USA > New York > Orleans County > Pioneer history of Orleans County, New York, containing some account of the civil divisions of western New York > Part 11
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In the fall of 1819, I started with another man from Seneca, N. Y., to go to Lundy's Lane, in Canada. We traveled on foot with knapsacks on our backs. Passing through Rochester, then a small town and very muddy, we took the Ridge Road, then thinly settled. Before we arrived at Hartland Corners our provisions gave out ; we tried to buy some bread ; could get none ; then tried begging, with no better
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success. We went on to Buck's tavern in the Eleven Mile Woods. It was very dark when we got there and rained very hard. We had not a dry thread in our clothes, and our shoes and stockings were full of mud and water. Buck's tavern was a log house with a Dutch fire place, and had a good rousing fire. Af- ter taking some rum and supper, we hung our outer garments up to dry and went to bed. The next morn- ing we started early, and after getting through the woods, I went into a house and bought six pence worth of bread which lasted us through to Lundy's Lane. We stayed there three weeks and returned home.
In September, 1823, I set out to look me up a farm; came by way of Batavia, and through the Indian Reservation to a place now called Alabama Center. and took up sixty acres of land lying about three- fourths of a mile north of that place. I chopped the trees on about one acre, when finding half of my lot was swamp I felt sick of it and left for home, where I stayed, working out until the fall of 1825, then start- ed again and bought the place on which I have ever since resided in Barre, lot fifty-four, township fourteen. range two.
I moved to my place in January, 1826. There was a shanty on my land with a shingled roof. I got ready to begin work about February 1st, and meas- ured off ten acres of woods for my next year's work to chop, clear. fence and sow with wheat ; all of which I did, sowing the last of my wheat in October. The reason of my being so late sowing wheat was, my wife was taken sick soon after harvest. I could get no girl to work and I was obliged to take care of my sick wife and do all my work in doors, and out of doors. I had to milk, churn, work butter, wash and iron clothes, mix and bake bread, and in fact do all there was to be done. I worked on my fallow days
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and nights whenever I could leave my sick wife. At last I hired a girl, but she stayed with us only four or five days, and I then had to do housework again. My wife recovered so as to be about, the forepart of October.
I worked out some the next winter to get potatoes to eat and to plant and to pay my doctor's bill. I bought four small pigs in the summer, and beachnuts being plenty they grew finely and when killed weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds apiece. The pork was rather soft but tasted good.
The second winter I chopped about seven acres. The weather was fine, but on the night of April 13th, the wind blowing a fearful gale while we were snugly in bed, took the roof off our shanty leaving us in bed, but with neither roof or chamber floor in our house. I got up and put out the fire; we put on our clothes and taking our little girl went to Mr. Russells, our nearest neighbor, about forty rods, where we stayed until, with the help of our kind neighbors, we got up the body of another log house. In two or three weeks we had our house so far made that we moved into it and lived in it all summer without a chimney. In the fall I built a Dutch fire place and a stick chim- ney.
It was about two years after I moved on my lot be- fore the highway was chopped out either way, north or south from me. The logs and underbrush were rut so that we could drive a team through. I was poor when I came here and I lived according to my means. One-fourth pound of tea lasted us over seven months. I bonght a barrel of pork and half a barrel of beef, when I got the tea, and they were all gone in about the same time together.
We had plenty of flour and some potatoes. My cow was not used to the woods, and sometimes I could find her and again I could not, so sometimes we were
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obliged to eat our bread and potatoes for a meal. I thought it rather dry living to work hard on, but we lived through it, always hoping for "the better time coming."
The next year I fatted three fine hogs and put them all down for home use. The third summer I had over 20 acres cleared and had got to living pretty comforta bly. In July of this year I was elected Second Ser- geant in Capt. Gates Infantry Company rather against my wishes. I however accepted.
In August following I was taken sick with fever and ague which lasted me three months. I could hire no men to work for me for love or money. Almost every body was sick this year. The neighbors turned out however, late in the fall and sowed about six acres with wheat for me, and I hired a boy a month to husk corn and dig potatoes. About the time the boy got through work the ague left me and I was pretty well all the next winter. The next spring I had three fits of ague, then sores came all over my face. I had no more ague shakes for the next three or four years.
