USA > New York > Orleans County > Pioneer history of Orleans County, New York, containing some account of the civil divisions of western New York > Part 19
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
After working hard at a log raising, and taking cold after it, I was awakened in the night by an aw- ful 'shaking' and could not tell what it meant, but found out sure enough afterward.
In the spring of 1816, I went to work in good earnest to clear a patch of land on which to raise a little of the needful, and behold in June there came a frost and spoiled all our labor and made our corn- fields in the wilderness, instead of . blossoming like the rose,' look as though the fire had run through them.
The next fall I was taken down with the ague ' proper,' and in attempting to break it up I made it worse, until it became awful. I then made up my mind to make my way back to Massachusetts. But how was I to do it ? I was so weak I could not walk a mile. Finally I found some men going to Vermont, and agreed with them to take me along with them and let me ride part of the time. If I could remem- ber their names I would record them with gratitude for their kindness.
-
276
PIONEER HISTORY
I found my unconquerable will had a wonderful effect upon my body. I had no more ague on my journey, though I had it every day before I set out. I went to Massachusetts, and remained till I got well re- cruited, and nothing daunted by what I had suffered, I determined to return again to the west, and Janua- ry 17th, 1817, I was married to Miss Miriam Deming, and in February following, with my wife, my brother and his wife and one child, Eri Twitchell and wife, and Nathaniel Brown, we started with three yoke of oxen hitched to a huge covered wagon. The perils of that journey were neither few nor small in pass- ing over mountains covered with snow and ice, sidling roads with yawning gulfs below, and crossing streams on ice, and floundering through snow drifts, with a constant headwind blowing in our faces for twenty-two days together.
When we arrived in the neighborhood of our new home, our neighbors hailed our coming with joy, and wanted a little flour just to make a cake. I suppose they had gathered some sticks and had baked their last meal.
We moved into a small log hut with only one room the fireplace against the logs at one end, with a stick chimney, bark roof and floor. Taking it altogether we thought it a terrible place to live in.
We had three yoke of oxen and nothing for them to cat, this was the worst of all. We turned them into the woods and cut browse for them, but the poor cattle suffered much.
In the next spring we had to pay one dollar a bushel for potatoes, and a like price for oats, and no money to buy with at that. We got some potatoes to plant and they came up twice, once by natural growth and once rooted up by the hogs. We set them out again, my wife helping me, for she was a true 'yoke fellow.'
,
277
OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
So we plodded on through the summer, with wheat costing $2.50 a bushel, pork twenty-five cents a pound. Our first child was born Sept. 24th of this year. It was very feeble, and remained so for a long time, its mother having the fever and ague every day for nearly seven months, and taking care of her child the most of the time. At six months old the child weighed only four pounds ! Thus we toiled on for three years. The third year we raised wheat and other crops enough for our comfort, and had built a framed ad- dition to our house. Our prospects now seemed fav- orable for going ahead, but in March following, our house took fire and was consumed, together with all our provisions, and nearly all our household furniture. Under the circumstances, this was a sore trial to us. We then had three children, and no where to lay our heads. We had nothing to eat except what came from charity. Our neighbors were poor but exceedingly good.
After a while we got another house and toiled on. getting together some of this world's goods. We had ten children, all of whom lived to grow up to be men and women. We have sent nine of them to school at once.
My wife died July 30, 1857, aged 64 years. I have never experienced any calamity in my life that afflicted me like her death, with such severity.
For several years after I came into this country, I spent considerable time going far and near to assist in raising log buildings. Sometimes going several miles and carrying my dinner in my hand.
Mr. H. W. Bates and myself were accustomed to labor much together, changing works. In the winter of 1816, we went a mile into the woods to chop ; there by accident a tree fell on him crushing him badly. Had he been alone he would have perished. On an- other occasion Mr. Bates and another man with my-
278
PIONEER HISTORY
self, went two miles into the woods one day in June, and felled the timber on two acres. I think the like was never done in that neighborhood before or since.
In the early settlement of the Genesee country, in- temperance prevailed to an alarming extent. Almost everybody drank whisky free as water when they could get it, and I am surprised so many escaped total and eternal ruin. Many years ago I saw the evil and totally abandoned the use of every thing that intoxicates as a beverage and labored faithfully as I could to save others. For my zeal and persistence in opposing the traffic in liquor, I have suffered much from rumsellers. At an early day I have seen Justi- ces Courts in session with a bottle of whisky on the table before them, thus polluting the fountains of justice with the vile abomination, and if the Honorable Court happened to become too much ab- sorbed with the creature, they would adjourn over to cool off.
