USA > New York > Orleans County > Pioneer history of Orleans County, New York, containing some account of the civil divisions of western New York > Part 4
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Especial care had to be taken to keep fire from go- ing out in their dwellings, it was so difficult to recov- er it again. An instance is given of such a loss in the house of widow Gilbert, in Gaines, who returning from the funeral of her husband, found the fire was out, and no means at hand to kindle it. Fire had to be procured from the nearest neighbors, then several miles off. The tinder box and powder horn, were the usual resort in such cases, but these might be out as well as the fire. Friction matches had not then been invented. And it was an inconvenience at least, to be deprived of soft water, the bark roof of a log cabin be- ing a poor contrivance for collecting it, when there was no snow to melt. The hard water from the ground was prepared for washing clothes by "cleans- ing," as they called it, by putting in wood ashes enough to form a weak lye.
The Holland Company commonly sold their lands for a small payment down ; and gave a contract, ex- tending payments for the balance, from five to ten years ; with interest annually after about two years.
This seemed to be a good bargain to the settler at
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PIONEER HISTORY
first : for, although he was poor, ho felt hopeful and strong, and went into the woods to begin his clearing, sanguine in the belief that he could meet his payments as they fell due, from the produce of his land ; be- sides paying the necessary expenses of his living, and his improvements. But, after a year or two, a part of his family, are taken sick ; doctors and nurses must be paid ; stock, team, tools, furniture, and pro- visions, must be bought. He may have cleared a few acres, built a log cabin, and raised some crops, more than was needed for home consumption ; but the sur- plus he could not sell. The road to a market was im- passible for teams ; and, if the roads had been opened, it was hard work at best to pay for land by raising wheat among the stumps, at the price of thirty cents a bushel. Is it surprising that under circumstances like these, some of the earlier settlers of this county, after toiling several years, and finding themselves constantly running behind hand, got discouraged, and wanted to sell out, and go away. And many would have sold their claims, and left the country, or gone any way, whether they sold or not, if the Land Com- pany had enforced their legal rights on their Articles as they fell due. But the Company were lenient .- They gave off interest due them, and sometimes prin- cipal, in cases of great hardship to the settler. Many times, when he went to the Land Office to say he could not make his payments, and must give it up ; the agents of the Company finding him industrious and frugal, trying to do the best he could, would meet him with such words of kindness, generous encouragement and cheer, that he would go back to his home with fresh courage, to renew his battle with the musketos, the agne, and the bears ; and wait a little longer for the good time coming. But few were able to take deeds of their lands, and pay for them, until after the Erie Canal was navigable. They kept on clearing
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
land, and enlarging their fields; and between the years 1830 and 1836, good crops of wheat were raised. and sold at the canal, for about a dollar a bushel .- Then the clouds of gloom began to lift from the face of the country. Prosperity had verily come ; no more "hardships, privations and sufferings" after that ; and more deeds of land were taken from the Holland Com- pany, in this county, in those years, than were given in all others together.
Notwithstanding so many and so great discourage- ments, surrounded the pioneers, they never yielded to the gloom of the present, or suffered their great hope in the future to die. They had their joys as well as griefs, running along their pathway together. Social amusements, conviviality, fun and good feeling, were intermingled with their sadder experiences.
They visited together, labored for and with each oth- er. They exchanged work in chopping, logging, and in heavy toil on their lands, where several together could work at better advantage than alone.
They were "given to hospitality." They aided, as- sisted, and helped one another ; with a liberality and kindness, that seems remarkable in contrast with the selfishness of older society.
If a family came in, who had not in advance built themselves a cabin for their residence, they had no difficulty in finding a stopping place with almost any settler, who had got a house, until a log house could be built. And the best of it was, all the men in the neighborhood assembled at a " bee," and built a log house gratis, for their new friends, if it was necessary.
If a man fell sick in seed time, or harvest, and could not do his work, his neighbors would turn in and sow his seed, or gather his crop for him. If a family was out of provisions, everybody, who had a stock, shared with the needy ones.
A happy feature of this primitive society was the
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entire absence of caste, dividing the people into class- es, and making social distinctions. Everybody was considered just as good, and no better, than every- body else. All met and mingled on terms of social equality.