About this time my wife was taken sick with in- flammation in the bowels just at the commencement of the wheat harvest. I had fourteen acres to harvest and no one to help me. I got a physician to attend my wife, and my little girl and myself nursed her as well as we could ; and when I could be spared I went to my harvest field and worked, whether by day or night. Thus I harvested my fourteen acres and took care of my wife. Just before I finished cutting my wheat however, I was again taken with "chills" and began to shake, and kept on shaking about an hour, did not stop cradling but when the fever came on I had to quit and steer for the house and had a hard time to get there. I had two more fits, when my face broke out in sores
€
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as formerly and I had no more fever and ague. My wife getting no better, I went to find a girl to take care of her, feeling I was not able to take proper care of myself, much less of her. I traveled all day. found plenty of girls that wanted to go out to spin. but would not do housework. I went a second and third day with like results, and came home sick both in body and mind, and found my wife some bet- ter. I finally succeeded in getting a woman to help until my wife got able to be about.
I kept chopping and clearing my land as fast as I could alone, for I was not able to hire. I changed work occasionally with my neighbors, and sometimes hired a day's work. My crops were sometimes good. sometimes poor : but I got along and made money.
In July, 1833, I was elected Captain over the Com- pany in which I had served as Sergeant over four years, and I was afterwards elected Colonel. This military office, as every body knows, was not a money making business in those days ; but I had got into it and determined to carry it through to the best of my ability. It cost me much time and money, for which I received nothing back. I had the honor of com- manding as good a regiment as there was in the coun- ty, and felt proud of it. I did military duty nineteen years ; eleven years as an officer, serving as a Cap- tain before I was naturalized, or a voter in town or State. I resigned all military office April 20th, 1839.
I have labored steadily as a farmer, enjoying good health, except having the ague, as I have stated, and had a good degree of prosperity attend my labors.
JOSEPH BARKER."
March 9th, 1863.
ENOS RICE.
Enos Rice was born in Conway, Hampshire county,
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Massachusetts, in 1790, and came with his father's family in 1804, to Madison county, N. Y.
In June, 1816, with a pack on his back, he came to Barre, Orleans county, and located on lot eighteen, in township fifteen, range two, where he cleared about twenty acres. He next lived a few years in Shelby, and in 1831 bought a farm near Porter's Corners, where he has ever since resided.
Mr. Rice began in the world poor, but by persever- ing industry and frugality he has acquired a fair amount of property to make his old age comfort- able.
LUTHER PORTER.
" My father, Stephen Porter, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut. About the year 1812 or '13 he started with his wife and five children on an ox sled, with one yoke of small oxen to come to 'York State.' He had but few articles of furniture and but 865 in money. After a journey of twenty-two days, with extraordinary good luck, he landed in Smyrna, Che- mango county, N. Y., with cash redneed to $18. Here he hired an old log house in which he resided one year. Then he hitched his oxen to the old sled, and with his traps and family aboard, started for Ontario county. After traveling seven days, he ar- ' rived at his place of destination and hired a house and twenty-five acres of land.
In the fall of 1815, he took an article from the Hol- land Land Company, of the west hundred acres of lot 40, township 14, range 2, in Barre, the same on which I now reside, about three-fourths of a mile west of Porter's Corners. In March following, in company with Allen Porter, Samuel Porter and Jo- seph Rockwood, he started with provisions for five weeks, to make a beginning on their lands. They es- tablished their depot of provisions at the house of
*
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Dea. Ebenezer Rogers, in the south part of what is now the village of Albion.
They took what provisions they wanted for a week on their backs, with their axes and started through the woods to their lands, about five miles away, the snow being about knee deep.
The first thing in order was to select a place to build their cabin. The site was fixed on the farm now owned by J. W. Stocking, about twenty rods east of where Stocking's house stands. They cut such poles as they could carry and built their first cabin ten by twelve feet square, covered it with split bass- wood tronghs, got it tenable, and the colony moved in and took possession the same day. They cut hem- lock boughs and spread them on the ground, covering them with blankets, which made a good bed. The room not occupied by the bed served for culinary and dining purposes. . After thus preparing their house they commenced chopping in earnest, working through the week until Saturday afternoon, when they all re- turned to Mr. Rogers' to spend the Sabbath and get another weeks' provisions. In this way they worked until they had chopped about five acres each, when they all returned to Ontario Co., to spend the sum- mer.
