USA > New York > Wayne County > Rose > Rose neightborhood sketches, Wayne County, New York; with glimpses of the adjacent towns: Butler, Wolcott, Huron, Sodus, Lyons and Savannah > Part 20
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not be amiss to state that he was from Pennsylvania, and that his wife was Mary Waters of Alloway, town of Lyons, a sister of Mrs. John Deady of District No. 5. He probably came to this farm in 1816 and helped manage the neighboring saw-mill. Here happened one of those harrowing accidents from which no age nor place is free. His oldest boy, a lad of five or there- abouts, was found dead in the path connecting the house and the place where the father was chopping. There was no mark of violence on his body, and his death was accounted for on the supposition that he had quietly followed his father, and finding a newly fallen tree across the path, had climbed upon this, and was sitting, possibly lying on it, when another tree, falling, struck the fallen tree so violently as to kill the lad by the concussion. Mr. Colburn was here possibly five years, when he was succeeded by Nicholas Stansell, who, in turn, ran the saw-mill. John Fosmire also was a resident for a time, but it is more than forty years since Pardon Jones located and staid. Mr. Jones was born in Rhode Island, and in his ways and sayings retained very much of that quaintness for which New England Yankees have been so long noted. In naming the characters of the town Pardon would come in early. In coming to Rose his first stopping place was near the Lymans, perhaps in that house where John Lyman essayed housekeeping, and then he went to the old Briggs place, afterward and for years that of "Ken " Sheffield. On this farm he lived two years, and then moved to the one so long connected with his name. Mr. Jones had filtered through several states and counties before reaching our town. His wife, Dorcas Burlingame, was a native of Cortland county, and her he had when he came to us. His only son, George H., is a resident of Auburn, where he is developing a very successful invention of his, viz., a turbine water wheel. Pardon Joues died September 5th, 1888, at the age of eighty-four years.
Once more we are at the end of our school district, the second in popula- tion in the town, yet were it not for the village at its centre, so great are the changes in modern living, the number of children to attend the public school would not be so large as it was sixty years ago. Unless customs change, no Malthus can inspire us with fear of overcrowding the earth.
SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 10-" COVELL'S." Nov. 7, 1889-Jan. 30, 1890.
However much we may obtain from written records, to him who writes there is no satisfaction like that gained from some aged narrator, who, the toils of life all past, passes its evening calmly by the fireside, and, sur- rounded by loved ones, tells of the events of its earlier and active days. Such a source is had as we come to the district frequently referred to as
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Covell's. We enter it by turning to the west at Shear's corners, or if we took the west road, just south of George Stewart's, by continuing due west. This road is the longest straight stretch in the town. Beginning a half mile from the Butler line, it continues parallel with the Rose border and a little less than two miles south of the north edge, to within half a mile of Sodus. It must be, then, about six miles in length. We enter our neigh- borhood through District No. 3, whose extreme western resident, Super- visor George Catchpole, was mentioned several months since.