At the dancing parties, quilting frolics, weddings and other gatherings of the people for social enjoy- ment, everybody in the neighborhood was invited, whether they wore "store clothes," or common home- spun ; and they commonly all attended.
People generally were acquainted with everbody near them. Old people are living, who say for sever- al years they knew every family in town ; and used to visit with them, going often on foot miles through the woods, by marked trees, to meet together.
As clearing away the forest, and doing the heavy work of beginning settlements in the woods, constitu- ted the main business of the pioneers; they thus learned to value ability to excel in whatever was use- ful in their calling.
Hence, at their loggings, raisings, and other assem- blings for work, or play, friendly trials of strength or skill, found favor. Contests in chopping, lifting, cut- ting wheat and other tests of muscle, were common ; and seldom did a number of young men meet on a festive occasion without forming a ring for wrestling.
The pioneers, at their first coming here, were gener- ally young. They were resolute, intelligent, deter- mined and persistent ; for no others would quit the comparative ease, safety and comfort of older socie- ty, to encounter the certain hardships, perils and dis- couragements of frontier settlement in the woods, in such a country as this was. The true grit of the emi- grant was proved by the fact that he came here ; and such men were not to be driven back by hardships, want, sickness or misfortune.
While the hope and resolution of the settler could
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
not protect him from sickness and calamity, they fill- ed him with fortitude to endure them, gave him a keen relish to enjoy whatever in his way might afford a pleasure.
Looking at these pioneers from the standpoint of the present day, an observer might well conclude they were as happy then, as their descendents are now, on the same ground. Many who began here in poverty and want and worked their way through every diffi- culty to wealth and abundance, have often said in their old age, their happiest days in life were spent in their old log houses, away back among the stumps.
EARLY MERCHANTS-THEIR STORES AND GOODS.
Soon after the settlement of this county, asheries were built; the large quantities of wood ashes, produced in burning the log heaps in clearing land, were a source from which money could be made easier than from crops of grain raised.
These ashes were leached in rude leaches ; the lye obtained was boiled down to a semi-solid state, call- ed black salts ; and then sold to Mr. James Mather, or some owner of an ashery, who put the salts through the processes of making potash, or pearlash, a refined kind of potash, the use of which is now super- ceded by saleratus.
These products of ashes brought some money and were taken by the merchants in exchange for their goods.
Before the canal was made, merchants' goods were brought in by water, by way of Lake Ontario, or on wagons, from Albany.
Robert Hunter and brothers, of Eagle Harbor, were teamsters who traveled to and from Albany with large teams of horses to wagons and brought in most of the goods used here for several years, before they came by the canal.
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A wagon load would go a great way in stocking a store then. The important and heavy article of whisky was made sufficient for home consumption here.
Merchants did not then as now confine their trade to a single line of goods, as hardware, drugs, grocer- ies, &c., but their stock, in the common language of their advertisements, comprised "all the articles usu- ally called for at a country store ;" and that meant everything the people wanted to buy at a store. The wants of the settlers were few and simple in the line of such goods. They confined their purchases to ar- ticles of prime necessity, which they could not well do without, such as tools to work with, building ma- terials, &c., which did not grow upon their land ; an oc casional calico dress, and a few kinds of utensils, such as they could not make at home.
These goods were generally bought on credit, the pay being promised to meet the wants of the merchant when he went to New York, a journey he undertook about twice a year. These debts were not all paid when due, and many of them were collected by legal process, and many of them were lost to their owners. The credit system was a bad one for both parties in many cases. People found it very difficult to pay their store debts before the canal was made; for though they had a large and good farm, plenty of the finest wheat, and possibly a stock of cattle, hogs and horses ; they had no money, and could not sell their stuff for money, as they could not get it to a market. Timber was plenty, and sawmills had been built about the time the canal became navigable ; and saw- ed lumber then paid store debts ; and wheat, pork, flour and produce of all kinds, that could go to mar- ket on the canal, found a ready sale, at fair prices ; and thus means to pay debts would be obtained.
DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES.
