USA > New York > Pioneer history of the Holland Purchase of western New York : embracing some account of the ancient remains > Part 45
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We here lose sight of the family and their history for a long period. Previous to 1760, however, they had become residents of Buck's county in Pennsylvania; and had four sons, the elder of whom, about that period, were starting out upon business enter- prizes. From some dates in the author's possession, he is disposed to conclude that the stay in New York was a short one, as it would appear that they were pioneers of Buck's county. The sons of these pioneer adventurers were, Nathaniel, Joseph, Andrew, and John. As early as 1770, they purchased a tract of wild land on the Patapsco, in Maryland, and erecting mills and machinery, be- came the founders of what was long known as "Ellicott's Mills," now, for the sake of brevity, termed " Ellicotts."
Joseph was the father of the subject of this memoir. He was a man of large scientific attainments, and possessed uncommon genius
* And a poetess withal, as the following relic witnesses. It was written on her departure from Wales :-
" Through rocks and sands,
And enemies' hands, And perils of the deep, Father and son From Cullopton,
The Lord preserve and keep .- 1731."
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in the mechanic arts .*
His sons, other than Joseph, were Andrew, Benjamin, and David.
Andrew the eldest son, became an eminent surveyor; surveyed the Spanish boundary line under the administration of Mr. Jeffer- son; was afterwards Surveyor General of the United States; and died the Professor of Mathematics at West Point, in 1820 or '1. While engaged in the survey of the Spanish boundary, he wrote a "Journal," which was published in a quarto form, and which alone would entitle its author to a high rank among the literary and scientific men of his period. It was an early and successful essay to make the people of the United States acquainted with the climate, soil, topography, and vast resources of the country acquired by the Louisiana treaty. He enjoyed the friendship and intimacy of Mr. Jefferson. His three sons, were Andrew A., John B. and Joseph, who all became residents of the Holland Purchase. Andrew A., the eldest, became a resident at Shelby, Orleans county, where he died, and where his descendants now reside. Joseph, a resident of Batavia, where he died in 1839, leaving a family, who are still residing there. John B., the only surviving son, is a resident at Ellicott's Mills, six miles west of Batavia. One of his daughters married the Hon. Henry Baldwin, Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; another, Major Bliss of the army, and another, Major Douglass of the army; a third was the wife of Thomas Kennedy Esq., of Meadville, Pennsyl- vania; a fourth, of Dr. Nathaniel E. Griffith of New York; a fifth, was the wife of the late Dr. Woodruff, of Batavia.
BENJAMIN ELLICOTT, as will have been seen, entered the service of the Holland Company at an early period, as the assistant of his brother Joseph. He was at an early period, one of the Judges of Genesee county, and a Representative in Congress, from the district. He was a bachelor; died a resident at Williamsville, Erie county, in 1827.
The younger brother, David, a somewhat erratic genius, was in
*A very decided evidence of his skill and ingenuity, is furnished in a clock of his construction, now in the possession of the Hon. David E. Evans, his grandson. The admirers of mechanical ingenuity - good judges -have pronounced it the climax of that branch of the mechanic arts. It has four faces, each looking towards the cardinal points of the compass. One face tells the time of day - another exhibits an orrery, and on it are displayed the motions of the heavenly bodies in perfect order; a third face exhibits a display of musical bells, formed to play twenty-four distinct tunes, one for each hour; the remaining face exposes to view the whole internal machinery of the instrument.
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some of the earliest years, a surveyor upon the Purchase. He went south, and no tidings ever came of him.
There were five sisters, three of whom married three brothers, by the name of Evans. In this circumstance, the reader will find the explanation of the numerous heirs of Joseph Ellicott, bearing that name.
With Ellicott's Mills, Baltimore-Howard county, in fact,- the family of Ellicotts were as much identified, as with the Holland Purchase. In the local annals of that region, they figure as early millers, iron founders, builders of wharves, inventors, and the patrons of inventors. Years before the advent of Joseph and Benjamin to this region, their father and uncles had penetrated the then wild and rugged valley of the Patapsco, founded new settlements-triumphed over no ordinary obstacles. The name has been made synonymous, with enterprise and perseverance.