In January, 1820, my father moved his family to his new home in Barre, where he made a comfortable residence the remainder of his life, and died in the fall of 1831, aged 53 years.
My father paid little more than the interest on the purchase money for his land, while he lived. It was paid for by his sons and has been a home for the family ever since.
In the spring of 1816 there was no house occupied by a family in Barre, west of the Oak Orchard Road, on the line on which my father located, although sev- eral were in process of erection. My mother died on
Bekommich Ingersoll
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
the homestead, August 1857, aged 77 years. I was my father's second son, and now own and reside on the old premises, to which I have made additions by purchase.
I was born in Ashfield, Mass., in 1805, and came to this county with my father, in 1820, being then about fifteen years old.
I have had abundant experience in pioneer life. I have chopped and logged and cleared land. I boiled black salts three or four years, a part of the time barefoot, because my father was too poor to furnish me shoes, with little other damage than the occasion- al loss of a toe nail, or a small wound in the foot from sharp stubs.
I have lived through it all, and by dint of economy and industry have advanced from poverty to compe- tence.
I have held various offices in the gift of my fellow- citizens. I was Supervisor of the town of Barre from 1857 to 1862, five successive years.
There was no school in my neighborhood for sever- al years after 1820. The first district school house built there was erected at Sheldon's Corners. The district was afterwards divided and a log school house built about a mile north of Ferguson's Cor- ners. Again the district was divided and now stands as district No. 12, with a good school house.
I married for my first wife, Lydia Scoot, daughter of Capt. Justin Scoot, of Ontario County, Oct. 20. 1830. She died Dec. 3, 1842. I married for my sec- ond wife, Caroline Culver, daughter of Orange Culver of South Barre, June 27, 1844, with whom I am still living.
Barre, May 27, 1863.
LUTHER PORTER."
NEHEMIAH INGERSOLL.
Nehemiah Ingersoll was born in Stanford. Dutchess
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Co., N. Y., in 1786. In 1816, he removed to Batavia, where he remained a year or two, then bought a farm in Elba, five miles north of Batavia, to which he re- moved and where he kept a public house several years. In April, 1822, in company with James P. Smith and Chillian F. Buckley, he bought of William Bradner one hundred acres of land in Albion, bound- ed north by the town of Gaines ; west by the Oak Orchard road ; south by Joel Bradner's farm, and ex tending east one hundred rods from the Oak Orchard Road. For this tract they paid $4,000. Mr. Inger- soll soon bought of Smith and Buckley, all their in- terest in this land.
Soon after purchasing this tract Mr. Ingersoll had a large part of it surveyed and laid out into village lots, believing a town would soon grow up. He did not immediately remove to Albion but did com- mence improving his property there.
He and his associates built the large warehouse standing on the canal at the foot of Platt street and a framed building for a store on the corner of Main and Canal streets, where the Empire block now stands.
Ingersoll & Wells (Dudley Wells) traded some years in this store, and business was carried on in the warehouse by Ingersoll and Lewis P. Buckley.
In the struggle for the location of the County build- ings, Mr. Ingersoll engaged with spirit. In competing with the village of Gaines, he offered the commission- ers appointed to locate the Court House, the grounds on which the Court House now stands as a free gift, which offer was finally accepted and the location thus secured here.
Early in 1826 he removed to Albion to reside. He was prominent among those engaged in effecting the organization of the county of Orleans from the county of Genesee, and in establishing all those institutions
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
required and consequent upon beginning a new county.
In 1835, having sold or contracted for the sale of most of his land in Albion, he removed to Detroit and en- gaged in large business there, in which he sustained severe loss : and in 1845 he went to Lee, Oneida county, N. Y., at which place he resided until his death.
Mr. Ingersoll married in his youth Miss Polly Hal- sey, daughter of Col. Nathan Halsey, of Columbia county. She died in 1831.
For a second wife he married Miss Elizabeth C. Brown, of Lee who survived him.
Mr. Ingersoll died February 21, 1868, aged eighty- two years. He was naturally of a strong constitu- tion and of an active temperament and ap- peared twenty years younger than he was. Although the later years of his life were spent away from Albion, he was often here and always manifested the deepest interest in the prosperity of the village and county of Orleans. At his request his remains were brought to Albion after his decease and deposited beside his first wife in Mount Albion Cemetery.
