USA > New York > Niagara County > Souvenir history of Niagara County, New York : commemorative of the 25th anniversary of the Pioneer Association of Niagara County > Part 16
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 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
The other branches of farming have not been neglected, and particular attention has of late been paid to dairy sub- jects. Grain and garden farming, stock and poultry grow- ing, and the various other interests of the farm, are thor-
75
SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
oughly discussed whenever occasion presents itself. One of the past presidents of the club has summed up the good work thus: "We have better farms, better farmers. There is a higher standard of education among the farmers and their children. We have developed the social side of farm life. The farm home has been made more attractive. We have elevated the calling of the farmer, and have banded to- gether the tillers of the soil in Niagara County, in an organi- zation second to none in New York State, if not in the Union."
The members of the club have developed the ability to speak in public. It is quite the usual thing at the club meet- ings for farmers to express themselves logically, forcibly and sometimes eloquently, on subjects pertaining to the farm.
C. HERBERT MC CIEW, FINANCIAL SECRETARY.
Legislators have come to these meetings, and have been im- pressed with the intelligence and earnestness of the mem- bers. Any request from the Farmers' Club pertaining to legislation receives prompt attention.
FARMERS' INSTITUTES AND CORNELL.
The club aided very materially in making a success of the first Farmers' Institute, held under the auspices of the New York State Agricultural Society, which took place in Lockport, on January 13 and 14, 1887. This was so suc- cessful as to ensure the organization and continuance of this very efficient educational work, known as the New York State Farmers' Institutes. Institute workers state they ob- serve in their travels a marked difference in the character of the audiences when they reach Niagara County, where they find people alert for knowledge on farm subjects.
During the past year the club has so thoroughly intro- duced the Cornell University reading courses in the farm homes that the enviable reputation has been obtained of be- ing the banner reading course county in the State. The club also took an active part in securing the complete rural mail delivery system in this County, making it possible for all farmers to receive their mail every week day. Recently the club conducted a very successful excursion and field day to Cornell University and Geneva, to visit the agricul- tural experiment grounds. In 1901 many of its members were prize winners for horticultural exhibits at the Pan- American Exposition.
The club has advocated the teaching of farm subjects in
the County high schools, the improvement of the country roads, the building of trolley lines, and the establishment of rural telephones. The success in recent years that the club meetings have attained has been due greatly to the publicity given them by the county papers.
Among those who have been prominently identified with the club in years past are: E. B. Swift, of Cambria; Jabez Woodward, of Lockport; George P. Tower, of Youngstown ; the late Harmon B. Tower, of Ransomville ; Willard Hopkins, of Lewiston ; the late John Swick, Belden F. Wright and James G. C. Brown, of Wilson; the late Charles McClew and Mrs. McClew, of Newfane ; W. H. Out- water, of Olcott ; John Mather, Joseph Garbutt and M. W. Silsby, of Hartland; H. H. Bugbee, Dr. F. L. Knapp and
CHARLES J. MILLER, TREASURER,
John P. Brown, of Gasport; Edwin Harmony, of Pendle- ton, and Hon. T. V. Welch, of Niagara Falls.
The life of Mr. Woodward is such an important part of the agricultural history and progress of Niagara County that a brief sketch of his career and his services to horticul- ture and agriculture is appropriate in this connection :
Jabez Seldon Woodward was born April 4, 1831, in Phelps, Ontario County, New York. When one year old he came with his parents to Newfane, into what was then the "Great North Woods," between Ridge Road and the lake shore. He attended district school until 1847. after which he was a pupil at Wilson Academy for five winter terms. In 1854 he married Sarah Maria Davis, of Wilson, and they have reared three children. He always lived on the farm until 1871, when, to give his children school privil- eges, he moved to Lockport, where he has since resided. Mr. Woodward has always been an owner and interested in farms and farming, and has tried to keep in touch with the latest improvements in farming. And while he has been en- gaged in various other enterprises, he has always felt more interest in the farm than anything else. For five years he was secretary and manager of the New York State Agricul- tural Society, and only relinquished that position because of a very severe sickness, which compelled him to quit all lit- erary work for several years. While secretary of that so- ciety more life members joined than ever before or since in its history. To Mr. Woodward, more than to any other
92
SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
man, belongs the credit of organizing and putting on a per- manent and successful working basis the work of Farmers' Institutes in New York State, and for five years he was sole
JABEZ SELDON WOODWARD.
manager of the work, and attended all the institutes. In fact, it was the double work of secretary of the Agricultural Society and manager of Institutes that brought on the sick- ness that compelled him to retire.
