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 27
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The east portion of the Town of Somerset was settled at a later date than the west, and a considerable portion of the land from the lake up four or five miles on each side of the Golden Hill Creek was settled by squatters who, al- though not criminals, were an ignorant, shiftless set of in- habitants, and this very naturally gave this section a bad name, or at least that portion of it situated near the creek. The rest of the land was settled by thrifty and industrious people.
This land settled by these squatters belonged to the heirs of Joseph Ellicott, who, when he surveyed this part of the Holland purchase made a selection of this land, think- ing it would some day prove very valuable as a water power for milling and manufacturing purposes. the creek at that time being quite large. But as the surrounding land was cleared and the swamps drained it soon shrunk to an in- significant stream.
Probably the first land selected and reserved for indi- vidual ownership in our county, yes in all Western New York, was the tract, in the present Town of Somerset, which was formerly known as "Ellicott's Reserve." Joseph El- licott being one of the surveyors of the Holland Land Com- pany's purchase, and the first resident agent in Western New York, it was absolutely certain that whatever land he selected would subsequently be purchased by him, and it is a most interesting commentary on the expectations of the man, who when our county was first settled, was the best known man in all Western New York, that being familiar with all the land in the State west of the Genesee River, he then selected the site, for the reason that he expected the water power which could be developed from Golden Hill creek would make his "reserve" the greatest manufacturing center in the Genesee country. With the felling of the forests, Golden Hill Creek shrunk away so that today in seasons of draught its bed is perfectly dry.
Niagara and the Genesee Falls, to which as power pro ducers Joseph Ellicott paid no attention, are running today in full force.
This creek at that time abounded in vast quantities of fish. Indeed, I have heard it related by people of much greater reliability than the fishermen of the present day. that when these fish ran up in the spring of the year they were thrown out in windrows, and that by putting the hand down into the water they could be felt and often times thrown out in this manner. Suffice it to say that the settlers had all they wished for, and took them away in wagon loads. These fish, a very little corn meal with a good whiskey basis, afforded these squatters all they seemed to desire. The latter portion of these nourishing ingredients could then be obtained at from twelfe to fifteen cents per gallon.
The better and most intelligent of the settlers were very desirous of ridding themselves of these unpleasant and un- profitable incumbrances, but although the Ellicotts had taken steps by merely ordering them off occasionally to pro- tect the land from the twenty year peaceable possession statute, yet no further action was taken until Pixley M. Humphrey, now still living at Olcott, purchased a good sized track and took a quit claim deed. He them began an action
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of ejectment which was tried in the County Court with success.
Then some `few of the better class purchased their land and the remainder eventually left. The farm now owned and occupied by Mr. Billings and part of Mr. Swain's farm on the Lake Road is what Mr. Humphrey was the purchaser of at that time.
A SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.
The following is one of those singular coincidents which can truthfully be called "stranger than fiction," and which, if used by a novelist, would be looked on as far fetched. Yet I can vouch for the truth of it in every particular.
One portion of the east part of the town was settled by a few families from Mexico, Oswego County, this State. Among them in the year 1830 was a family named Patch, consisting of a man and his wife and nine children, who took up a small farm from the Holland purchase. It being rather unhealthy at that time, the head of the family soon died of the prevailing fever.
A few years afterward another family from another part of the State named Wescot, moved in on the adjoining farm. The old resident, upon hearing the name of the new comer, made the remark that when she was a very little girl she had an older sister marry a man of that name, but that she had never heard of her since. She then sent her oldest boy to see if they could be of any assistance and at the same time to look at the woman and tell her how she looked. The boy soon returned and told his mother that the strange woman was quite tall and looked like her. She immediately ,went there and found that they were actually own sisters, neither having heard from the other in all this time and had no knowledge of one another's whereabouts. As any one would naturally suppose, there was great rejoicing and no sleep for either that night.
Many of the descendants of these two pioneer women are scattered about the county ; two of them (which were of the nine children, now elderly women) still reside in the town. They are both well to do and are enjoying the fruits of their hard experience in this beautiful and fruitful country, in contrast with the then wilderness which rendered their life so hard at that time as pioneers.
