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 3
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TUSCARORA RESERVATION.
In the spring of 1780 the Oneidas returned to Central New York, but the Tuscaroras settled upon a square mile of
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
land on the mountain ridge that was given to them by the Senecas.
The settlement here of the Tuscaroras antedates the ownership in our County of the Holland Land Company (1798), by eighteen years, and it was twenty-two years after their advent before settlement by white men commenced. The Tuscaroras thus became the first bona fide settlers in this region.
Later the Holland Company gave them two square miles adjoining their first location, and in 1804 the Secre- tary of War paid $13,722 (out of funds held by the United States in adjustment of their claims upon North Carolina, where they originally dwelt and whence in 1712 they were driven) to that company for 4,329 adjoining acres for them. The Tuscarora Reservation thus comprises over 6,000 acres. The majority of that tribe in Central New York had been, if not active for, at least friendly to the Americans, and in 1804 all the tribe left their Central New York home, a few of them going to Canada, but the most of them joining their brethren on their present reservation.
her occupation thereof would be of comparatively short duration; as a matter of fact it extended over a period of thirteen years, from 1783 to 1796, an interval designated in history as "The Hold Over Period." Of course Britains' control of Fort Niagara during this period meant the con- trol of the entire frontier, and of the whole of our County, which, save along its western edge (and that solely by reason of the existence of the forts and the presence of the sol- diers), was unsettled by white men.
LAND TITLES.
In 1784 the State of New York had declared the mile strip, one mile back from the Niagara River from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie prohibited from sale.
After the Revolutionary war claims to the land of what is now Western New York were made both by Massachu- setts and New York. There were negotiations both in and out of Congress, and finally in 1786 these two States came to an agreement. Massachusetts ceded to New York all the claim, right and title which it had "to the government,
FRENCH MAGAZINE AT FORT NIAGARA-LATER, MORGAN'S DUNGEON.
They were good friends to early white settlers; they loyally accepted the sovereignty of the United States and have ever since been good neighbors and faithful to the Government. Today, as to creed, there is not among the Tuscaroras a Pagan family, recognized as such ; a condition which does not exist among any other Indian tribe in the State of New York.
"THE HOLD-OVER PERIOD."
In August, 1780, the first United States flag reached our County, not in triumph, but delivered at Fort Niagara by a band of Oneida Indians who went there to assure the British that they abandoned there friendship with the re- volting Colonists and to swear their allegiance to the Crown.
At the close of the Revolution most of the Iroquois in New York State, feeling that Britain, who had induced them to take up arms on her side, had made no provision for their protection when she signed the Treaty of Peace, refused to follow Brant's advice and go to Canada, wisely trusting to the good faith of the new nation, and remaining under the jurisdiction of New York. The Tuscaroras were among them.
At the close of the Revolution, Great Britain, by agree- ment, retained five forts, all concededly on United States territory, of which Niagara was one. It was supposed that
sovereignty and jurisdiction" of the lands, and New York ceded to Massachusetts "all the right of pre-emption of the soil from the native Indians."
In her settlement with Massachusetts this mile strip was reserved to New York subject to such Indian title as might exist, which title she subsequently bought.
The right to buy from the Indians their title to the rest of what is now Niagara County thus passed to Massa- chusetts, who sold it to Phelps & Gorham, included in a vast acreage. On their failure to carry out their agreement with Massachusetts, the right to buy from the Indians the land west of the Genesee River, including all of our County except a part of the mile strip, reverted to that State.
In 1791 she sold all the above right to Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, who thus at one time held an option on nearly the whole of Niagara County, when it was included in and was on the western border of what was known as "The Genesee Country," which comprehensive term then included some 5.000,000 acres. In 1792 and 1793 he sold most of these rights and titles, including all that re- lated to Niagara County, to certain capitalists in Holland, generally known as the Holland Land Company, agreeing to make the purchase from the Indians of their title.
The United States in the treaty with the Senecas in 1794
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
explicitly recognized their title to the soil of all Western New York, which embraced all of our County except that portion of the mile strip lying between Lake Ontario and Gill Creek, and agreed that it should remain theirs until they chose to sell.