Most of the early settlers were New England Yan-
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
kees, of that class, who, if they wanted a thing they had not got, they made it. With very few tools, and those of the simplest kinds, they made almost every thing required, that could be produced from the ma- terials on hand.
They brought in a few clothes when they came ; when these were worn out, they supplied their wants with cloth made at home. The women made up the common articles of clothing for their families. If the man had a new coat, or other garment his wife did not feel competent to make, the cloth was taken to some one properly skilled, to be cut out, and a tailor- ess would come to his house, and make it up. These itinerant seamstresses, did most of the needlework re- quired by the family, and which they could not do themselves ; the modern classification of needle wo- men into milliners, mantau makers, dress makers, &c., did not then prevail.
The people got their leather made by neighboring tanners, and from such stock, a traveling shoemaker visited the houses of his customers, and made and mended their shoes and boots. The boys and girls, and some of the older folks, commonly went barefoot in the summer, and often in the winter likewise.
POST OFFICES AND MAILS.
Mr. Merwin S. Hawley of Buffalo, son of Judge Elijah Hawley, who resided in Ridgeway in his boy- hood, and speaks from his recollection says :
"In 1815, the only mail to and through Ridgeway, was carried on horseback twice a week, between Can- andaigua and Lewiston. Oct. 22, 1816, a post office was established at Ridgeway Corners, named "Oak Orchard," Elijah Hawley, postmaster.
The mail was now carried in two horse carriages, three times a week each way ; stopping over night at Huff's tavern in East Gaines.
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PIONEER HISTORY
Aug. 24, 1817, a post office was established at Oak Orchard Creek, on the Ridge, which place was then growing to be a smart village, and James Brown was appointed postmaster there.
To make the names of the offices conform to the name of the places where they were located, the new post office was called "Oak Orchard," and the name of the other was changed to "Ridgeway, " Mr. Haw- ley holding the office of postmaster there until his death. During this year, (1817,) a daily line of mail stages, each way, between Rochester and Lewiston, on the Ridge Road, was commenced.
A post office was established at Gaines, July 1, 1816, Wm. J. Babbitt postmaster.
The next post office in Orleans County was located at Shelby Center, and got its mail from Ridgeway.
Post offices were located in other parts of the coun- ty from time to time, as the wants of increasing popu- lation required.
CHAPTER IX.
THIE ERIE CANAL.
When Begun-Effect-Rise in Price of Everything -- Progress of Im- provement-Carriages on Springs.
HE work in digging the Erie Canal was begun on the middle section near Utica, on the 4th of July, 1817. In 1823, the eastern part of the canal was so far completed, that in November boats from Rochester reached Albany, at the same time with boats from Lake Champlain, on the Champlain Canal. And in Nov., 1825, a fleet of boats from Buf- falo passed the entire length of the Erie Canal, carry- ing passengers to the Grand Canal Celebration at New York.
To no part of the State of New York has the Erie Canal proved of more benefit than to Orleans County.
Although the soil was fertile and productive, and yielded abundant crops to reward the toil of the farmer, yet its inland location and great difficulty of transporting produce to market, rendered it of little value at home. Settlers who had located here, in many instances, had become discouraged. Others, who desired to emigrate to the Genesee country, were kept back by the gloomy accounts they got of life in the wilderness, with little prospect of easy communi- cation with the old Eastern States to cheer the hope.
As soon as the Canal became navigable, Holley, Albion, Knowlesville and Medina, villages on its banks, were built up. Actual settlers took up all the unoccupied lands, and cleared them up. No
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PIONEER HISTORY
speculators came here and bought up large tracts, and left them wild, to rise on the market. The lum- ber of the country found a ready market and floated away. Wheat was worth four times as much as the price for which it had been previously selling. Pros- perity came in on every hand ; the mud dried up, and the musketoes, and the ague, and the fever, and the bears, left the country. Farmers paid for their lands, surrendered their articles, and took deeds from the Company. Good barns and framed houses, and houses of brick, and stone began to be built, as the common dwellings of the inhabitants. "The good time coming," which the first settlers could not see, but waited for, with a faint and dreamy but persistent hope, had come indeed. The price of lands rose rap- idly, making many wealthy, who happened to locate farms in desirable places, from the rise in value of their lands. From this time forward, rich men, from the Eastern States, and older settlements, began to come in and buy out the farms and improvements of those who had begun in the woods and now found themselves, like Cooper's Leather Stocking, "lost in the clearings," and wished to move on to the borders of civilization, where the hunting and fishing was bet- ter and where the ruder institutions, manners and customs of frontier life, to which they had become at- attached, would be better enjoyed among congenial spirits.