Mr. Woodward has long been an active member of the
Niagara County Farmers' Club, and while he has always re- fused all offices connected with it, he has been one of its staunchest supporters. He seldom fails to attend its meet- ings, and is always ready to further any plan for its greater efficiency.
Mr. Woodward, with his nephew and partner, H. M. Jaques, is largely engaged in farming, owning over 600 acres of the finest land in the County. They have very exten- sive orchards of peaches, pears, plums and apples, having in one year barrelled 8,000 barrels of apples and 20,000 baskets of peaches.
They are also the largest raisers of winter (hot house) lambs in this country, if not in the world, having marketed as many as 800 in a single winter.
Mr. Woodward was the first man to advocate the win- ter shearing of feeding sheep, and the close housing of cows and fattening animals in warm stables. He was the first man to recommend spraying apple trees with poison for the destruction of codlin moths. In fact, he has been the pio- neer in many things that were considered very radical, but which later have become general practices.
In politics, he was an original Abolitionist. He was the youngest delegate to the State convention at Auburn, at which the Republican party was born, and has been a stead- fast Republican ever since. .
Mr. Woodward is a contributor to many of the agricul- tural papers, and what he writes has the ring of constant ex- perience. He has fully regained his health, and to see him so full of life and so active one would hardly think him over 71 years old and for seventy years a resident of Niagara County .- ED.]
FOREST ON LAKE ONTARIO, 1838.
Reminiscences of Lewiston.
BY JOSHUA COOKE
VIEW FROM QUEENSTON HEIGHTS OVERLOOKING LEWISTON.
HE publishers of the "Souvenir History of Ni- agara County" have asked me to contribute to their volume, under the above head. Left now, in the lapse of years, the eldest person living in Lewiston-born in 1821-there is much, of course, of personal remembrance, and much more derived from those who have lived before and with me. I feel, at the outset, that there may seem undue frequency of personal and family reference. I hardly see how it can be avoided. Hon. Peter A. Porter tells me that he finds my grandfather, Lemuel Cooke, to be the oldest actual settler on the Niagara Frontier. His family was large, and had num- erous descendants. They have always been prominent in the Town and County, deeply engaged in the business and enterprises in the history of the county, and can hardly be passed by; for delicacy's sake, in reminiscences of the town, I say this, now, to deprecate censure, if I seem some- what often to refer to members of our name, and to incidents connected with myself.
JONCAIRE, THE PIONEER.
Any adequate reference to the past of Lewiston must date from the advent on the Niagara Frontier of that remarkable Frenchman, Chabert Joncaire; re- markable from his personal history, and from his striking qualities of character. The leading facts are well known. Taken prisoner by the Iroquois in one of their incursions on the French, he was condemned by the Senecas to torture at the stake. Before the torture began a brutal Seneca touched his lighted pipe to Joncaire's finger to show him how fire would feel. The brave Frenchman struck him full
in the face and felled him like an ox. The Senecas, with the fickleness of the race, were so delighted with his act that they unbound him and adopted him into their tribe. He married among them; acquired their language, and be- came distinguished for his wisdom and eloquence in their councils. By his single influence, he was able to thwart for many years, the influence and plans of the English Gover- nors of New York and of Sir William Johnson, superintend- ent of Indian Affairs. The Senecas, in 1720, allowed him to erect a trading hut of forty feet in length, on the after site of the memorable ferry across the Niagara, at the foot of the Rapids. There, from 1720 till 1740, the date of his death, he stood face to face with Sir William Johnson, one of the most remarkable men of his time ; the one on the Niag- ara, the other at Johnstown, in the extreme East. This hut, for fur trading and Indian supplies, was the beginning of Lewiston; the only white man's dwelling west of Oswego. and that was merely a military post.