Our first stop is at a pleasant farm house on the north side of the road, where we shall find at home a man who, more than sixty years ago, came hither, and in the wilderness laid his hearth-stone. Stephen Collins was born March 8th, 1802-eighty-seven years since-and, with his father, Thaddeus', family, came to Rose from Phelps. Earlier than this he had come in with his brothers, Alpheus and Thaddeus, Jr. In fact, his advent was made on horseback, in some way contributing to the good of his kin. After the coming of his parents and their making their home near where Mrs. Harvey Closs now lives, he led the usual life of boys in these pioneer regions, getting a little schooling in the winter, and having always a pretty definite notion of what hard work was, till his marriage, in January, 1822, to Clarissa Wilson, a daughter of that Jonathan who had made his early home just north of Stewart's corners. They do say that Stephen was a most assiduous courter, and that sometimes the boys would untie his horse, which would result in his late rider's having to walk home. A neighbor says : "His horse was sometimes tied to the fence when I got up in the morning to start the day." Such ardor could have only one end- ing. So, long before attaining his majority, our friend essayed the yoke of matrimony, thus, it will be seen, never really knowing what liberty is. The full measure of home life, i. e., work at his father's home, was exacted in spite of his marriage. When the full time had been served, or a little after, he came down to this plain and took up his residence in a log house, built by Amasa Andrus. The farm itself was a part of the Nicholas pur- chase. Two brothers, James and Amasa Andrus, had come with Deacon Elizur Flint, first neighbor east, and Amasa located here. James, who was married, settled first on the farm where Will Closs is now. Afterward he lived in a log house across the road from the present Collins place, built by one Hall. Neither paid anything on their lots, and so, after a while, both went to Huron and thence west. Stephen succeeded to the farm and betterments, paying therefor nine dollars an acre, a sum consid- erably greater than a new lot would cost. But his hands were young and strong, and with a clear conscience and a willing heart he went to work. He received less from the paternal estate than his brothers; but he suc- ceeded quite as well, a tribute to the zeal and industry of himself and of his excellent help-meet. Could there be embodied in these lines all that this aged man can tell of the days early in the century, we might have veritable
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pictures of the homes and farms of those times. Let him narrate some of his observations : "Yes, we began in a log house, and began pretty much as others did. There was no mill near at first and grain had to be taken, at the nearest, to Wolcott. Then came the one at Glenmark, with saw- mills all along the creek to the eastward. Roads cut in and across wher- ever the people wished. Gradually, as the country was cleared up and fences built, it became necessary to lay out and maintain regular thorough- fares ; so the temporary ways were closed up. We lived closely, using much Indian meal and pork. Game was tolerably abundant. Everybody thought strong drink necessary, and I bought, soon after coming here, a ten-gallon cask of whisky ; but some how or other I didn't take to the idea, and so never had it filled again. I had neighbors who were incessantly begging for it. One man, Solomon Fraly, was a lesson to me. He lived in the log house, mentioned before, and he drank himself into delirium tremens. I wanted nothing of the medium that would reduce men to his condition. There were log houses at frequent intervals, even more com- mon than the permanent homes of to-day. Quite a ways down there, toward the south, was a log shanty, in which lived a family by the name of Riggs. They were wretchedly poor, so poor, indeed, that once they were said to have lived two weeks upon leeks. The Hall already men; tioned had married a sister of Mr. Riggs, who was the father of Gowan Riggs, so recently deceased in Huron. To put it in the mildest form pos- sible, this early settler was a man of very irregular habits. He sold to one Bascom. Then came a Van Wort, and he sold to Henry Ackerman, my son-in-law, and myself. The house became my barn, and it, in time, fell down. The Halls, Bascoms and Van Worts went west. You can not remember the funny way we had to resort to to gather our crops. Did you ever see grain drawn upon a bush? No? Well, this is the way it was done. We would cut down a small tree or take a branch of a large one and hitching a horse or ox to the end of it, would draw whatever could be piled on it, and we could get quite a deal, too. Then, too, in cutting grain we had to use the sickle entirely, and it was quite an art. Men had as much pride in their ability to swing the sickle well, as their sons, in the cradle, and grandsons in the reaper. We used to make a band of the first clip, then would lay on it enough for a bundle, and so continue across the field. When we had cut across, we would bind back, rolling our sickle up in our tow frocks, or hanging it on our shoulders. I used the latter way, generally. There was more made of the harvest season in those days than now. Liquor was considered a necessary part of the programme, and here is the refrain of some Pennsylvanians, who came up here to work. When making their first band, they would sing :
"'Good Massa Longstraw, Bottle at each end, But not in the middle of the band, O.'