The clearing away of shade trees, thus drying up the mud and the substantial bridges over streams and leveled and graveled highways, which the num- bers and abundant means of the people, now enabled them to establish, occasioned a demand for other car- riages for the conveyance of these now independent farmers and their families.
Time was when they went to mill and to meeting, to the social visit, or the quilting frolic, happy on an
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
ox sled. A little progress, and pride and ambition substituted horses and lumber wagons as the common vehicles of travel, in place of the oxen and sleds. A buggy was no more known or used than a balloon in those wagon days, and when the canal was first made navigable, there was not probably a one-horse buggy in Orleans County. Indeed several years after boats began trips on the canal, Messrs. R. S. & L. Burrows, then merchants in Albion, brought on six or eight one-horse wagons, with wooden springs under the seats, manufactured in Connecticut, and put them on sale ; and great was the wonder of the people, and the comment they made upon the amazing luxury and comfort and ease in riding in these little rattling, jolting machines.
CHAPTER X.
PUBLIC HIGHWAYS.
The Ridge Road-When Laid Out-Appropriation-Oak Orchard Road-Opened by Holland Company-Road from Shelby to Oak Orchard in Barre-Salt Works Roads-State Road along Canal- Judge Porter's Account of first Tracing the Ridge Road.
LTHOUGH the Ridge Road had been travel- ed by the Indians from time immemorial, and after the settlement of the country by white men, improvements had been made by cutting ont trees, and making the crossings at the streams of water more passable, yet many largo trees still ob- structed the carriage way, and bridges were wanted in many places. In April, 1814, the Legislature of the State appropriated $5,000, and appointed com- missioners to apply said sum to the improvements of such parts of said road between Rochester and Lewis- ton, as said commissioners should think proper, for the public benefit. This appropriation, together with some labor by the few inhabitants then living on this route, made the Ridge road a tolerably fair wagon road.
The Ridge road, so called, was regularly laid out and established by Philetus Swift and Caleb Hopkins, under an Act of the Legislature passed Feb. 10, 1815. An act providing for a re-survey of the Ridge Road, from Rochester to Lewiston, was passed March 24, 1852, John Lo Valley, Grosvenor Daniels and William J. Babbitt were appointed commissioners to superin- tend the work through Orleans County. Darius W.
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
Cole, of Medina, was the Surveyor, and the road was re-surveyed and established six rods wide. Although the Ridge road had been opened and traveled many years, no survey and record of it had been made be- fore Swift & Hopkins' survey.
Mr. Lewis W. Gates, formerly of Gaines, relates that about the year 1843, Judge Augustus Porter, then of Niagara Falls, gave him the following account of the Ridge Road.
He, Judge Porter, and others, were interested in surveying and locating a large tract of land west of Genesee River, since known as The Triangle. The Indians told them there was a gravelly ridge extend- ing from the Geneseo to Niagara River. Porter and his company employed a surveyor named Eli Gran- ger, to go with a few men and trace a road through on this Ridge, from river to river, and they traced the Ridge Road through near its present location, in 1798.
The Oak Orchard Road was the first highway cross- ing Orleans County north and south, that was open- ed and worked. Supposing, as everybody then did, that the trade from this part of the country must go by the lake, and that Oak Orchard Harbor would be its place of embarkation, the Holland Company and the settlers, at an early day opened this road for teams, made log causeways through wet places and bridged the streams. It was a rough road, but teams could get through with light loads, as early as before the war.