I could not do justice to this article and leave unmen- tioned one who at such a time of hardship rendered so much assistance to those in adversity and with less of this world's goods than himself. Samuel Coleman, one of the oldest of these pioneers, was never called upon in vain for assistance indeed it was seldom he waited for such a call, for he made it his particular occupation to see to it that none of his im- mediate neighbors needed such assistance, and there are still those living who remember with gratitude his great kindness and benovolence to all around him. His many descendants have greater reason to be proud of such an ancestor than if he had been the occupant of some high and exalted position.
Town of Wheatfield. BY GEORGE H. LOVELAND.
HEATFIELD is in the southwestern part of Niagara County, bounded on the north by the Towns of Lewiston and Cambria, on the east by Pendleton, on the south by the City of North Tonawanda and Niagara River, and on the west by the Town of Niagara. The surface of the town
is generally level; the soil is mostly a heavy clay, although a part is black muck, and the southern part is light chestnut soil. The principal streams are Sawyer's Creek, Bull Creek and Cayuga Creek. Sawyer's Creek rises in the center of town, flows southeast, and empties into Tonawanda Creek at Martinsville. Bull Creek rises in Cambria, flows south- west through Pendleton and Wheatfield, and empties into
GEORGE H. LOVELAND.
Sawyer's at Martinsville. Cayuga Creek rises in the north- ern part of town, flows southwest, and empties into the Ni- agara River at La Salle.
Aside from the numerous creeks, a system of ditches were dug in the early sixties, by which the low lands of the town are very thoroughly drained. About the only incon- venience suffered from floods is in the spring of the year on account of the dam across Tonawanda Creek, at Tonawanda, for the purpose of raising the level of the canal, which dam raised the level of our creeks about four feet, thus causing us no little inconvenience and considerable loss in times of heavy rains and when snow is going off in spring.
FARM PRODUCTS.
The town derives its name from being so well adapted to the raising of wheat, the main product in the early years of the history of the town. Although wheat is still raised quite extensively, other crops have taken the place of it to a great extent. Potatoes, berries and all kinds of garden vegetables are grown on the light lands of the south and center, and milk is the main product where the inhabitants are within reach of a shipping station.
EARLY HISTORY.
Wheatfield was erected from the Town of Niagara, May 12, 1836. The first town meeting was held on June 6 of that year, in the school house of District No. 7, on the north line of the town. N. M. Ward was elected Supervisor, and Ed- win Cook, Town Clerk; Assessors, Isaac H. Smith, James Sweeney, Hiram Parks ; Justices of the Peace, L. B. Warden, John Sweeney; Commissioners of Highways, Elias Parks, Matthew Gray; Collector, Stewart Milliman; Overseer of the Poor, William Towsley: Constables, Stewart Milliman, Daniel C. Jacobs, Calvin T. Champlin, Seth F. Roberts; Commissioners of Schools, Isaac I. Young, James Sweeney, Loyal E. Edwards.
In the spring of 1845 it was voted that the town pay a
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bounty of twelve shillings for wild cat scalps and five dol- lars for wolves' heads.
PIONEER SETTLEMEMT.
In this sketch I shall take the liberty of making copious extracts from the history of Niagara County, published in 1878, which is the best record of the Town of Wheatfield available, incorporating therewith whatever I have learned of the history of the town, by tradition or experience, in a lifetime spent within its borders.
Harvey Miller came from Rochester, in 1824, and set- tled on the Lockport and Niagara Falls road, in the northern part of the town, purchasing 100 acres of the Holland Com- pany, at five dollars per acre, on contract, advancing, as was customary, twenty-five dollars for an "article." His equip- ment for beginning were two yoke of steers and axe and scant provisions and lodgings. The first winter he lived in Wheatfield, with the assistance of a young man, he chopped twenty-five acres, which he cleared in the spring for suitable crops. During the summer he cleared the balance to sow eighteen acres of winter wheat. The piece produced 800 bushels, which he sold to other settlers as they came in at seventy-five cents per bushel, threshing it on a split log floor during the winter, assisted by his young wife in clean- ing it. As a Road Commissioner he directed the opening of all the first roads in the town.
SHAWNEE.