After many unsuccessful attempts on the part of the United States to secure the evacuation of the five forts held by the British, under the terms of Jay's Treaty, the date was finally set therefor as June 1, 1796. Fort Niagara, the most important of them all, was finally evacuated on Au- gust IIth of that year, and the territory of our County then came under the actual protection of the Stars and Stripes. During the period of her ownership of this Frontier, from 1759 to 1783, Britain had built thirteen forts along the west- ern edge of the present Niagara County, and besides had stregenthened Fort Niagara.
All of these thirteen forts passed into the actual own- ership of the United States with the evacuation of the latter fort, but in anticipation of their ultimate surrender, few if
In 1799 the United States Customs District of Niagara was created, Fort Niagara being the first port of entry. Later this was removed to Lewiston, and later still to Niag- ara . Falls.
By 1801 the Federal Government was in shape to con- sider the defense of this Frontier, and in that year a military road from Fort Niagara to Lake Erie was projected, and the next year the trees along the proposed line were felled, but not drawn off, from the top of Lewiston Mountain to Tonawanda Creek. A disagreement between the Federal Government and New York State caused the former to abandon the project, and it was never completed.
Up to this time our County had been only a supposable part, as it were, of other counties. Thus from 1683 to 1772 we were credited as a part of the County of Albany, subject to the British Governor at New York ; while as a matter of fact it was not until her overthrow of French supremacy, by force of arms in 1759, that Britain's subjects even ventured into this territory. From 1772 until 1784 we were included
FORT NIAGARA OF TODAY.
any repairs had been made to them by the British, so their acquisition was of no defensive value whatever to us.
After the British had evacuated Fort Niagara, which had long been the great, and during the "Hold Over Pe- riod" the only center of her influence over the Six Nations, it was fitting that there the chain of friendship between those savage warriors and the United States should be brightened. Here in 1796 the representatives of the vari- ous tribes met the United States commander and renewed their promises of fidelity and among other gifts received a United States flag and a barrel of rum.
In compliance with his agreement, in 1797, at a treaty held at Big Tree with the Senecas, Robert Morris purchased from the Indians all the lands west of the Genesee River, excepting certain reservations. Thus all of the present Niagara County, except the "Mile Strip" lots and the Tus- carora Reservation, of a mile square, became in fee the prop- erty of the Holland Land Company in December, 1798.
The project of a town upon the Niagara River was early entertained by the State. In 1798 the Surveyor Gen- eral, Simeon De Witt, was directed by the Legislature to "select, survey and report on the location of a town on the Niagara, on lands where the Indian titles had been extin- guished." He reported in favor of the site of Lewiston; where in the subsequent plotting of the mile strip, a square mile was reserved to the State.
in Tryon County. From 1784 to 1789 we were a part of Montgomery County, though still under the British rule of Fort Niagara.
In 1789 Ontario County was formed and we were a part thereof until 1802; though from 1789 until 1796 Fort Niagara, in British hands, dominated us.
But in 1802, when we had been under the actual pro- tection of New York State for six years, Genesee County was erected by the Legislature, the act being dated March 30th of that year.
In the spring of 1802 the first bona-fide settlements were made in what is now Niagara County.
In 1802 the State of New York, at a treaty held at Al- bany, acquired the Indian title to the mile strip from Lake Erie to Schlosser. The title to that part of the said strip from Schlosser to Lake Ontario, that is the entire portage, having theretofore been treated by the United States in their treaties with the Indians as having been British territory, free from any Indian claim, under their surrender or deed of it to Sir William Johnson in 1764, and hence belonging to the United States at the end of the Revolution.
In 1804 the United States established a ship yard on the "Little River" at La Salle, and here was built the "Niagara," a small sloop of fifty tons, not put in commission till bought by Porter, Barton & Co. in 1806 and renamed the "Nancy."