In 1723 the Senecas allowed Joncaire to remove his hut to the mouth of the river, and under his influence the French were allowed to put up some fortifications, which, year by year, grew to be Fort Niagara; doomed, in 1759. under Pouchot, to fall before Sir William Johnson. The Lewiston hut gradually rotted down, though the place was always the scene of transfer of furs and goods, up and down the moun- tain, as we Lewistonians always call it, and of passage of French troops and traders to and from the far West. Here, then, begins my reminiscences of Lewiston. To facilitate the carriage of furs and supplies to the river above the Falls, the British built a tramway on stone abutments, by a
SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
windlass or stationary power. Two men could draw up more than ten men could take on their shoulders. In my father's boyhood the remains of the great wooden rails were plainly visible, and in my own boyhood the stone abut- ments of the tramways were still standing, all quiet, shaded now, where, 100 years before, was the busy train of trader and native bearing up the supplies and down the furs. And at night, around Joncaire's hut, at the bottom, the song and dance of the merry Frenchman, or the whoop and war dance of the Chemessio Senecas. Quite an Indian settlement sprang up there, for the plug of tobacco and pint of brandy, which a day's work could purchase. All these things would crowd on my boy mind as I sought the mountain side to shoot the ruffed grouse, which made the stone abutments favorite places for drumming. Eighty-two years pass by. Joncaire is gone ; the Frenchman is gone ; the Englishman is gone.
Their forms are dust ; Their swords are rust ; Their souls are with the Lord, we trust.
ADVENT OF THE AMERICAN.
The American has come. My grandfather, Lemuel Cooke, had been in the army of Washington, in the Revolu- tion. The English were about giving up the Frontier forts in 1796; the Government offered transportation to any, in New England and the East, who would serve one year in the forts. He had a young and growing family in Connecticut ; he resolved that he would take a home on the Frontier, and grow up with the region. Up the Hudson ; up the Mohawk ; down the Oswego; along Lake Ontario; then Niagara-two long months of weary travel, which is now made in a day. My father was then nine years old; his life, with mine, covers the whole period of progress of Middle and Western New York from an untrodden wilderness to an orchard, grain and garden land of 2,000,000 of people.
Again, this man, who was the first actual settler on the Niagara Frontier. He served his year at the fort; kept the ferry to Newark, till 1802. In the spring of that year, just 100 years ago, my uncle, Lothrop, and my father, came up to the old ferry ; spent the summer in hewing out logs and slabs for a dwelling; built on the very site of Joncaire's cabin of eighty years before. It was a lonely place. Wolves howled nightly around the dwelling, and cows, hogs, every- thing living had to be shut in by night from their attacks. Middaugh had been where the village now stands with his humble tavern. Henry Mills had been there, as a single man and a squatter; actual settlers there were none; they were alone in the wilderness. But the ice was broken and settlers came slowly in; Barton, Fairbanks, Hopkins, Hustler, Millar and others, whose names are identified with all the after growth of the place.
RELEASE OF PEMBERTON.
Before leaving the locality of the Joncaire hut, I would recall a striking incident, often mentioned in local histories. After the defeat of the Indians by Sullivan at Elmira, in 1778, having taken Captain Pemberton prisoner, they re- solved, in their anger, to burn him. They had bound him to the stake, and were about proceeding with the torture when Brant, the Mohawk Chief, craftily interposed. He had been long associated with Sir William Johnson before the latter's death; he had been to England, and received much honor there; the savage element had been greatly molified, and he did not want Pemberton tortured. But, traditionally, a native chief who stakes his influence on a measure and fails
loses his place as chief, and Brant did not dare to risk his influence with the savages. Seeing an aged squaw seated near the stake, who had lost a son in the battle with Sulli- van, he said quietly to her, "what a pity such a fine man should burn; he would keep your lodge in venison. Why don't you claim him, in place of your son?" and slipped a knife into her hand. She arose, cut the Captain's thongs, and claimed him for adoption. The whole tribe could not say nay ; he was adopted ; married a Tuscarora woman and I knew his children well; there are descendants now in the tribe.