-
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"This meant, I suppose, that they wanted plenty of drink, but none of drink's results in their bands. Homespun was our chief wear. In the year there might be woven fifty pounds of wool and one hundred of flax. How much money do you suppose I paid out in the making of that barn? Well, you couldn't guess. It was just two dollars and a half. Of course, it cost me more than that ; but grain was our standard and a day's work was rated at one bushel of wheat or two of oats. There were thirteen days' work on the framing of the barn. The house was built in 1839." The marriage of Mr. Collins and Clarissa Wilson, so early consummated, resulted in the birth of several children, as Mary Angeline, who, as the wife of S. Wesley Gage, now lives on the old farm, thus making pleasant the later days of her aged father. Mr. Gage is a native of Cayuga county. They have one daughter, Lillian M., who has had much experi- ence as a teacher, but is now at home. (Now Mrs. J. A. Rose, Hillsdale, Michigan.) Their only son, Thaddeus W., died in 1873, at the age of fourteen. Grace, a niece of Mr. Gage, finds with him a pleasant home. (Married in 1892 W. H. Lassell of Jersey City). Few people are better posted on contemporaneous Rose events than Mrs. Gage. Mr. Collins' second daughter, Damaris Adaline, married Henry Ackerman, and now lives in Huron. His only son, Thaddeus W., is well known in Wayne county, having been for many years a lawyer in Lyons, where he has held many offices at the hands of his fellow citizens. He is a graduate of Genesee College, now Syracuse University, then in Lima, and of the Albany Law School. I was a very small lad when I heard him and John Vandenberg of Clyde address the citizens of Rose in the old Baptist Church on the subject of slavery. I think it must have been my induction into the cause of abolition. He has been three times married. His first wife was Lovina A., daughter of William O. Wood of Red Creek. She was the mother of T. W. Collins, Jr., a rising young lawyer of Lyons. His second wife was Corinthia Bottum of Lyons. Stephen Collins' third daughter, Esther L., married James Winchell, then of Rose, now of Sodus, while Henrietta M. is Mrs. John Shear of Rose, near Stewart's corners, a brother of Peter, John Shear came from Junius. Mr. Collins has been for many years a leading member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Twice he has gone to Lyons to live with his son, but on the death of his wife late in 1886, he returned to his old home. Though we shall have occasion to refer to him often, we shall have to leave him now, happy, I trust, in the memories of a well spent life, and in the promise of a glorious life beyond. (Died November, 1892. In 1893 the Gages live in the Valley, and Frank Kellogg works the farm.)
The next farm was early taken up by Charles Woodward, who sold his betterments to Moses Foster Collins, another son of that first Thaddeus. He it was, who, when the century was in its teens, went courting with his
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brother Thaddeus "over east." He was attracted by the charms of Mary, daughter of Alverson Wade, who then lived on what is now the Lewis Town place, while Thad. was enamored of Harriet, daughter of Deacon Aaron Shepard. It was on these expeditions that to protect themselves from wolves, whose howls were alarmingly near, the sparkers armed them- selves with stakes from an old wood sled that chanced to be handy. Fortunately for them they didn't have to use them. This story was a favorite one of Uncle Thad.'s, and many a boy's hair has all but stood on end at the recital. Another even better liked by the small boy was about a bear that he and Mr. Beals once treed. They chopped the tree down, and then, by the help of their dogs, killed the animal as he leaped from the fallen tree. When an old man, and when to illustrate, it must have caused him a serious effort, he would get down upon the floor on his hands and feet to show how the bear acted. No circus ever gave one-half the pleasure that that home performance afforded ; and when Stephen Collins informs me that Mr. Beals was a Phelps man, that the bear was killed only a little further west, near the home of Francis Osborn, and that he went down the next morning to help skin it, the whole incident becomes a reality. Somehow or other I had grown to think that Mr. Beals and possibly