His second wife, Mrs. Elizabeth C. Ingersoll, died August 17th, 1869. After her marriage, she resided several years in Albion and shared with her hus- band in a feeling of attachment to the place and peo- ple, which proved itself in a generous gift of ten thousand dollars, which she made in her will to the Prostestant Episcopal Church in Albion. Both Mr. Ingersoll and his wife were members of that com- munion.
JUSTUS INGERSOLL.
Hon. Justus Ingersoll was born in Stanford, Dutch- ess county, N. Y., in 1794. He learned the trade of tanner.
On the breaking out of war with Great Britain, in
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1812, he entered the United States army as ensign in the twenty-third regiment of infantry. He served on the northern frontier in several engagements, and was in the celebrated charge on Queenstown Heights. He was promoted to the rank of Captain for meritorious service.
In one of the battles in Canada, in which he served as Captain of Infantry, he was wounded in the foot. Refusing to leave his Company, and being unable to walk, he mounted a horse and continued with his men. In another engagement he was shot through the body, the ball lodging in a rib. He refused to have it removed, as he was informed a portion of rib would have to be cut away, which would proba- bly cause him to stoop ever after in his gait.
He was a favorite with his company and much es- teemed by Gen. Scott under whom he served.
In 1818 he came to Elba, Genesee county, N. Y., and soon after settled at Shelby Center, in Orleans county, where he carried on tanning and shoe-mak- ing, and held the office of Justice of the Peace.
After the canal was made navigable, and Medina began to be settled as a village, he removed there. built a large tannery and transfered his business to that place.
He was appointed Indian Agent and postmaster at Medina, by President Jackson ; he was also Judge of Orleans County Courts.
His tannery being accidentally burned and sus- taining other misfortunes in business, he removed to Detroit with his brother Nehemiah, in 1835, where they went into the leather business on a large scale, in which they were not finally successful.
Mr. Ingersoll was a man of firm and persistent character, active and enterprising-esteemed among his acquaintances for the uprightness of his conduct
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and the courtesy of his manners. He died in 1845.
LORENZO BURROWS.
Lorenzo Burrows was born in Groton, Conn., March 15th, 1805. In his boyhood he attended the Academy at Plainfield, Conn., and Westerly, Rhode Island. In Nov., 1824, he came to Albion, N. Y., to assist his brother, Roswell S. Burrows, as his clerk. He continued to act in that capacity until in 1826, :after he attained his majority, he went in company with his brother in business under the firm name of R. S. & L. Burrows.
He assisted his brother in establishing the Bank of Albion in 1839, and after it went into operation he was appointed Cashier and devoted himself mainly to the business of the bank and to the duties of Re- ceiver of the Farmer's Bank of Orleans, until in No- vember, 1848, he was elected a Member of the House of Representatives in Congress, for the District which ·comprised Niagara and Orleans counties. He was re-elected to Congress in Nov., 1850, and served in that office, in all, four years.
Since his election to Congress he has done no busi- ness as an officer of this bank.
He was elected Comptroller of the State of New York in Nov. 1855, which office he held one term of two yearx.
In Feb., 1858, he was chosen a Regent of the Uni- versity of the State of New York, an office he has held ever since.
He was County Treasurer of Orleans county in the year 1840, and Supervisor of the town of Barre for the year 1845. He was Assignee in Bankruptcy for the county of Orleans, under the law of 1841. In the year 1862 he was appointed one of the Commis- sioners of Mount Albion Cemetery-an office to which no salary or pecuniary compensation is
-
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attached, but which is attended with considerable . labor. To this labor he has devoted all the time neces -- sary, discharging the principal part of the duties of the Commission, with what success let the beauti -- ful terraces, trees, paths, walks, avenues, roads, and' improvements which adorn this "city of the dead," and which remain the creations of his taste and skill, bear witness.
Since leaving Congress Mr. Burrows has employed? himself principally in discharging the duties of the offices above mentioned in taking care of consider- able real estate he owns in connection with his broth- er, and in his own right, in, or near Albion, and else- where ; and in the enjoyment of such leisure as an' ample fortune which he has secured in earlier life affords, in social intercourse with his family and friends.