Shawnee was named by Timothy Shaw, who in connec- tion with Volney Spalding, established a store and ashery in 1828. The hamlet contains a dry goods and grocery store, blacksmith and wagon shop and a small, neatly constructed Methodist Episcopal Church, erected in 1863. The earliest preaching was of that demnomination, by the Rev. Messrs. Hoag and Cole. The first religious organization was per- fected by the Rev. Reuben Winchell. The Shawnee Baptist Church was instituted in the barn of Harvey Miller, July 2, 1830. Removal of members and influx of a prevailing Luth- eran population has given the latter the place of the former Baptist connection. The land for the church building was donated by Isaac Carl in 1847, and the church erected the . same year.
John Grey located about a mile south of Shawnee in 1825, coming from Livingston County. He purchased of the Holland Company eighty-five acres at five dollars per acre.
GERMAN NEIGHBORHOOD.
A population of industrious Prussians now own the largest portion of the farming territory of the town. The character of a productive agricultural region, redeemed from swamps and marshes, is due to them.
Settlements in the different localities were simultan- eous. In 1843 Carl Sack, Erdman Wurl and Fred Grass- kopf purchased of William Vandewrote 400 acres at fifteen dollars per acre, on the Tonawanda Creek, in the southeast corner of the town, at Martinsville. Lutheran religious an- tecedents caused the adoption of this name by disciples of Martin Luther.
The original purchase was divided into smali lots of three acres and upward, as others were able to purchase, to provide for the location of thirty families the first season. They erected ten log houses in the autumn, each of which was occupied by three or four families during the winter and until joint efforts relieved the immigrants by building other homes. The families remained in Buffalo until the first houses were built, obtaining the best accommodations they could find.
The first church building was erected in 1846. The sec- ond church was built in 1861.
NEW BERGHOLTZ.
New Bergholtz was settled in 1843 by a German Luth- eran congregation which emigrated from Prussia. It is named after the large Village of Bergholtz, in Germany, from which a great number of the families of this congre- gation came. Frederick Moll, John Williams and John Sy, as trustees, purchased the land for an association, styled the "Lutheran Evangelical," consisting of 120 members.
The trustees caused a map to be made by W. S. Hains, designating 121 village lots, located upon parallel and diag- onal streets of convenient width and an ample public square. By a general deed, executed by the trustees October 12, 1843, they convey to Augustus Manske and 118 others a lot each of one acre. The village has a present population of 100 families.
A large barn that had been previously built, it is thought to accommodate lumber teams, was used to shelter the first population, in which they were stowed until houses could be built. In four weeks a sufficient number of houses were erected to take four or five families in one house, relieving them from the more uncomfortable condition in the over- crowded store house.
Washington Hunt presented the community with an ox team to aid them in building, the first they possessed in the country. The erection of log dwellings was continued until one was during the first season placed upon nearly every lot that had been deeded.
The community had connected with them the necessary mechanics, a carpenter and joiner, a blacksmith, mason, tailor, shoemaker and cabinet maker. The sale of wood for three to five dollars per cord at Tonawanda, Buffalo and Niagara Falls, mostly transported by one-horse teams, and the sale of ship timber and staves, were important aids to furnish means of living and clearing the land. Potatoes and garden vegetables were the chief product for the first six or seven years.
John Salnigree was a member of the community first lo- cating, bringing with him a capital of $20,000. He aided many of his less fortunate brethren who were industrious and without means. He died in January, 1871, aged sixty-nine years.
Bergholtz is famous for the excellence of its cooked goose, and at the close of many political campaigns the lead- ing politicians of the County repair thither for their last meeting and to regale themselves with Bergholtz hospitality.
SUPERVISORS.
The following Supervisors have served since the organ- ization of the town: 1836, N. M. Ward; 1837, Benjamin McNitt; 1838, N. M. Ward; 1839, William Vandervoort ; 1840, John Sweeney; 1842, Isaac L. Young; 1843, N. M. Ward; 1844-45, Lewis S. Payne; 1846, N. M. Ward: 1847- 48, L. S. Payne ; 1849, Sylvester McNitt ; 1850, L. S. Payne, 1851, Seth F. Roberts ; 1852, Sylvester McNitt ; 1853-54. Pe- ter Greiner ; 1855, Joseph Hawbecker ; 1856-57. George W. Sherman : 1858, N. M. Ward: 1859-61. L. S. Payne; 1862. Peneuel Schmeck; 1863-66, George W. Sherman: 1867. H. H. Griffin : 1868, James Carney ; 1869, H. H. Griffin ; 1870, Edward A. Milliman: 1871-73, Joseph D. Loveland; 1874- 75, Thomas C. Collins ; 1876, L. S. Payne ; 1877-78. Christian Fritz; 1879-81, Charles Kandt : 1882, Daniel Sy; 1883. C. F. Goerss : 1884-88, Peter Heim: 1889-94, Chauncey Wicher- man; 1895-96, William Tompkins; 1897-98. Herman Rose- brook ; 1899- 1902, George C. Toellner.