Mr. Bear were only creatures of my good relative's imagination. Foster Collins married Mary Wade, and by her was the father of a numer- ous family. He was himself a member of the Methodist Church. Like his brothers, his life began in Phelps, May 22d, 1795, and he finished his earthly career July 14th, 1878, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition to the names given here, there were several children not named, who died early and were buried on the farm. His wife was born in Paris, Oneida county, September 18th, 1799, and died in Ann Arbor, August 11th, 1879. They were married July 16th, 1816, in what is now Rose, by the Rev. Mr. Smith, possibly that Elder S. who was the first Baptist preacher in our vicinity. I am under obligations for data to Mr. Collins' oldest daughter, Harriet, who, born July 7th, 1817, is a resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan. She married September 27th, 1838, in Pittsfield, Washtenaw county, Michigan, the Rev. Nelson Eastwood of the Baptist denomination ; their one son, John Foster, born December 3rd, 1846, is a Ph. D. from Michigan University, 1887, and an assistant professor of chemistry therein. Foster Collins' next child was Joseph Wade, born in Rose, September 16th, 1818, and he has been twice married ; first to Lucy Raymond, of Lodi, N. Y., and second, to Laurie Hines of Michigan ; he is a Wesleyan Methodist minister and the father of eight children, all farmers. Next came Franklin B., born September 7th, 1823, an M. D. from Michigan University ; he died in 1857, leaving one daughter, Mrs. John Bennett of Ann Arbor, Michigan ; his wife was Cordelia Bristol, of Michigan ; he practiced medi- cine in St. Clair and died in Pittsfield. Frederick W. Collins was born
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February 14th, 1826 ; he married Mary McDowell; has been a member of the Legislature ; has four children; and is now extensively engaged in grain raising in Dakota ; post office, De Smet. Mary L. Collins, born February 11, 1830, became Mrs. Addison McDowell, and died February 11th, 1884, in Middleville, Barry county, Michigan, the mother of nine children. George F. Collins, born March 21st, 1834, married Alvira Hepburn, and a farmer, is in Nebraska; he has one son. Betsey M., the last of Foster Collins' children, and the only one not born in Rose, became Mrs. George Cook, and is a resident of Middleville, Michigan. Her birth- place was Pittsfield, August 9th, 1837 ; she has one daughter. Truly this Collins-Wade stock was fruitful and of excellent quality. Leaving Rose in 1834, the most of Mr. Collins' following years were passed in Pittsfield. In Rose he was one of the first board of trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church established in 1832. The Woodward who preceded Mr. Collins on this farm went first to the Valley, where for a time he kept tavern, and then went west. His wife was Clara, a daughter of Captain John Sherman, 'one of the first settlers. To Foster Collins succeeded John B. Chatterson, a son of that Betts C. whom we found in District No. 7. Before leaving the Hudson river region he had married Cynthia Sours, a sister of Capt. Philip S., long prominent in Huron affairs. His children were all girls, viz. : Happilona, whom we have met in North Rose as the widow of Samuel Gardner; Mary is dead; Emily lives at the old home with her sister Cynthia ; Melvina married Newman Finch of Rose; Cynthia married Andrew Andrus of Huron, and lives on the farm whence years ago her parents were borne to their last resting places in the Huron burial ground. The Andruses have one daughter, Eveline May. Mr. A. is a son of Ben- ham Andrus, who once lived on the old Wright place in District No. 5. The farm that Mr. Andrus is managing is a pleasant one, and the house that he has added to and repaired has as fine an outlook as any in this part of Rose. There is every indication of careful, painstaking farming.
The next house toward the west is on the south side of the road, and in it dwells the family of Henry Gardner, a numerous one, for I understand that he has thirteen children, though all are not at home. Several years since, J. Shanker, a German, bought a small lot here and built a modest habitation. He and his wife, adepts in their work, made and sold willow baskets, depending upon several dwellers in Rose for the raw material. They had four children, and are now themselves both dead.