I have had a large experience in hunting bears, deer, raccoons and wolves, and camping out in the ยท woods in cold and storm, without fire or food, working out in the dead of winter, eating frozen dinners in the woods, sharing fully my part in all sorts of hardships which fell to the lot of the first settlers here. I have endured it all, and lived to a good old age, thankful to that good Providence which has carried me through so far and so safely.
ADIN MANLEY." Albion, February 26th, 1861.
Mr. Manley died in Albion. July 29th, 1867, aged 74 years.
ROBERT CLARK.
" I was born in Lisbon, Connecticut, October 25th, 1801. My ancestors came to America.from England some time in the sixteenth century. My father re-
279
OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
moved to Columbus, Chenango county, N. Y. in 1805. In 1810 he removed to Utica, and in 1817 he settled with his family on what was then called the Triangle Tract, near the county line, and between the towns of Kendall and Hamlin, about three miles from Lake Ontario. The place was then called Clark's settle- ment, because three brothers of the name of Clark settled there. My uncles, Caleb and James settled there one year before my father, whose name was William Clark, came on, which was quite a help to us, for they had a little wheat sown, and some corn and potatoes planted.
When my father arrived there was not a pound of pork or flour in the settlement, except what he brought with him ; and the next day the pork, flour and whis- ky were divided among the neighbors.
One reason for the entire destitution among the set- tlers was the anticipation of my father's arrival, for they all knew he would bring a supply for a time, and so neglected to provide for themselves otherwise.
The names of the families then in the settlement were Bates, Priest, Randall, Balcom, Ross, Clark and two by name of Manley.
The settlers, in anticipation of our coming had peeled elm bark in the month of June previous, enough to form a roof to a house, and on our arrival they commenced cutting logs for a house, and to clear a spot of ground large enough to set it on, and in a few days it was raised and covered with bark, in true pioneer style. They also split basswood and hewed slabs for a floor, which covered about two-thirds of the surface of the room, the remainder being left for the fire place and hearth.
We now moved into our new house and commenced our pioneer labors.
The door of our house was a bed blanket, and win- dows were hardly necessary, for our house was not
280
PIONEER HISTORY
'chinked ' and sufficient light came in through crevi- ces between the logs, and a large space was left open in the roof for the smoke to pass through. Our fire place was the entire end of the house, and our hearth the solid earth.
My father soon obtained some boards and made a door and temporary windows. The next thing to be done was to chink the cracks between the logs. This being done, we dug up the soil and wet it and made mud with which we plastered the outside over the chinks, which made our house quite warm and com- fortable.
About this time our stock of provisions began to get short, and the entire settlement was getting hard up for something to eat ; but as potatoes were about ripe we had plenty of them, and as we had a cow we lived quite well until we could get wheat ground, which at that time was very difficult. Before our wheat was hard enough to grind, our mother hulled and boiled it and we ate it with milk, and we thought it very good eating.
This state of things did not last long, for my broth- er James had a great propensity for hunting, my father having bought him a gun ; he very soon sup- plied ns with venison which proved a luxury in the way of meat.
At length our wheat crop having matured, a grist for each neighbor was prepared, and I started with an ox team and about twelve bushels of wheat, which with fodder for the oxen by the way, was about as much as the team could draw. I staid at Murray Corners, now Clarkson, the first night, and the next day, a little before night, I got to the mill at Roches- ter, chained the oxen to the wagon and fed them for the night. I slept that night on the bags in the mill until my grist was ground, which was completed about daylight. After feeding my team and eating
281
OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
my venison, I started for home and got there about sundown the third day out. The next morning, I guess, all the neighbors had short cake for breakfast.
I will now give a description of what was called an Indian Mill which was used to some extent by the early settlers. We selected a solid stump of a tree in a suitable place near the house, cut a hole in the top with an axe, deep as we could, and then built a fire in the hole burning it, and putting in hot stones until it was sufficiently deep for a mortar. We then made a pestle of hard wood, took a strip of elm bark tied one end to the pestle and the other to the top of a limber sapling tree that would bend directly over the mortar, making a spring pole, which completed the machine. Put a quart of corn into this mortar, and a man could soon convert it into samp -- coarse meal-which when well boiled, made very good eat- ing in milk. The Indians used it almost exclusively for bread.