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
SEPARATION OF NORTH TONAWANDA.
In May, 1865, the Village of North Tonawanda was in- corporated in the southwest part of the town: In 1892 the village began proceedings to enlarge its borders, and even- tually included to a very large extent the hamlets of Grat- wick and Martinsville and all the intervening land between a terirtory about three and one-half by four miles square.
In 1897 the Village of North Tonawanda, being tired of the infant clothes of villagehood, took upon itself the more dignified robe of cityhood, and today is one of the three growing and enterprising cities of Niagara County.
THE LAND BOOM.
At about this time began the great real estate boom of Western New York, extending throughout the length of Niagara River and back east from it into the farming coun- try from three to six or eight, and in some instances as far as ten miles, increasing the price of farming land from $80 to $100 per acre to from $300 to $800 per acre, and in some instances, in the most desirable localitities, to even as high as $1,500 and $2,000 per acre. What was the result of this uncalled for and unnatural land boom? The result was what it must always come to, sooner or later, the bottom fell out, prices tumbled, sales stopped, and those who found them- selves loaded with land at these enormous prices awoke to the fact that they were financially ruined, although it is a fact that many a comparatively poor farmer sold his farm for from five to ten times its real value, thereby making himself immensely rich. But it is a most deplorable fact that nine out of every ten of these, instead of investing their new found riches in some safe place, reinvested in this facinating land boom, and in the end found themselves poorer than when they began.
There were yet a few others, who, when offered from tweleve to fifteen times the original value of their land, would not sell, but held for higher prices, who, when the bot- tom fell out, found themselves with their farms still, but their hopes of riches gone, their taxes greatly increased and discouragement and ruin staring them in the face.
No where during the height of this "boom" was the en- thusiasm at a higher pitch, nor with its downfall was its re- sults more seriously felt, than in the Town of Wheatfield and the Village of North Tonawanda.
In summing up the results of this wonderful land "boom" I am free to say that; taken as a whole, it was far more of a detriment than a blessing to the inhabitants of the Town of Wheatfield and North Tonawanda.
ST. JOHNSBURG,
St. Johnsburg is an offspring of Bergholtz. The com- modious brick church was built in 1846, now accmmodat- ing a congregation of seventy-five families. A school at- tached has an average attendance of seventy-five to eighty. There are two saloons, a general store and blacksmith, wagon and harness shops. Though separation has taken place to form another neighborhood, the distinction is but slight. Churches, school and customs are sustained upon the same principle as at Bergholtz.
NEW WALMORE.
New Walmore is named after a village in Prussia, from which the early settlers emigrated, in 1843. Possessed of the requisite means to make an independent purchase and to locate on larger farms, they chose the above location, in the northwest corner of the town, buying from the earlier settlers from Pennsylvania, who had made considerable im- provement. The last purchasers, from twenty to twenty -. five in number, located at the same time on farms, varying
from fifty to 200 acres. 'Situated on somewhat higher land, and commencing with the advantage of improvements, the successful growing of wheat has made a prosperous commu- nity and a wealthy farming district of the County. The lo- cation is adapted to the growing of apples, but not peaches. The people of the neighborhood, in 1853, erected a brick Lutheran Church.
SOME SKETCHES OF WHEATFIELD CITIZENS.
Hermon A. Barnum was born, in 1837, in the Town of Wheatfield, where he has resided ever since. He conducts one of the best farms in the town, containing some of the finest farm buildings. He helped his father clear the forest and plowed the virgin soil. He remembers the good old days of log cabins, corduroy roads, flails, scythes, cradles, spinning wheels, quill pens, well sweeps, rain troughs, tallow candles, etc. In 1859 he married Carrie Preisch, of the Town of Lockport. Mr. and Mrs. Barnum had ten chil- dren, nine of whom are living. Six of them have taught in the public schools, one son graduated from the University of Rochester, and a daughter from Cornell. Mr. Barnum is a total abstainer from tea, coffee, whiskey and tobacco, to which he attributes his excellent health.