Just under the hill is a still smaller house, in which we may find Charles Ditton, whose wife, Lovina, is a daughter of James Phillips, on whose estate the place is. Down in the vale we may look either way along the site of what was to be the Sodus canal. There is a goodly quantity of water making its way lakeward, just as it has been doing for ages. The century was hardly begun before man, appreciating the power in this
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stream, began to dam its waters and to erect saw-mills. Stephen Collins thinks that the first mill on the creek was built by one Whitmore, who lived near the Shear corners, and that it was nearly in front of John Phillips'. It was probably put up in 1815 or 1816. A road ran down to it, entering near Mr. Fisher's stone barn. Succeeding owners were Howe and Van Buren. Alfred Lee may have owned it. It went down before the beginning of the ditch. A little further north, one Welch, an early comer, had a mill, and still further down the valley a dam was erected by Samuel Hunn, on which he had two saw-mills. After him came Simeon Barrett, under whom the mills went down, for General Adams prevailed upon him to let him run the water off just for a short time, and the site was not worth a dam afterward. Across the road where we may still see the ridge that formed the dam, Samuel Hunn afterward built a mill on John P. Chatterson's land. Then down about where the railroad crosses the vale, Uriah Wade had his dam and mill. It is only recently that the old frame entirely disappeared. In fact, were we to follow back through this glen we might find traces of all these dams and ponds, where the collected' water helped to fashion the material whence came the fences and houses of the early settler. Now the waters flow unvexed, save as sportive, naked boys lash them in juvenile glee, finding in some retired cove no end of the pleasure so dear to the juvenile heart and flesh. To be sure, as when I saw them, the sun may blister their exposed backs, but sweet cream will 1 allay the pain, and to-morrow they will be as fresh for the fun as ever.
Next there is a hill for us to climb and then we stand where two roads cross each other, making a point where the ancient and superstitious buried suicides and drove a stake through their hearts, making a terror for Godly survivors. But no such ghostly vision greets us, for here, rearing its white walls as a bulwark against ignorance and superstition, is a school- house, the one known throughout the town as Covell's, thus commemorat- ing the name of the good people who for so many years have dwelt beneath its shadow. It is the third building on the site.
The old Chatterson farm extended to the northeast corner. On the southeast corner we have the old allotment of the Phillipses. William, the first comer of this family, was from the east, possibly remotely from Rhode Island. He had not that regard for comfort that some of his neighbors possessed, but with his wife, Jane Crandall, reared a large family, and died in 1847, at the age of sixty-three years. He claimed to be a Quaker in faith, a very rare belief in this town. To the best of my knowledge he was the first comer here. The east part of his lot, running from the east and west road which we are traveling to the next one sonth, he afterward sold to Samuel Hunn, who came to us from Phelps. In time, Mr. P. built his house on the other side of the street, where now Mr. Stopfel resides, and our further discussion of him and his we will withhold till we pass down this road.
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On this corner in the long ago Hosea Gillett located, taking up a lot in the Nicholas purchase. To some of the old inhabitants he is yet a veritable figure, but to far the greater portion of Rose readers he is scarcely more than a name. He was said to be a happy-go-lucky man, patterned, perhaps, somewhat after his relative Harvey of District No. 3. I am told that both he and Harvey married Burnhams, sisters, and that Hosea's marriage in January, 1812, was the very first celebrated in town. I am also impressed that these Gilletts were the sons of Nodadiah Gillett, to whom was assigned the old Benjamin Seelye farm east of North Rose. It is said that his wife bore him sixteen children, and yet, when they had migrated to the west, she deserted him for another man. In the rather rough joking of that day it is claimed that she left him for fear that she would die childless. One picture of this pioneer presents him with a pair of breeches, whose warp was coarse swingle tow ; the filling was raveling from stocking, woven by his wife and colored by hemlock bark. He came early in the century, and finally sold to the Covells, whose first representative, James, came to Rose from