I had never chopped down a tree or ent off a log when I first came into the forest. The next morning after arriving in the woods, I took an ax and went to where my father was preparing to build his house, and commenced chopping down a tree perhaps six inches through. I chopped all around the tree till it fell. When the tree started to fall, I started to run, and if the tree had not lodged on another, Iknow not but I should have been killed, for I ran in the same direction the tree was falling. I was so scared at this my first attempt at falling timber, that I picked up my ax which I had thrown away in my fright, and made tracks for the house, concluding to chop no more until I had learned how to do it.
The first school in the settlement was taught by Gurdon Balcom, the next by Wesley Randall. The first minister of the gospel who preached in this set- tlement was Elder Randall, a Methodist and a very
282
PIONEER HISTORY 1
good man. Dr. Theophilus Randall was the first physician.
In the fall of 1818 I went to Oneida county, and learned the art of distilling whisky, which at this time was a very popular business. My mother died while I was there, which nearly broke up our home cirele, and which was to me particularly, a cause of great sorrow.
I returned home in June following and found my father's family, as I expected, in a very lonely con- dition. I went to work with my father and brothers, clearing land and securing our crops. When that was done, I went back to Verona and worked in a distillery another winter. Next spring I returned and worked in Whitney's distillery in Rochester, and the fall after I went to Toronto, in Canada, and erect- ed the first steam distillery ever erected in Canada, which at that time was one of the curiosities of the age.
I worked thousands of bushels of the finest wheat I ever saw into whisky. The wheat was bought for two and six pence per bushel.
The next June I returned home, my father in the meantime had married again and moved to Le Roy, having let out his farm in Murray. I worked in Le Roy and Clarendon. I became 21 years old October 25th, 1822. I took a job clearing land in Le Roy, for which I received $600. My father's fam- ily and myself then moved back to Murray, and I paid up the balance for his farm.
I married Anna Augur, daughter of Felix Augur, of Murray, now Kendall, Feb. 18, 1824. Mr. Augur had come in from Vermont the year previous, and bought his land of the State of Connecticut for $3.00 an acre, Dr. Levi Ward was the land agent. Mr. Augur was a soldier in the Revolutionary War.
283
OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
Gen. C. C. Augur, now of the United States army, is his grandson.
The next spring after I was married, I bought a piece of land in Clark's settlement, which had some work done on it, and went to keeping house there.
I chopped over twenty acres with my own hands, all but four days help of a man. I then sold out my chance on this lot, and bought fifty acres in another place ; which is a part of my present farm. It was then entirely wild, so that I commenced again in the woods.
I bought it second-handed, and agreed to pay eight dollars per acre. I worked some on my land, work- ed out some by the day and by the job ; but as grain brought but a small price, I concluded that was a pretty hard way to get a living, and built a distillery near my farm. At this time settlers had come in in numbers. Grain was raised in plenty, with no cash market for it. Money was scarce, and the little we had was what we received for ashes. Wo cut and burned our timber and made black salts from the ashes, which brought cash. I have carried ashes on my back to market, until my shoulders were blister- ed, to get a little money to buy necessaries for my family. I built my distillery because grain was plenty and cheap. I could distill it, take it to mar- ket at Rochester and sell it for cash, at a good profit to me and to the settler, who sold me his grain, which he could not take to another market and make as much from it ; and he could raise grain easier than he could make and market black salts.
I sold my distillery in 1830, and determined to make farming the business of my life after that.
The year 1828 is well remembered and distinguish- -ed, as being ' the sickly season,' through this country. The sickness began in July, and in Angust there were not well persons enough in town to take care of the
284
PIONEER HISTORY
sick. And in this neighborhood there was but one well man, Ammon Augur, and not one well woman, that could get out of the house. Many families suf- fered much for lack of help. My family was all sick. One day Dr. Robert Nichoson was the only person who entered my house. He called, prepared our medicine and left it at the head of our beds, and went on to other scenes of suffering. That was the most gloomy day I ever saw. My wife crept from her bed to mine, holding up by the door post, to see if I was alive, and then got back to her bed, where lay our little daughter, equally helpless. We all spent a dreary night. My hired man was down sick at the same time. The next day we got help. The years 1826 and 1827 were also sickly years. I could give many cases of suffering in those times, but amid it all we had our pleasures, for we were all brethren and loved one another.