In 1859 Simpson Moyer settled upon the farm of 150 acres, which he now owns, on the Shawnee Road. At that time there were but three acres cleared upon it. . Mr. Moyer is one of the leading Democrats of the town, and has held the town offices of Collector, Auditor and Justice of the Peace. He is hale and hearty at the age of seventy, and performs his share of the daily labor of a prosperous farmer.
Daniel Treichler came from Pennsylvania and settled on the Ward Road, a half mile south of the Lockport and Falls Road, in 1833, in the midst of a dense forest, and reared a large and prosperous family. In 1847 his son, John Treichler, bought a farm on the Shawnee Road, a half mile south of Shawnee. It contained 150 acres, but little of it was cleared. At that time there was no road southi to Saw- yer's Creek, and it was said that one could never be built on account of the swampy condition of the soil, water standing over the land all the year round. But owing to clear, excel- lent system of drainage, this track of worse than useless swamp, now contains some of the best farms in the town : the Shawnee Road has been extended to the creek, and is one of the best in the town. Mr. Treichler lived to see his farm grow to be one of the finest and most productive in Western New York. He died five years ago, at the age of eighty-three. Two of his sons, Henry M. and T. Elmer Treichler, now own and reside on the farm, and have one of the largest milk producing farms in Niagara County. Henry M. Treichler is Justice of the Peace and Vice President of the Erie and Niagara County Farmers' Insurance Associa- tiọn.
In 1848 Joseph Loveland purchased a farm lot of 150 acres in the eastern part of the town, on the Town Line Road, at a cost of $10 per acre. But twenty acres were cleared and there were no buildings except a small log house. He, together with his son, Joseph D., transformed this wil- derness into one of the best stock and grain farms in the county. He subsequently purchased and owned this farm until his death, at the early age of forty-four years, on No- vember 25, 1881. He was Supervisor of the town in 1874 and 1875, and Member of Assembly in 1878, being elected to both offices on the Democratic ticket. He left a wife and five small children. She and the eldest son, George H. Love- land, and his family, still reside on the old homestead.
Samuel Hill came from Onondaga County, with his fam-
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ily, in 1844. He raised a large family, many of whom are settled in homes and business in this vicinity. He died in 1876, aged sixty-seven years. His wife, with her son and daughter, still reside on the old homestead, near Beach Ridge postoffice, at the advanced age of eighty-two years.
Charles W. Ellis came out from Lockport, and in 1844 purchased a farm of 100 acres, nearly all timbered, at the west end of Beach Ridge. He cleared and developed it into a valuable farm. He resided here until about ten years ago, when he sold his farm for $11,000 and moved back to Lock- port, where he still lives, at the advanced age of eighty-six years.
Charles and William Deglow came from Germany with their people, and settled on the Town Line Road, in 1846. They purchased land, cleared it and have become respected and prosperous farmers.
Chauncey Wichterman came into town from Royalton, locating at Shawnee. He held the office of Justice of the Peace for a number of years, and in 1889 he was elected Su- pervisor, which office he continued to hold for six successive terms, retiring from the field of his own free will.
George C. Toellner has lived in town thirty-seven years and owns a valuable farm on Sawyer's Creek, just west of Nash Road, of seventy acres. He makes a specialty of strawberry raising, in connection with general farming. He was Overseer of the Poor three terms, and Commissioner of Highways four terms. In 1899 he was elected Supervisor and re-elected in 1901.
David Hunt Cook was born in the Town of Wheatfield, in 1831. His parents came to the County in February, 1828, and lived near Niagara Falls for two years. Soon after the town of Wheatfield was taken from Niagara, where he was then living. His father, Edwin Cook, was the first Town Clerk of Wheatfield.
John T. Tompkins was born in the Town of Niagara, May 25, 1837, and has lived on the Tompkins homestead, in Wheatfield, where he now resides, since 1842.
John Miller, blacksmith by trade, came from Scotland and settled at Shawnee, in 1850, and worked at his trade here for many years, accumulating quite a nice property. His wife died a few years ago, but he still lives at the old home, in excellent health, aged eighty-five years. His daughter, Mrs. William Watt, lives close by and attends to his wants. He has one other daughter, in Dakota, and one son, Thomas Miller, at North Tonawanda.
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