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
In 1805 the State of New York offered the "Mile Strip," with certain exceptions, for sale. In the present Niagara County these exceptions included some 600 acres at the mouth of the river, where Fort Niagara stands, which have since, both in title and jurisdiction, been ceded by the State to the Federal Government, but only so long as they are used for military purposes. Also a square mile at Lewis- ton, this being at the foot of the portage ; and an irregularly shaped piece, comprising some 600 acres, and then known as the "Stedman Farm," on the upper river, west of Gill Creek, this including the upper terminus of the portage.
The mile strip, from lake to lake, save for the three above exceptions noted, and others in the limits of the present Erie County, had been surveyed into lots, commenc- ing with No. I near the mouth of the river, and ending with No. 107, at Black Rock. Of these lots Nos. I to 82 inclu- sive are comprised within our County today.
Among the prospective buyers at that sale were four
and Schlosser together with the lands exempted from sale at each place, and the exclusive rights of the portage. The conditions were, an efficient transportation service, the su- pervision of the portage charges by the State and the erec- tion by the lesses of warehouses, docks, etc., at each termi- nal ; which improvements were to become the property of the State at the expiration of the lease. The responsible bidder, accepting these terms for the shortest number of years was to secure the lease, which amounted to a practical monopoly of the vast transportation business to and from the west.
Porter, Barton & Co. secured this lease on a time limit of thirteen years and promptly built the necessary ware- houses, wharves, etc.
From 1805 until the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, Niagara County, by reason of that exclusive lease by the State, was a prime, if not the most important, factor in the freightage between the East and West.
BURNING OF THE STEAMER CAROLINE.
PORTER, BARTON & CO.
men from this end of the State, who there formed a partner- ship under the name of Porter, Barton & Co. It was a fa- mous firm during the next twenty years, had a monopoly of the portage business around the Falls of Niagara, through the lease it held from the State, providing wagons and ox- teams for the transportation of all goods between Lewiston and Schlosser, also owning and operating bateaux between Schlosser and Black Rock, and being interested in vessels on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie; and which in connection with prominent firms at Oswego, Schenectady and New York, contracted to take freight at tide-water and deliver it at Chicago or Mackinac. This is said to have been the first regular and connected line of forwarders that ever did business between the seashore and the greater upper lakes on American territory.
And a vast business it was that the firms of Porter, Bar- ton & Co and Townsend, Bronson & Co. did ; for in their ves- sels were carried the provisions, merchandise and all mili- tary supplies for the posts and commercial depots in the northwest ; and in their vessels were also carried the eastern bound peltries of the great American Fur Companies and of the important Indian traders.
At the sale in 1805 the State of New York also an- nounced that it would lease the landing places at Lewiston
On March, 11, 1808, Niagara County was erected from Genesee ; it included the present Niagara County, and also all of Erie County, the County seat being at Buffalo.
WAR OF 1812.
The War of 1812 of course was not unexpected, but its early effects were felt on our Frontier, which was but feebly defended and entirely unprepared, there being only some 600 men and practically no cannon hereabouts ; while along this Frontier on the Canadian side many more men were available and fully 100 guns.
The history of that war here must be very briefly told. Troops and munitions were rushed to our borders. Fort Niagara, then in a weak state, was hurriedly strengthened, and here let it be noted that almost the earliest offer of as- sistance received at that fort was from a band of Tuscarora Indians, 100 in number, who, headed by their chief, hurried down from the Reservation, thus showing their loyalty by volunteering in defense of the United States.
General Van Rensselaer established his camp just east of Lewiston and from that place on October 13, 1812, some weeks after the declaration of war. struck the first blow. in invading Canada and capturing Queenston Heights ; where, by the arrival of British reinforcements and through the cowardly refusal of many militiamen on this side to cross to the help of their countrymen, our forces were de- feated and many made prisoners.
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
During that battle Fort George bombarded Fort Niag- ara, and so after an interval of fifty years, and for the first time under the ownership of the United States, the soil of our County was the scene of attack, this time from a foreign shore.
At the top of Lewiston Mountain that same fall the Americans erected Fort Gray, an earthwork battery, but it was never sufficiently supplied with cannon to be of much real service.