Kendall, March, 1864.
ROBERT CLARK."
SAMUEL BATES
Was the first white man who settled in what is now Kendall. He was born in Haddam, Conn., Aug. 9, 1760. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, during the last three and a half years of its continu- ance, serving in a New Hampshire regiment. He win- tered with Gen. Washington at Valley Forge, and participated in several important battles. He served under Gen. Sullivan in his memorable expedition against the Indians in Western New York. He had a fondness for military life and service ; a trait of character transmitted to his descendants, and honor- ably exemplified in his grandson, Lieut. Col. Willard W. Bates, who was killed while leading his regiment, the 8th Heavy Artillery, N. Y. Vols., in a bloody. battle before Petersburg, Va., in the war of the Re- bellion.
285
OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
From what Mr. Bates saw while with Gen. Sullivan he early formed a desire to settle in the Genesee coun- try, a wish he was afterwards enabled to gratify.
After leaving the army, Mr. Samuel Bates resided several years in Randolph, Vt., removing from thence to Burlington, Vt. Leaving his family in Burlington, he came to Kendall, and took up lot 111, town 4, of the 100,000 acre tract, having the land . booked' to him, as they called it, that is, having the agent of the State of Conn. note on his books that he had gone in- to possession, with a view of securing his right to the land when it should come in market for sale. Of this land, in due time he got a title and it is now owned by his son, Capt. H. W. Bates.
The first year he was in Kendall, he cleared sever- al acres of land in the summer of 1813, he sowed two acres to wheat, built a log cabin, and returned to Burlington after his family, and brought them to Kendall in June 1814. His eldest son, Capt. H. W. Bates, then about twenty-one years old, accompanied him.
On arriving at his new log house he found his wheat field in full head, looking fine. The crop so raised furnishing bread for the family the next year.
Mr. Bates and his family, coming as they did from the Green Mountains of Vermont, suffered severly from fever and ague, some of the first years after they came to Kendall. They were all sick, Mr. Bates himself never fully recovering from his acclimating fever. He died August 21, 1822.
AMOS RANDALL.
Amos Randall was born in Ashburnham, Mass. January 3, 1788. He married Fanny Tabor in 1814. She was born in Shelburne, Vt., Feb. 11, 1793.
In 1814, they removed to Avon, and in the spring of
286
PIONEER HISTORY
1815, settled in Kendall, on the farm now occupied by his son, Hon. Gideon Randall, where he after- wards resided, and died Aug. 28, 1830. Mr. Randall was a public spirited man, and entered zealously into every undertaking for the benefit of his neighbor- hood. He acted frequently as counselor and arbitra- tor among the settlers, to aid in arranging business matters, in which his neighbors needed such help.
The first school house was erected on his land where the stone school house now stands.
The first cemetery in town was located on his farm and the first burials of the dead were there.
He was a Supervisor of the town of Murray before the county of Orleans was organized, or Murray had been divided into the several towns which now include its original territory. He left six children, viz : Charles T., Gideon, who resides on his paternal home- stead, Dr. James W. now a practicing physician in Albion, Fanny E. wife of O. M. Green, George W. and Amos S.
DAVID JONES.
David Jones was born in Pembrokeshire in Wales, July 17, 1792. He removed to America with his father's family in the year 1801. His father settled in New Jersey and his son David remained with him until he was eighteen years old, then came to Ontario county, New York, where he resided four years, and then settled in Kendall in 1815.
He married Miss Catharine Whitney February 24, 1824. Their children are Claudius, who married Harriet Weed and resides in Illinois ; Thomas, un- married ; Almiretta S. J. married C. G. Root ; Seth married Sylvia Shelly ; Cynthia Ann married James R. Whitney, and David who married Lucy A. Chase all of whom reside in Kendall.
Mr. Jones was poor when he settled in Kendall and
David Jones
287
OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
bought his land on credit. He was a large strong man able and willing to labor. He cleared and im- proved a large farm and became a wealthy man.