Their business establishments in Maryland were but just fairly under way, when the war of the Revolution commenced. Though great sufferers in their business, from the effects of the war, and belonging to the peaceful society of Friends, they nevertheless, like Gens. Greene and Mifflin, deemed the resistance of the oppressed colonies justifiable, and warmly espoused the whig side. "In this respect, there was not throughout the whole family, a solitary exception. No tory blood ran in the veins of a single Ellicott."
Joseph Ellicott was but fourteen years of age, when his father removed from Buck's county to Maryland. Up to that period, he had enjoyed no other facilities for an education, than the common schools of a new country afforded. His early lessons in surveying. were given him by his elder brother, Andrew. His first practical surveying, was as an assistant of his brother, in the survey of the city of Washington, soon after that site had been selected for the national capital. In 1791, he was appointed by Timothy Piekering. then Secretary of War, to run the boundary line between Georgia and the Creek Indians. After completing this survey. he was employed by Mr. Cazenove, to survey the Holland Company lands in Pennsylvania.
This completed, he was engaged for a short time in Maryland, in business with his brothers, and then enlisted in the Holland Com- pany's service in this region.
The active years of his life were those, principally, intervening between the years 1790 and 1821-a period of about thirty years.
28
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At least ten or twelve years were spent in the arduous duties of a surveyor; and when he left the woods and settled down in the dis- charge of the duties of a local agent, his place was no sinecure, as the records of the office will abundantly testify. He was a man of great industry; careful, systematic in all his business, and re- quired of all under his control a prompt and faithful discharge of their various duties.
His education was strictly a practical one. He was a good mathematician, a scientific surveyor, a careful and able financier. The voluminous correspondence that he has left behind him, with the General Agency at Philadelphia, with the prominent men of this state of his period-in reference to the business of the company, political measures, works of internal improvement, and public policy generally-indicate a good degree of talents as a writer, and enlarged and statesman-like views. His memory is not only iden- tified, as we have observed, with the surveys and settlement of this region, but with the crowning achievement-that which consum- mated local prosperity-the origin and prosecution of the Erie canal; as will be shown in connection with that branch of our subject. In the day that the vast benefits of that work shall be fully realized and gratefully acknowledged; when an enduring tablet is erected to commemorate the services of all who were conspicuous in its projection and progress, his name will be recorded upon it.
In person, Mr. Ellicott was rather above the middling size-six feet three inches in height. In youth he was of spare habits, but about the age of forty became corpulent. He had a strong con- stitution, capable of much endurance; and enjoyed for the greater portion of his life uninterrupted health.
He was possessed of fine conversational powers; when in humour he was a great talker and a convincing reasoner; and had a remarkable faculty of influencing the opinions of all with whom he associated.
A life of great usefulness, of extraordinary enterprise; a career of personal success, and the success of the enterprises with which he was connected, was destined to a melancholy close. As early as 1816 or '17, he became subject to depression of spirits, melan- choly, which by degrees became a confirmed and inveterate hypo- condria. If we were to look for the causes of this infirmity, they would perhaps be found in the peculiar temperament and constitution
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of the man, and the circumstances under which he found himself as his years increased-youth and middle age were passed-and life was verging to the " sere and yellow leaf." Wise as he may have been in other respects-prudent and far seeing-he had yet strangely neglected himself; been improvident in that which could alone have promised him temporal happiness and contentment. Enterprise had been rewarded; wealth had come at his bidding, and filled his coffers. Broad acres, the sites of flourishing villages, the favorite grounds of an embryo city, were his. But he had no one to share all this with him. He was wifeless and childless. "Man must love something," is the truthful and beautiful philoso- phy of Kotzebue in his play-The Stranger. He must have some- thing to hope for and care for, or with him the "pitcher is broken at the fountain," and the " grasshopper has become a burden." Wealth, in view of one who is alone in this cold and cheerless world; who feels that he is approaching old age, and that no destiny is linked with his; that there is no one to inherit from him his name, and be the filial conservator of his memory-is assayed, and turns to dross. It has been accumulated but to palsy the mind, crush the hopes, and embitter the declining age of its pos- sessor. The very largesses he has to bestow, beget jealousy and distrust of even the well-intended offices of friendship. Does dis- ease and pain come upon him, the hand that is held out to alleviate may be a sinister one. Perhaps the real, or it may be, the morbid sense of ingratitude comes, blighting all the buds of hope and promise that disease and despondency have spared !