It is well known that Brant and his Mohawks were obliged, about 1775, to fall back on the Niagara with the British forces still in possession of Fort Niagara, with 300 miles of wilderness between him and the successful colonists. He set his wigwam in a fine meadow of about thirty acres, near the foot of the mountain, where was a spring, and an apple tree, said to have been planted by him. I have often, in boyhood, eaten of the apples and drank from the spring. His people settled along the Ridge Road for a couple of miles out from the river and cultivated patches of ground for support, while the river and the woods gave them the rest. They left before 1796, when we took possession of the Fort. My grandfather afterwards purchased the two fine meadows occupied by them and Brant as a home, to which he moved in 1810. It is still a family home, in possession of Miss Emily Cooke, my cousin, the only one living of my uncle Isaac's children, as a sister and myself are the last of our own family, and one daughter, of my uncle Lothrop's; four left of twenty-nine of the three families ; so we fade. It is still true as old Homer sang 3,000 years ago: "The race of men are like the leaves." I may add, that I am surprised to find myself the only person living who can point out the line of Joncaire's abutments, with remains of a number, and the stump of the wild apple tree to which the Indians tied Pemberton, just back from the old ferry.
DEVIL'S HOLE MASSACRE.
In writing of Lewiston, I have not felt called upon to give details of the terrible massacre of the Devil's Hole, though ocurring within its limits, for Niagara was not then a county, and Lewiston was not a town. Yet a brief refer- ence to it may seem desirable in a volume giving to present readers a history of the past. After the victory of 1759 Sir William Johnson established wagon communication be- tween the two ends of the portage from Joncaire's hut to the Fort Little Niagara above the Falls. The Senecas were angered at this, as they had had quite a revenue from carry- ing over the portage. And they had been surly and hostile during the whole contest between the English and the French. The two Chiefs, Cornplanter and Farmer's Brother, organized an ambuscade at Bloody Run, emptying into the Hole or ravine, and massacred the entire party of soldiers and teamsters returning from a trip above, only two escap- ing ; then met and murdered a second detachment sent for relief. It was, in both instances, an unprovoked, merciless slaughter, and the dead bodies were hurled, scalped and mutilated, into the ravine. This was Sir William's opportu- nity, and he was the man to use it. He gave notice to the Senecas that, unless they met him in treaty he would send . Gen. Bradstreet, with a British army, and sweep their towns, or orchards and grain from the face of the earth, and drive themselves to the woods. They came, cringing like hounds ; he demanded two miles wide on each side of the Niagara from lake to lake for permanent use for transport ; they gave it without a murmur, and added the personal
62
SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
present to Sir William himself of Grand Island. As an of- ficial, he could not accept of this, but handed it over to the King. From that hour the power of the fiercest, most numerous and hostile tribe of the great Confederacy, the exterminators of the Neuters and the Eries, dwindled away. Well, the little hamlet of Hustler, Middaugh, Mills, Wood- man, Gambol, McBride, the Howells, none of them, but Hustler, permanent settlers, had grown into a village, with two doctors, two lawyers, two blacksmiths, two merchants, while on the roads out of the place had settled such men as Latta, Robinson, Hopkins, Sanders, Sage and others, long after known as prominent and leading families that carried on their influence and their name.
BETTY FLANAGAN.
The incident has often been referred to of Cooper's connection with the Hustler family in the matter of his character of Betty Flanagan and Sergeant Hollister, in the "Spy," and the "Pioneers." In the War of 1812, Cooper, then a midshipman on the lake, boarded, for some weeks, at the Hustler Tavern. The somewhat formidable woman who ruled all within, was of so marked a character, that Cooper did, in fact, take her for his "Betty Flanagan," as above. Report said that she had been a sutler in the Revolutionary army, what the French call a "vivandiere." To :his prob- ably is due the fact of somewhat formidable elements in her character. She had the name of being a virago of the first water, and so to the life did Cooper give her out in the "Spy," that when her daughter came onto the book she threw it in the fire ; the very form and speech of her eccentric parent were again before her. My own recollection of her is entirely in the Betty Flanagan line, and is vivid to me as I write, after seventy years. When about ten years old, I was passing her house one wet morning, and was hugging the long front stoop of the tavern to avoid the mud. In the average haste of the boy a little late for school, I had failed to tie my shoes, and the strings were trailing. The dreaded dame stood on the steps, her arms akimbo, with the appear- ance of looking out for war, as was said to be generally the case. This time, the war fell on me. In a voice like a cracked bassoon, she cried out, "come up here, you little brat, and tie your shoes; what do you go that way for through the mud?" I went up as promptly as if a Governor or a President had called me, but trembling in every joint of my frame. "Can you tie a double bow-knot?" "No, Mrs. Hustler," I stammered. "Well, now put your foot up on the step, and I will show you how." My fingers would hardly perform their office, but, at last, after repeated fail- ures, she initiated me into the mysteries of the double bow- knot, and I achieved both the knots to her pleasure. "There, now, honey, don't go that way with the strings down; come in and get some bread and sugar." It was like being patted by a lioness, but I took the sugar. The famous old hostelry was noted as celebrating its functions to the public, especially, in the way of drink, every Saturday night. There were the Sergeant and Betty; two grown sons, one son-in-law, three grown daughters, and all cele- brated. If, on the night air, at 10 o'clock, Saturday even- "ing, cries of "Help! murder! help!" came from that direc- tion they fell on unheeding ears. It was like a boy saying to another, "Jim, there's a thunder storm coming!" "Well, let her thunder, what's the harm?" . It is amusing to hear the Betty Flanagan incident connected with another famous hostelry of the old village, built ten years after the war, and after the time of Cooper's sojourn here.