Sickness in his family and the want of a market for farm produce made it very difficult for him to ob- tain means to pay for his land improvements for some years at first. He said he agreed to pay four hundred dollars for his first hundred acres, and it was fifteen years before it was all paid.
He was a man of strong native intelleet and of sound judgment in matters that come within his ob- servation or experience, but he never had the benefit of much instruction in school.
He died January 26, 1869.
CHAPTER XXI.
TOWN OF MURRAY.
Towns Set Off-First Tavern-First Marriage - First Birth - First Death-First Store-First Grist Mill-First School-First Church -Sandy Creek-McCall & Perry's Mill-Sickness at Sandy Crcek -Biographies of Early Settlers.
LARGE part of the western portion of Monroe county was at first incorporated by the Leg- islature in March 1802, as Northampton. The town of Murray was formed from Northampton in June, 1812. It received its name in honor of John Murray, a merchant of the city of New York, who was a large proprietor.
Murray, at its formation, included what now com- prises the town of Murray, Kendall, Clarendon, Union or Hamlin, Clarkson and Sweden.
Sweden, which included Clarendon, was formed from Murray in 1813, and Clarkson, which included Hamlin, in 1819.
Kendall was set off in 1837, leaving the town of Murray of its present dimensions.
The first inn was kept in 1809, by Epaphras Mat- tison.
Messrs. Wait, Wright, Sisson, Farnsworth, and Rockwood, were among the earliest settlers.
The first marriage was that of Solomon C. Wright and Tryphena Farnsworth.
The first birth was that of Betsey Mattison.
The first store was at Sandy Creek, by Isaac Leach, in 1815. '
289
OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
The first gristmill was built by Perry and Luce in 1817.
The first school was kept by Fanny Ferguson, in 1814.
The first town meeting in the old town of Murray, before it was divided, was held in the barn of John- son Bedell, about four miles south of Brockport.
The first church formed in this town was the Con- gregational by Rev. John E. Bliss, January 5th, 1819.
The first settlements in what is now included in the town of Murray were made on the Ridge at and near Sandy Creek.
Epaphras Mattison first settled here in 1809. In the year 1817, some fifteen or twenty families had located at Sandy Creek, and in that year Henry McCall and Robert Perry built mills on the creek, their dam raising the water so as to overflow eighteen or twenty acres then covered with heavy trees, which were left standing. The water killed the timber, and a terrible. sickness followed among the inhabitants, about one- quarter of whom died in one season. The well per- sons were not numerous enough to take care of the sick and bury the dead, and settlers from other neigh- borhoods came there and helped the needy ones. The mill dam was taken down and the sickness dis- appeared.
Mr. Andrew H. Green, of Byron, Genesee county, relates that several families were settled at Sandy Creek, in 1811. In the fall of that year settlers in Byron heard that these people at Sandy Creek were nearly all siek and in great suffering, and they made up a company of six or eight and went over to help them, carrying a load of necessaries. Mr. Green says : " I never saw so helpless a company." Sandy Creek was regarded as an unhealthy location for
19
200
PIONEER HISTORY
some years after its first settlement, occasioned in great part by building mills there in the woods.
The first settlements in what is now Murray were made along the Ridge Road. Mills having been built in early times on Sandy Creek, near where that stream crosses the Ridge, mechanics and business men loca- ted there, and at the time the Erie Canal was first navigable here was a lively village known as Sandy Creek, a name by which it has ever since been dis- tinguished.
The first post office in town was established here, called Murray.
Though the people suffered terribly from sickness about the time mill dams were first built in the Creek here, and while neighboring lands were being opened to cultivation, yet Sandy Creek was the prin- cipal place of business in the town until Holley and Hulberton, on the canal, were settled and gradually drew away most of the trade and business to these new villages.
BIOGRAPHIES OF EARLY SETTLERS.
HARLEY N. BUSIINELL.
Harley N. Bushnell was born in Starksborough, Vt., the youngest of thirteen children in his father's fami- ly, Feb. 18th, 1796. When he was fifteen years old he went to Connecticut to learn the trade of a clothier of his brother. He served as an apprentice in that business five years, and received thirty days school- ing in the time. In February, 1817, he came to Ba- tavia, Genesee county, and went to work at his trade. In August afterwards his employer ran away, owing Mr. Bushnell one hundred dollars, and the Sheriff came and seized all his employer's property, turning
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.