His agency ceased in October, 1821. It was by his own act, though not in the absence of a state of things that would have rendered a farther connection with the office irksome, if his health. had not been unimpaired. Although laboring under the combined mental and physical infirmity that has been named, he had continued to discharge the duties of the office in the absence of any consider- able interruption. No mal-administration or neglect of duty was alleged against him. A feeling of discontent had begun to prevail -one that afterwards became rife upon the Purchase. Indebted- ness upon land contracts had increased to such magnitude, as to press heavily upon the settlers, and create fearful apprehensions of the ultimate result. A formidable portion of them had conceived that a change of the local agency would be attended with some relief, or favorable modification of the terms and condition of
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indebtedness, and the General Agent was perhaps not unwilling to listen to the expediency of the measure, in hopes to appease the discontent and gratify the desire of change. Conscious of this state of things, Mr. Ellicott resigned the agency. It cannot justly be deduced from after events, that any anticipated benefits came from the change. The modification of the terms of indebtedness that was sometime afterwards made, was under the direction and instructions of the General Agent.
The close of his agency was the end of the active and busy life of Mr. Ellicott that commenced with his youth, and continued without interruption up to that period. Our country above all others -- or in that degree which naturally arises from a prevailing spirit of enterprise-furnishes frequent examples of the effect upon strong minds and business habits, of an attempt to retire from active duties, and live at ease. The experiment is seldom one of favor- able issue. In the case we have under consideration it served to increase and confirm a malady.
In November, 1824, under the advice of physicians, he was removed to the city of New York to get the benefit of a council of physicians to be called there. He was accompanied by Dr. John B. Cotes, his nephews, the Hon. David E. Evans, and Joseph Ellicott, 2d, Ebenezer Mix, Esq. and Judge Nixson. A packet boat was chartered at Albion to convey the party to Albany. At this period-as it had been from the first-his aberrations of mind, were decidedly those of monomania; sane upon all other subjects. he was insane when himself and his real and imaginary diseases were his themes. Passing down the canal, he would give his attendants minute and interesting details of its history, the part he had taken in it; and converse upon general topics, in the absence of all indications of impaired intellect. But changing the theme to himself, his mind would wander and conjure up fearful apprehen- sions of present and approaching disease, and their speedy and fatal termination .*
#The author has in his possession, a half dozen sheets of paper, that Mr. Ellicott scrib- bled over, while in the Asylum. It is a strange medley; as perfect an indication per- haps as could be given of his peculiar malady. In a few lines he would seem to be writing to a friend; then in direct connection occurs soliloquies, the subjects, the path- ology and prognosis of disease, and its remedies. Occasionally, his sentences are well connected, and his ideas well expressed; generally it is so, until he begins to talk of himself and his own infirmities; then he becomes wild and incoherent; dwells upon his afflictions, imagines that his digestive organs are all out of tune-his whole system ruined by disease and the injudicious use of medicine. It may truly be said, in the
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Arrived in New York, a council of physicians was called, con- sisting of Drs. Post, Nelson, and Cheetham. The favorite projects of his friends, were, a journey to Pennsylvania and Maryland-a visit to his kindred and the scenes of his youth-or a sea yoyage. The council decided upon his entering the Hospital at Bellevue; a decision which was perhaps somewhat influenced by the fact, that the institution was under the superintendence of his old friend and associate upon the board of Canal Commissioners, Thomas Eddy A residence with him seemed not against his inclinations. He had a carriage provided for him, and rode out occasionally, as a part of the sanative discipline recommended.