THE WAR OF 1812.
Then came the War of 1812, and the Battle of Queens- ton Heights. The little village is now turned into a military encampment, and such men as the Van Rensselaers, Wads- worth, Chrystie, Wool and Scott, are passing to and fro in the cool October days, and Gray and Towson are getting ready to thunder from the top of the mountain on the bat- tery at Vrooman's Point. Lemuel, Lothrop and Bates Cooke and Asahel Sage are engaged as pilots, being familiar with the current, with the aim to land the boats at Hennepin's Rock. I stood on it the other day, and walked along the grim breastwork where Dennis lay with his forty to fire on our troops. Benjamin Barton had the contract to furnish the boats, and the whole matter hung on the skill and courage of a few men of the little village. The landing is made ; the fight is sharp; in half an hour Colonel Van Rensselaer is brought over, severely wounded, and borne to my grand- father's home ; seven out of ten of his officers follow, severely wounded. Wood takes up the fight, with three wounds himself, wins three battles; kills Brock, McDonnell, Wil- liams and Dennis; leaves the fight to Winfield Scott, who bravely conducts it to the end, when 1,800 militia stand on the banks and look on while the little band are overpowered, surrender and are marched prisoners down the river to Newark. Morrison and Uncle L., the two vil- lage physicians, Alvord and Willard Smith, their arms red to the elbows, nobly aid the army surgeons and relieve the wounded. The people of the little place were not wholly cast down, for while the main body of the militia were recre- ant they who went over with the regulars played their part gallantly, and won three battles out of four before the eyes of the village lookers on. Little trade in the old town that day ; no sound of the anvil; no gathering in shop or store ; all on the bank, or helping in care of the wounded and dy- ing brought across. Van Rensselaer lay at my grand- father's for five days before he could be carried elsewhere for treatment ; the gallant Wool soon recovered and Scott came back from Quebec in time to chase the enemy from Fort George and to win immortality, with almost deadly wounds, at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane.
ESCAPE FROM THE INDIANS.
Then came, in 1813, the catastrophe following Mc- Clure's barbarous act of burning Newark on his evacuation. In vengeance, the fort was taken, and British and Indians, spread along the river, burning and murdering all in their way. One after another, nearly a dozen were shot down. A. Millar and S. Gillet were taken prisoners to Montreal, not returning till the next year. The case of Dr. Alvord was pitiful. He was a cripple, and, attempting to escape on horseback, was shot down and tomahawked. When he was found his poor fingers were slit down to the wrists with the hatchets, as he had vainly held them up to parry the blows or to ask for mercy. Dr. Willard Smith escaped on foot, and was, incidentally, the means of the escape of all the male members of my grandfather's family. It will not be deemed too much that I should give an account of this ; it has been often printed, and I will give it as it is known in our family.
My uncle, Lothrop Cooke, had lost his leg in hauling Van Rensselaer's boat through the cold water to a point where they could make Hennepin's Rock in the fight. He was in the last stage of weakness, and the least motion was feared as endangering his life. News came to the home, east of the village about a mile, of the taking of the Fort. and the coming of the Indians. Sending the women of the family ahead with the horses, my grandfather yoked his oxen
80
SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
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.