During a second bombardment of Fort Niagara our County furnished a famous example of female heroism and devotion. Fanny Doyle, whose husband was a United States soldier and had been taken prisoner at the battle of Queenston, was then at that fort. Remarking that "since the British are preventing my Pat from fighting for the Americans, I will take precious good care that they make nothing by it," she took her stand beside one of the cannon on the roof of the Castle, and from morning until evening,
dwellings on the road to Niagara Falls, then called Grand Niagara, that settlement, and the one at Schlosser, were de- stroyed and the invaders swept on up the river to Tona- wanda Creek ; thence they returned to Fort Niagara. There they crossed the river, proceeded to Fort Erie, crossed to and burnt the village of Buffalo; and the whole frontier of Niagara County, as Niagara County then was, was in ruins.
The year 1814 saw the war hereabouts transferred to the Canadian side, to the glory of our cause, in the capture of Fort Erie, in the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, in the defense and the sortie from Fort Erie, the latter planned and led by General Peter B. Porter. The late fall of 1814 saw the war ended and our arms victorious. The whole frontier of the then Niagara County was desolated, the wo- men, the children and the infirm had fled, most of them to Batavia, for protection. The men had fought well; many of them had been killed. The shore of Lake Ontario. as far east as Olcott, and the mills on the Eighteen-Mile Creek
WHIRLPOOL RAPIDS FROM DOWN STREAM.
she helped to serve it, rendering such valiant assistance that she was referred to in the official despatches "as having ex- hibited a valor equal to that of the Maid of Orleans."
In 1813 our troops captured Fort George on the Cana- dian side and held it until December of that year, when Gen- eral McClure, in abandoning it, needlessly burnt the adja- cent village of Newark. Ten days afterwards, in bitter retal- iation, the British crossed the river by night, at the five-mile meadows, surprised Fort Niagara, whose gates, incredible as it would seem when such an attack was to be expected, were found unbarred and whose commandant was absent. Such defense as there was was weak, and many of the garri- son, even after resistance had ceased, were bayonetted and butchered. Then, on signal, General Riall, with a band of British and Indians, crossed to our shores and began their work of devastation and murder. Youngstown and Lewis- ton, and the few houses between them, were burnt. The settlers and their families fled for their lives, still many were killed. The defense made by the small garrison in Fort Gray detained those bloodthirsty warriors but a little time.
The Tuscaroras did much to stop the British and their Indian allies from extending their area of onslaught back from the river, and to their resistance many of the white set- tlers were indebted for the escape of their families. The
above that place, had been devastated. The record of the men of our County in that war was one of suffering, but of glory and of success.
During 1815 peace was officially declared, and Fort Ni- agara again in our control, from which it has never since passed. The surviving settlers sought out their ruined homes, and with the energy and the perseverance of that race of pioneers, set about the rebuilding of their houses and laying anew, in the territory of their choice, the foundations of their prosperity which the war had destroyed.
By 1816 the families who had sought safety elsewhere, had returned; new settlers were coming in and Niagara County started off afresh on its career of prosperity.
RUIN OF THE PORTAGE.
The business of the portage, which, before the war had been the main source of support of the inhabitants along the frontier, had been ruined. The State agreed to extend the lease for four years, replacing the term for which the war had rendered it useless, if Porter, Barton & Co. would re- build the warehouses, etc. ; and this they did.
In 1821 Erie County was erected from Niagara, leaving us with our present boundaries. Naturally we retained the name Niagara, but the County buildings, being at Buffalo, went to the new County.
SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
THE ERIE CANAL.
The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, passed through our County ; and transferred the path of commecrial traffic at that time from its western to its eastern boundary. It built up Lockport and Tonawanda, but it took away the activity of Lewiston and of Schlosser; the business of the portage at once became a thing of the past.
WILLIAM MORGAN.