Andrew A. Ellicott built a mill on the Oak Orchard Creek, at Shelby Center, about the year 1813. To ac- commodate travel to this mill and promote the sale of land, the Holland Company cut out a highway leading from the Oak Orchard road near the County Poor House, to Shelby Center. This highway follow- ed the ridge of highest land, crooking about on places where it could be easiest constructed. It is still used
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PIONEER HISTORY
as a public highway, and is traveled on or near the line originally followed. This was the first road cut out for teams, east and west, south of the ridge. As the timber which grew in this County was generally hard wood and decayed soon, few fallen trees, or logs lay in the woods to obstruct teams passing anywhere in the forest, where standing timber or swamps did not prevent ; and the course of travel was directed by marked trees. until enough inhabitants had come in to lay out and work roads.
Before the forest was cleared from this county. much of the land was wet, and in fitting a highway for travel. a large amount of log causeway had to be laid, in places now dry hard land. Where the Oak Orchard Road crosses the canal in Albion, and for many rods north and south of the canal, such a cause- way was laid. Indeed, many farms, which in a wild state, were not taken by settlers at first, because they were so low and wet, now, on draining the water off, and cutting away the trees, are the best farming land in the neighborhood.
The Ridge Road was laid out six rods wide, and the Oak Orchard Road four rods wide. In selling lands bordering on the Ridge Road, or the Oak Orch ard Road, the Holland Company bounded the tract they sold by the outer lines of the road ; thus giving the lands the roads covered to the public. In selling lands on all other roads, they deeded to the center of the highway. When no natural obstruction prevent- ed, highways were laid out on the line of lots accord- ing to the Company's survey, and then the owners on each side gave each the half of the road.
Works were put up by the Holland Company for the manufacture of salt, at the salt springs north of Medina, as early as 1805, and opened for use by the settlers. To facilitate access to these works, the Com-
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OF ORLEANS COUNTY.
pany cut out two roads, about the same time, one leading south from the works, to the "Old Buffalo Road ;" the other south-easterly, to the Oak Orchard Road. These highways were known as the Salt Works Road. When the manufacture of salt there was discontinued, the Salt Works Road was dicontin- ued.
Frequently, when a new road became a necessity, all the settlers would turn out with their teams, and cut out the trees, and clear them from the roadway, and build such sluiceways as were necessary and so make a highway passable, to be worked up when the roots had rotted out and the people of the district had got able to do so.
About the year 1824, the people along the Ridge Road turned out on the 4th day of July and celebra- ted the day, by cutting out a highway from the Ridge north to Waterport which is now the road leading from Eagle Harbor to Waterport.
An Act of the Legislature was passed April 2, 1827, appointing John P. Patterson, Almon H. Millerd and Otis Turner, commissioners to locate and lay ont a public highway, four rods wide, leading from Roch- ester to Lockport, " on, or near the banks of the Erie Canal." A highway was located and laid by said commissioners, Jesse P. Haines, of Lockport, being the surveyor, pursuant to said Act. For most of the way said highway was laid on the south side of the Canal. The records of said survey and highway were filed in the County Clerk's offices, and in the several towns through which it passed, and the road established Oet. 1, 1827. The law required the com- missioners of highways in the several towns, to open the road to travel ; and it was done by them along the most of the line where the publie convenience re- quired it. Considerable of this road was never open-
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ed, and the franchise was suffered to be lost to the public by non-user.
This was known as the State Road. Through the village of Albion, it is called State Street.
CHAPTER XI.
RAILROADS IN ORLEANS COUNTY.
Medina and Darien-Medina and Lake Ontario-Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls.
02 AY 5, 1834, an Act of the Legislature was passed incorporating the Medina and Darien Railroad Company, to construct a Railroad ; and the road was built from Medina to Akron, in Erie County, twelve or fourteen miles, and fitted for cars, to be drawn by horses. It went into operation about 1836. After a short trial, it was found to be an un- profitable investment, the track was taken up, and the road discontinued.
This was the first Railroad incorporated to be made in this county.
In 1836, the Medina and Ontario Railroad Company was incorporated by the Legislature, to construct a Railroad between Medina and Lake Ontario, at the mouth of Oak Orchard Creek. Nothing further was ever done towards opening this road.
The Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Rail- road Co. was organized December 10, 1850. It passes through the county near the Erie Canal on the south side. This road has since been consolidated in the New York Central Railroad, by which name it is now known, its original corporate name being drop- ped.
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