The anticipated benefits of the Asylum were not realized; neither its curative measures, or the change of residence-the abstraction from the cares and annoyances of his business,-could
" cure a mind diseased."
Mental and physical infirmity increased upon him, until July or August of 1826, when, escaping the vigilance of his attendant, he consummated that which had long been apprehended by those who had known most of the despondency and depression of spirits that had conquered the once strong man, and expelled reason from its thronc.
Thus died the Patroon and founder of settlement, upon the Holland Purchase.
A few months after his death, his remains were brought to Bata- via, and deposited in the village cemetery.
Although Mr. Ellicott, in all the active years of his life, took a deep interest in public affairs, his time was too much occupied to allow, generally, of the acceptance of office. He was, however, in 1804, one of the Presidential Electors of. this state, and a Canal Commissioner, as has been stated. On the primitive organization of Genesee county, he was appointed First Judge, but declined, and Ezra Platt was appointed in his place.
A brief statement of the terms of his engagement with the Holland Company, will account, principally, for the large estate which he left. For his first ten years' service, it was stipulated that he should have five per cent. upon all sales; six thousand acres of farming lands, and five hundred acres of land in the village of
language of the physician of the Asylum, that his was a case of " inveterate hypocon- dria, acting upon a very extraordinary mind."
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Batavia. At the close of the ten years, the General Agent proposed that he should receive, instead of a cash commission of five per cent., onc twentieth of all the contracts he had made. This arrangement was acceded to, and the land embraced in one twentieth of all the contracts was deeded to him in fec, and the contracts assigned. This was in 1810. The reversion of land embraced in these assigned contracts, explains his ownership of detached farm lots, scattered over that portion of the Purchase first settled; principally in Genesee, Niagara and Erie.
The occupants of these reverted lands, were thus legally made subject to his discretion. The records of the land office, however, bear witness, that he made no discrimination; that the occupants of his lands, were in all cases, as liberally dealt by, as were the occupants under the expired contracts of the Company. There is probably no one of the settlers upon the lands thus situated, or their descendants, who can justly complain of other than fair treatment at his hands. He commenced a renewal of the contracts, and continued to renew them, as long as he had the management of his own affairs. A large number of the contracts, unfulfilled and expired, existed at the period of his death, and became the property of his devisees. Honorable testimony would generally be borne to their liberality; with some few exceptions, in the case of those who did not regard the example set by their liberal benefactor. This variation between the spirit and policy of a donor and inheritor, is not unusual.
The six thousand acres, stipulated in his contract with the Company, was located in what was long known as the "Eleven Mile Woods," on the Ridge Road, near Lockport, Niagara county. He afterwards added by purchase, a strip of twelve hundred acres on the south side of this. The tract was principally unsold at the period of his death. The tract between Lockport and Ridge Road - about two thousand five hundred acres- which has been usually considered a part of the "Ellicott Reserve," was a separate purchase, made jointly by Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott. Joseph Ellicott also purchased a tract on either side of the Tonawanda, at the old "Fishing Ground," or "Rapids," with the intention, at one time, of securing the erection of mills there, by raising a dam, and constructing a race across the land below.
He purchased seven hundred acres upon the Oak Orchard, embracing the water power, and site of the now village of Shelby:
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and afterwards the fourteen hundred acres below, which embraces the village of Medina. Joseph and Benjamin also purchased jointly, some detached tracts in Somerset, Niagara county.