On September 13, 1826, an almost unknown man, ac- companied by three others, in a closed carriage, entered the confines of our County by the Ridge Road, and proceeded via Lewiston to Fort Niagara, which was then an unoccupied post. There he was confined for some three days, in the stone magazine. He was William Morgan, of Batavia, who was there preparing to issue a pamphlet, exposing the se- crets of Masonry, which he had taken an oath not to re- veal. Suddenly he disappeared from the sight and knowl- edge of men. It was generally claimed that he had been taken out onto the lake in a boat and drowned. A perfect furore swept over the country. Masonry was most bitterly assailed as responsible for his death. An anti-Masonic ag- itation extended over the land, entering into local, State and National politics. Several men, some of them from this County, were arrested, charged with Morgan's abduction and death. On trial three were found guilty of complicity in the abduction and were sentenced. Morgan's death was not proved, but no satisfactory explanation of his disappear- ance was, or has ever been, given. He did disappear, and the name of William Morgan, the story of his unknown fate, and the anti-Masonic agitation, which thus had its real foun- dation on our soil, became for all time a part of our County's history.
A SHIP CANAL.
In 1827 the project of a ship canal around the Falls of Niagara first took definite shape in the preparation of plans and the running of levels (at the expense of a company of Niagara County men). Mentioned before that date in Con- gress, and many times since brought to the attention of that body, it still remains untouched. But it is not improbable that in the future our commercial and martial needs, es- pecially the former, may result in the construction, on our soil, of that great national engineering work.
THE CAROLINE.
In 1837, during the Canadian Patriot Rebellion, a small steamer, the "Caroline," claimed by her owners to be em -. ployed only in carrying sightseers to the patriot camp on Navy Island, but claimed by the Canadians to be carrying arms and ammunition to that camp, lay moored one night at the dock at Schlosser. At midnight on December 29 seven boatloads of British soldiers, crossing over from Chip-
pewa, suddenly boarded her. Her crew and somne stran- gers, who unable to obtain lodgings at the inn nearby, were sleeping on board, were quickly driven off by force. Her fastenings were cut and the attacking party entered their boats, attached a line to her and towed her across to the main channel of the river; then they set her on fire, and abandoned her to destruction, both by fire and the Falls. One man, Amos Durfee, had been killed in the attack. Such an invasion of our territory by an armed force aroused the indignation of the Frontier, of the State and of the Nation. The British Government assumed the full responsibility for the attack made by her militia, and it was only by that Gov- ernment's apology that another war with her was averted.
IN THE REBELLION.
The famous record of the men who enlisted from our County in the Nation's hour of need, during the Civil War, is appropriately recorded in a separate article. It adds an- other chapter of glory to our history.
NIAGARA RESERVATION.
In 1885 the plan, proposed some years before, and which had been endorsed by prominent men the world over, to have the State of New York buy the land on her shore around the Falls and restore the scenery to a state of nature, and to make those lands free for all time to all mankind, took form in the opening of the New York State Reservation at Niagara. Today all the buildings that then stood thereon have been removed, the natural banks have been restored, trees have been planted afresh, and so far as man lias been able to accomplish it the surroundings of the World's one Niagara are the same as they were over two centuries ago when Father Hennepin first gazed upon this "great and pro- digious cadence of water."
THE GREAT TUNNEL.
In 1886 the project of an hydraulic tunnel, as a means of utilizing the difference in level, at Niagara Falls was author- ized by Legislative act and work thereon was commenced in October, 1891. It is fully described elsewhere, but must be referred to in this article, as it has made our County famous the world over as the home of the largest electrical develop- ment for general distribution on earth. Designed originally for hydraulic power development, the wonderful advances in electrical science have resulted in the employment of almost Its entire power in the generation of electricity for transmis- sion : much of it to factories nearby, but a large percentage employed at points miles away, many of them in our own County, though a large number of them are beyond our boundaries.
Such in brief is the story of our famous County, written not locally, but as it appears in the pages of American His- tory.
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
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OFFICERS OF THE PIONEER ASSOCIATION OF NIAGARA COUNTY, 1901-02.
1-HON. PETER A. PORTER, President. 2-REV. BENJAMIN M. NYCE, Chaplain 3-WILLARD J, HOPKINS, Vice Fresident. 4-HIRAM K. WICKER, Chairman Ex. Committee.
5-PETER S. TOWER, Treasurer. 6-HON. WILLIAM POOL; Corresponding Secretary. 7-ANDREW TEN BROOK, General Manager. CHARLES F. FOLEY, Secretary.
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