GEORGE E. MIX.
" I was born in Greenfield, Saratoga county, N. Y .. My father's name was Abiathar Mix. In May, 1817,. when I was less than one year old, my father re- moved with his family to what is now Barre, Orleans county, N. Y. There I had my bringing up and have .. ever since resided. My Genesee cradle was a sap- trough. Genesee school rooms were log houses, log barns, and other like accommodations.
I stayed at home and worked on the farm summers, and went to schools winters when I could, until I was eighteen years of age. My father then gave me my time, saying he had nothing else he could give me" then, but that I could make his house my home.
After that I worked by the day and month summers, .. and attended school winters-went several terms tor an Academy.
At the age of twenty-three I commenced teaching. district school and taught five winters in succession ..
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
During those five years I traveled considerably in the western and southern States, and became quite a rad- ical reformer in sentiment.
I was nominated County Clerk by the Liberty Par- ty but was not elected.
I married Miss Ellen De Bow, of Batavia, N. Y .. in 1852.
I have always made a living, and got it honestly I think, and have laid by a little every year for myself .and others I have to care for. I never sued a person and never was sued. I never lost a debt of any great amount, for if a person who owed me could not pay it, I forgave the debt.
I made a public profession of religion when I was · eleven years old, and several years afterwards united with the Free Congregational Church in Gaines and re- mained a member of that Church as long as it was in being.
I never held any civil office of profit. My political principles were not formerly popular with the major- ity of the people.
I held military office in the 214th regiment N. Y. .State militia, from 1837 to 1844, and served as ensign, lieutenant and captain.
I have lived to see slavery abolished in this coun- try. The landless can now have land if they will. Now let us drive liquor and tobacco from the coun- try.
Barre, February 1869.
GEORGE E. MIX."
"THINGS I CAN REMEMBER.
BY GEORGE E. MIX.
"I can remember the dark and heavy forest that .once covered this land, with only now and then a lit- tle ' clearing' that made a little hole to let in the sunshine : the large creeks that seemed to flow and
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flood the whole country during a freshet ; the large- swamps and marshes, in almost every valley ; the wild deer that roamed the woods almost undisturbed by men ; the bear that plodded his way through the swamps and the wolf that made night hideous with. his howling.
I remember when the roads ran crooking around. on the high grounds, and when roads on the low lands were mostly causeways of logs. When almost all the houses were made of logs, and almost all the chimneys were made of sticks and mud, and the fire- places were of Dutch pattern.
But the sound of the axman was heard at his toil through the forest, hurling the old trees headlong. The woods and the heavens were lit up with the lurid. glare of fire by night, and the heavy forest soon melted away. Those little holes in the old woods, soon became enlarged to broad fields of waving grain, that glistened in the sun light.
The foaming creeks soon became rivulets, or dried up. The swamps disappeared and nothing remains to show where many of the great marshes of the old. time were. The deer, bear and wolf have departed. The crooked roads have been straightened, and the log causeways have been buried out of sight. The log houses, stick chimneys, and Dutch fireplaces, are reckoned among the things that were and are not now.
I can remember when my mother spun flax on a. little wheel and carded wool and tow by hand and spun them on a great wheel ; when she colored her- yarn with the bark and leaves of trees and had a loom, and wove cloth and made it up into clothing for her family.
I can remember when my father plowed with a wooden plow with an iron share and reaped his grain with a sickle and threshed it with a flail ; when he-
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
mowed his grass with a scythe and raked it with a hand rake. I remember when no fruit grew here but wild fruit, but we soon had peaches in profusion, bushels of them rotting under the trees.
At the first settlement of this county, fruits, such as grapes, strawberries, cranberries, blackberries, gooseberries, raspberries and mandrakes, were to be found growing wild. We had nuts from the trees, such as butternuts, chestnuts, beachnuts and wal- nuts.
Pumpkins, squashes and melons, were largely raised and of great value to the people. Pumpkins were eut in strips and dried on poles in the log cabins and kept for use the year round. Maple trees furnished us nearly all our sugar. At our fall par- ties and our husking and logging bees we had pump- kin pies. At our winter parties we had nuts and popped corn and in the summer, berries and cream.
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