in all public affairs. He was one of the in- corporators of the old Ithaca and Owego turnpike company in 1807, and one of the first commissioners of pub- lic schools in 1813. He was chosen to succeed Capt. Luke Bates as one of the trustees of Owego settlement in 1813. He was the second postmas- ter of the village, appointed April 28. 1802, and he held the office until May 11, 1816. During his incumbency the office was kept at his law office. He was one of the original trustees of the Presbyterian church in 1810, and held the office during his life. He was the first secretary of Friendship lodge, F. & A. M., in 1806. He was one of the first trustees of Owego when it was organized as a village in 1827 and was also one of the trustees of the old academy from 1828 until his death. He was supervisor of the town of Owego in 1814, surrogate of Broome county in 1806, member of assembly in 1808-9 and district attor- ney of Tioga county from 1823 to 1826.
In the centennial history of Tioga county (1876) William F. Warner says of Mr. Dana: "His tall and commanding figure and benignant features would have rendered him a noticeable person in any community. He was, above all, a just man, and his
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life was marked by constant acts of beneficience."
Eleazer Dana was born Ang. 12, 1772. In October, 1801, he married Mary Stevens. The children of Eleazer and Mary (Stevens) Dana were as follows:
1. Cyrus Dana, born 30 Sept., 1805. Married 20 Sept., 1827, Elizabeth Col- lins Stockwell, who was born 1 Sept., 1806, and died at Owego 27 July, 1847. He died 7 Dec., 1847, at Niles, Mich. Cyrus Dana was a lawyer and was admitted to the bar of Tioga county in 1827.
2. Alexander Hamilton Dana, born 4 July, 1807. Married Augusta Rad- cliff 27 May, 1832. He removed to New York city, where he died 27 April, 1887.
3. Susan Huntington Dana, born 4 July, 1807. Married Henry S. Wal- bridge 25 Dec., 1829, and died 15 Aug., 1834.
4. Laura Smith Dana, born 18 July, 1810; died 14 July, 1828.
5. Eleazer Stevens Dana, born 20 July, 1812; died 1 Jan., 1818.
6. Mary Stevens Dana, born May 10, 1814. Married Edward Radcliff 14 May, 1834. Died 9 Jan., 1841.
7. Charlotte Julia Dana, born 19 March, 1816. Married George H. Jerome 9 July, 1847. Died 25 Aug .. 1893.
8. Helen Jane Dana, born 27 Sept., 1817. Married William Fiske Warner 7 May, 1846. Died 31 Dec., 1885, at Waverly, N. Y.
William F. Warner was for several years one of the most prominent resi- dents of Owego. He was born Jan. 18, 1819, at Hardwick, Vt., and came to Owego in 1834 and entered William Pumpelly's store as a clerk. He lived with Mr. Pumpelly's family and soon became manager of Mr. Pumpelly's business. Later he studied law in Col. N. W. Davis's office and was admitted to the bar in 1843. He was for nine
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years Col. Davis's law partner and later a member of the law firms of Warner, Tracy & Walker and Warner Tracy and Catlin. Mr. Warner was a lover of good literature, a student, and a man of fine culture and taste. He travelled through Evrope and wrote entertainingly of his travels. He was one of the most public spirited men in Owego. He organized the Owego gas company, of which he was president, superintendent, and treasurer many years. He was clerk of the village from 1848 to 1854, and was the first president of the village elected direct by the people in 1854 under the new charter. He was re- elected in 1856 and 1857.
Mr. Warner was an interested student of the history of this country. particularly of the Indian history of this vicinity. In 1876 he wrote by re- quest the centennial history of Tioga county. This was a remarkable 1In- dertaking. The time in which to ac- complish the work was necessarily limited, yet the work was successfully accomplished within the time pre- scribed. Mr. Warner was also the leading spirit in organizing the cele- bration of the battle of New Town and erecting a monument in com- memoration thereof in 1879. He died at Waverly Nov. 7, 1890.
One of the law students in Eleazer Dana's office was his nephew, Amasa Dana, who afterward removed to Ithaca and became one of the most prominent men in Tompkins county. He was a son of Aziel Dana, who was a son of Rev. Anderson Dana.