Galen, though he had lived in Savannah and had married in Pompey. His wife was Anna Seymour of that town, and as it was the birthplace of ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, it is more than likely that they were rela- tives. Their first log house was a little west of where Joseph Phillips now lives. To them were born numerous children, of whom the oldest, James, never resident in Rose, went to Virginia from Clyde, and there died young. Maranda married Silas Brown and lived at Shepard's corners. Their only daughter became the wife of Lewis Barrett of Rose. Both Mr. and Mrs. Brown are buried in the Rose cemetery. Hiram married Huldah Bailey of Galen, went west, and died in Ohio. Seymour, of whom we shall see more, wedded Clarissa Crafts of Wayne Center, and now lives north of the school-house. Charles took for his wife Lizzie, daughter of John I. Smith, then living in the district. They now live in Michigan. After the death of his wife in 1863, Mr. Covell went to Michigan to live with his favorite grandson, James, Seymour's son, and died in 1872. He bore a good repu- tation among the early settlers of our town. In 1874 and later, this place was the home of W. H. Sutphin, who married an Osborne and now lives in Allegan, Michigan. On this place is now found the home of Joseph Phillips, whose father, William, has already been referred to, and a very pleasant home it is. I only wish that the owner had better health with which to enjoy his surroundings. For a number of years he has been a confirmed invalid, a subject of much sympathy among his friends. Years ago he took for his wife Joanna Waters, one of that family which has furnished helpmeets to the Deadys, Desmonds, and Colborns. Nature to them has not been unkind, for around their hearthstone has blossomed a whole bouquet of juveniles, viz. : Josephine, Jane, Rose, Maranda, Charles, Frank, Anna and Florence. Anna, as the wife of Charles Strong,
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lives in the next house west, which was once Charles Covell's home. Lest the race may become extinct, she carries a babe in her arms as she answers the knock at the door. (Nearly opposite, Mr. Shoesmith is bnild- ing a house, August, 1893.)
Francis Osborne lives in a large and commodious brick house. There is an air of comfort and culture about it pleasing to contemplate. To reach it, we must leave the Strong place on the south side of the road behind us; must go down a slight hill, cross a well-bridged creek which a juvenile Osborne has dammed for purposes useful and sportive, and there, just at the end of the impending rise, we shall find the home of the Osbornes. The early history of the farm is even more than usually obscure. It is probable that it was first taken up by one Dunbar, said to be a colored man. David Gates, who married Roxy Bishop, daughter of the first Joel, possibly followed. There was here once a German named Nierpas, and Judge Hawley of Lyons once owned it. As tenants, were Broderick and Fairbanks; but the early mists finally clear away, and we find Francis Osborne, who made this his home in 1836. He was born in Ireland, one of those unyielding north of Ireland Presbyterians who have made such excellent American citizens. He came to Rose in 1828, and settled first on the place just opposite the old Deacon Lyon farm on the Clyde road. His wife was Martha Cowan, whose parents, James and Frances, passed their last days in a log house a little west of the present structure, and after life's battles sleep in Rose cemetery, whither they were borne in 1842 and 1845 respectively. The elder Osbornes passed away, the father in 1866, at the age of seventy-seven years, and the mother in 1856, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. They, too, sleep in the Rose burial ground. Of their children, William M. married Ruth Foist, of a prominent Galen family, and now resides in Lyons. He lived for many years in the Griswold district on the road north of Ferguson's corners, and was a very prominent member of the Rose Methodist Church. James married Helen, daughter of Seymour Covell, and is the very next resident west. For Catharine we must look in the cemetery, where, at the early age of eighteen, she lies by her parents' side. Martha married William H. Sutphin, whose former home we lately passed, and who is now in Michigan. Francis the second occupies the old home, much improved under his care, where several years ago he brought his bride, Flora Adel Holbrook of the Valley, a daughter of J. L. Holbrook. They have only one child, a son, Mervin Marinus, of natural history proclivities. Mr. O.'s youngest sister, Harriet, makes her home with him. (Mrs. Osborne died June 1, 1893, aged forty-four years. )
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