In the original survey of Buffalo, he had plotted for himself one hundred acres, which he afterwards purchased of the company. It was called an out lot. The reader will regard it now an in lot, when told how conspicuous a position it occupies in the now widely extended city. Its front is all the ground opposite the Churches, between Swan and Eagle streets. In the centre of its front, there was originally a curve-a semi-circle-projecting beyond the line of the street. Tradition affirms that Mr. Ellicott intended that ultimately as the site of his residence. It would have commanded an uninterrupted view of Main Street, in each direction, and through Erie, Church, and Niagara Streets-called by Mr. Ellicott in his original map of "New Amsterdam," Stadtnitski, Vollenhoven and Schimmelpenninck Avenues. He thus early identified his interests with that of Buffalo, and through his life entertained high anticipations (though they came far short of what has since been realized,) of its destinies. His careful guardianship of the local- ity commenced with his agency. The difficulty obviated-his negociations with William Johnston and the Indians having termi- nated in securing the "mouth of Buffalo creek" as a part of the Holland Purchase-he congratulated Mr. Cazenove upon the great acquisition. In a letter dated June 25, 1798, he says :-
"The building spot is situated about sixty perches from the lake, on a beautiful, elevated bank, about twenty-five feet perpendicular height above the surface of the water in the lake; from the foot of which, with but little labor, may be made the most beautiful meadows, extending to the lake, and up Buffalo creek to the Indian line. From the top of the bank, there are few more beautiful prospects. Here the eye wanders over the inland sea to the south west, until the sight is lost in the horizon. On the north west is seen the pro- gressing settlements in Upper Canada; and south westerly, with pruning some trees out of the way, may be seen the Company's lands, for the distance of forty miles; gradually ascending, varic- gated with valleys and gently rising hills, until the sight passes their summit at the source of the waters of the Mississippi."
It will be new to those even most conversant with the history of the Holland Purchase, the fact that Black Rock was looked upon as a rival to Buffalo as early as 1802. Extract of a letter bearing date in May of that year, from Mr. Ellicott to Mr. Busti :-
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" While speaking on the subject of taking things in the proper time, I cannot refrain from mentioning that the Company delaying the opening of their lands for sale in New Amsterdam, and the lands adjoining thereto I fear the nick of time will pass by, at least for making a town of New Amsterdam. The state, last session of the Legislature, passed a law for purchasing the natives' rights of land, the pre-emptive right of which was in the state, (on our map called the New York Reservation.) The southern part of which lands reach near to New Amsterdam, and there is a situation on said lands, intended to be purchased equally or more advanta- geous for a town than New Amsterdam, so that if the state shall make the intended purchase this summer and offer this spot for sale before New Amsterdam gets in operation, the nick of time will be lost to the future prosperity of that place. It would therefore evidently tend more to the advantage of the Dutch proprietors to give to the Agent General of their concerns in this country full and discretionary powers to act and transact their business as existing circumstances might evince to be most conducive to the interests of the Proprietors."
It only remains to speak of the final disposition of the large estate that had accumulated principally from the ownerships and investments that have been noted. His will was executed in the year 1824. At the period of his death, in 1826, his estate was estimated at about six hundred thousand dollars; though it was difficult then to make any correct estimate of its value; the prices of farming lands were low, and Buffalo village property had not then hardly begun the rapid advance in value that has since been realized. The entire landed estate of which he died seized, would now be estimated by millions, instead of hundreds of thousands.
Over one half of his estate was disposed of by special devises and bequests. These were to his favorite relatives; those mostly with whom he had been closely associated in the latter years of his life. The residuary portion of his estate, was devised to his brothers' and sisters' children, and their children who might be liv- ing at his decease; to be divided equally between them, except, that such of his brothers' and sisters' children as should be childless at the time of his decease, should receive a double share. There were eighty seven of these residuary legatees, seven of whom drew double shares, making ninety four shares.
Three commissioners, appointed by the Supreme Court, after an examination of all lands thus bequeathed, fixed a value upon them amounting in the aggregate to ninety-four times fourteen hundred
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and fifty dollars. This estimate was merely nominal, to fix a basis of division. There was beside this, a large amount of personal property, not included in his special devises and bequests, which remained to the residuary legatees. His interest in various tracts of land in common with his brother Benjamin, was devised to his three sisters.
The residuary legatees drew their portions by lots; some, of course, were more fortunate than others, as after value proved. While some portions drawn, have remained nearly stationary in value, others have doubled, trebled, quadrupled; and increased even ten fold.
In addition to the purchases of Mr. Ellicott, which have been enumerated, he and his brother Benjamin purchased the peninsula between Buffalo creek and the lake shore, in the city of Buffalo.
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