When Gen. Sullivan had driven the Indians from the Wyoming valley, Mrs. Anderson Dana and her children
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returned from Connecticut to her
lonely home, near Wilkes-Barre. There Aziel Dana married Rebecca Cory, who had escaped the massacre, and there Amasa Dana was born in 1792.
In 1805, after his father's death and when only twelve years of age, Amasa Dana walked from Wilkes-Barre to Owego with his shoes hanging over his shoulder and his bundle of shirts, stockings, etc., over the other shoul- der, to the home of his uncle, Eleazer Dana. He afterward studied law in his uncle's office. He held the office of district attorney, first judge, and member of assembly of Tompkins county, and president of the village of Ithaca. He was a member of the 26th and 28th congresses. He died at Ithaca Dec. 24, 1867.
Eleazer Dana died in Owego May 1, 1845. His wife died Nov. 16, 1860), aged 82 years.
CAPT. ISAAC BARTLETT.
Among the mechanics who settled in Owego in the early part of the eighteenth century were Capt. Isaac Bartlett and his sons Joseph and Robert S. Bartlett, blacksmiths and gunsmiths. They came from Salis- bury, Conn. They are said to have come in 1813.
The family in America is descended from Robert Bartlett, who came from England to Plymouth, Mass., in the ship "Ann" in 1623. One of his de- scendants, Sylvanus Bartlett, was a soldier in the revolution, and the lat- ter's son, also named Sylvanus, was the father of Capt. Isaac Bartlett.
Capt. Bartlett was born at Ply- mouth, Mass., and later lived at Salis-
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bury, Conn., where his children were born. He was a blacksmith and wagon maker, and two of his sons, Joseph and Robert S. Bartlett, were gunsmiths. The children were Joseph, Alvin, Robert S., Isaac L., William B., Charles, Eliza, Abigail. and Jerusha Bartlett. All of the fam- ily did not come to Owego. One of the daughters became the wife of James Weed, who removed to Wi- nona, Minn., and another married Chester J. Manning, who was land- lord of the old Owego hotel from 1S3S to 1849, and who removed to Water- loo. N. Y.
Capt. Bartlett's blacksmith and wagon shop was on the west side of Park street, near Main street. In June, 1829, Joseph Bartlett had pos- session of the shop and tookasa work- ing partner Benjamin N. Johnson. whom Capt. Bartlett recommended in an advertisement as "a gentleman re- cently from New England of irre- proachable character, a first-class workman. of industrious habits."
In October, 1830, Joseph and Robert Bartlett purchased the lot on the east side of Lake street between the pres- ent post office building and the new Owego hotel, which they had occu- pied a few years. This lot had a front of fifty feet on Lake street and was 115 feet deep. On the south end of this lot was a blacksmith shop. said to have been the oldest one in the village, of which they had pos- session. The same month they pur- chased of Charles Pumpelly the lot on the south side of Main street, on which they built a house. This house stood where the Central house barn was afterward built and
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where the new theatre is now being constructed. James Conklin's wagon shop was between this house and the old tavern at the Lake street corner.
There was in those days plenty of wild game in the woods, which cov- ered much of the country, and there was a good demand for guns, partici- larly rifles. The barrels for the guns were mostly imported from Germany. The process of drilling the barrels of a rifle by hand was a slow and tedious one, usually taking two days. The stocks were cut into shape with a drawing knife, filed, polished. orna- mented with brass or iron work, and Varnished.
Joseph and Isaac Bartlett engaged in the manufacture of guns. They removed to Binghamton in 1829, where they continued the manufac- ture of fire arms. The engraving on the gun barrels was done by Isaac L. Bartlett, who was born in 1813, the year his father and brothers came to Owego, and to perfect him in this work he was sent abroad by his older brothers to receive instruction.
There was not a sufficient home de- mand for all the guns manufactured by the Bartletts, and many were sold elsewhere. Joseph Bartlett some- times loaded them in a stage and drove with them to Cincinnati, Ohio. the trip occupying several weeks' time. There they were shipped in boats and sent down the Ohio and Mississippi river to New Orleans. This was in the days when cash was scarce and exchange of goods and commodities the rule, and the rifles were sometimes exchanged for west- ern horses, which were brought to Binghamton and converted into cash.
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