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 5
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HOBSON THE GUEST OF THE PIONEERS.
The officers of the Pioneer Association were fortunate in securing the services of Lieutenant Commander Rich- mond Pearson Hobson, the hero of the Merrimac in the immortal exploit of endeavoring at tremendous odds to block the harbor of Santiago in a way to prevent the escape of the Spanish squadron. They could have provided no speaker who at that time would have been welcomed by the people with greater pleasure. He journeyed through Lock-
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
port from Buffalo by trolley, accompanied by President Ely of the International Traction Company, President Porter of the Pioneer Association, Dr. James W. Charters, Senator Ellsworth, Sheriff Spalding, Rev. B. M. Nyce and others. The attendance at Olcott was estimated at 25,000.
Lieutenant Commander Hobson took for his subject "The Navy and the Nation," and he was listened to with rapt attention, fully as much by reason of the eloquence of his address as because of the curiosity regarding his person and achievements. In eloquent words he pictured the growth and wonderful prosperity of this country. He called it the granary of the world. He declared that free- dom must be guaranteed to our commerce on the high seas and in the harbors of the world, and the only way to secure adequate protection was by a stronger navy. He dwelt
manuscripts or data of value in the preparation of such a work to send them to him or to the secretaries of the asso- cation.
The following officers were elected for the ensuing year :
President-Hon. Peter A. Porter, Niagara Falls. Vice President-Willard J. Hopkins, Lewiston. Secretary-Charles F. Foley, Lockport.
Treasurer-Peter S. Tower, Youngstown.
Chaplain-Rev. Benjamin M. Nyce, Lockport.
Corresponding Secretary-Hon. William Pool, Niagara Falls.
Press and General Manager-Andrew Ten Brook, Lockport. Vice Presidents-Lockport City-First Ward, Hon. T.
GEN. PETER B. PORTER. COL. PETER A. PORTER.
upon some of the wonderful earlier achievements of the American navy and also upon some of the events that ac- companied the late war with Spain. In every instance he pointed out that this country, with her splendid "men be- hind the guns," had won victory from a superior force. He urged, however, that in order to keep pace with our expan- sion of commerce, and to protect our coast line from inva- sion, we must provide for the building of a greater navy. He said that the people should urge their representatives in Congress to make yearly appropriations of not less than $25,000,000 for the building of this navy.
President Porter stated that it was the purpose of the Pioneer Association to prepare a souvenir history of Niag- ara County in 1902 to commemorate the twenty-fifth anni- versary of the formation of the Pioneer Association. To that end President Porter requested all who had historical
HON. PETER A. PORTER.
PETER A. PORTER, JR.
E. Ellsworth, T. M. McGrath. Second Ward, Hon. John
Hawkes, S. Wright McCollum. Third Ward, Hon. James
S. Liddle, Hon. James Atwater. Fourth Ward, Charles E.
Dickinson, Hon. John T. Darrison. Fifth Ward, Hon. John E. Pound, Hon. John H. Clark. Sixth Ward, Charles W. Hatch, Hon. John A. Merritt.
Town of Niagara-H. S. Tompkins, John J. Hopkins. Lewiston-Wesley Bedenkapp, Dr. W. Q. Huggins. Cambria-Charles Young, Edward Harmony.
Porter-S. Park Baker, Edward Calvert.
Somerset-J. S. Haight, Hon. G. C. Humphrey. Wilson -- Daniel Woodcock, W. H. Holmes.
City of Niagara Falls-First Ward, S. M. N. Whitney. Hans Neilson. Second Ward, Hon. A. S. Schoellkopf, Hon. Walter P. Horne. Third Ward, Conrad Fink, James Vedder. Fourth Ward, J. J. Vogt, William Carr. Fifth
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
Ward, Hon. T. V. Welch, Bernard Messing. Sixth Ward, John Whitney, Frank Rieger.
City of North Tonawanda-First Ward, Hon. G. L. Judd, Hon. Dow Vroman. Second Ward, Frederick Zim- merman, Hon. Christian Goerss. Third Ward, Herman Rosebrock, Albert Dornfield.
Lockport-Luther Forsythe, Chauncey Ernest. Newfane-Dr. O. C. Bordwell, Homer Schaver. Pendleton-G. C. Richards, Willis Le Van. Royalton-Robert T. Pearson, John P. Brown. Wheatfield-Chauncey Wichterman, Charles Kandt. Hartland-George B. Taylor, Henry M. Bickford.
Executive Committee-H. K. Wicker, chairman ; George H. Bradley, Somerset ; A. B. Lewis, Lockport, city ; Hon. Guy C. Humphrey, Somerset; Burt E. Graves, Roy- alton ; Hon. Thomas V. Welch, Niagara Falls.
Of the foregoing, George H. Bradley of the executive committee ; William Carr and Jacob J. Vogt, vice presidents for the Fourth Ward of Niagara Falls, and Hon. G. L. Judd, vice president for the First Ward of North Tonawanda, have passed away.
The Pioneer Association has been fortunate in its pres- idents. For the past two years its affairs have been di- rected by a man who by birth and education is qualified in an eminent degree to carry the organization forward to even a higher plane of success and usefulness. Hon. Peter A. Porter is a descendant of a line of illustrious sires and is highly regarded throughout the county because of his pub- lic spirit and his high mental attainments. His grandfather, Gen. Peter B. Porter, was clerk of Ontario County in 1797; elected member of the Assembly of the State of New York in 1802; elected to Congress in 1808, 1810 and 1814. He rose rapidly in the military service, and in 1815 was ap-
pointed by President Madison Major General, and would have commanded the northern division of the army had another campaign been necessary in the War of 1812. In 1815 he also filled the office of Secretary of State of the State of New York, and in 1824 he was chosen Secretary of War by President John Quincey Adams.
Col. Peter A. Porter, son of Gen. Peter B. Porter, and father of the president of the Pioneer Association, was a member of Assembly and declined a nomination for Secre- tary of State of New York. He was Colonel of the Eighth New York Heavy Artillery, and was killed at the head of his regiment at Cold Harbor, Virginia. His son, then a boy, now president of the Pioneer Association, accompanied his father on his way as far as Baltimore, and even yet some Niagara County members of the old "Eighth Heavy" speak of "Little Peter" running about the ramparts of Fort Mc- Henry in that city, when his father's regiment was quartered there, eager to see and hear everything possible about mar- tial life, and only restrained by his extreme youth from join- ing in the active service. His son, Peter A. Porter, 3d, is now secretary of the Niagara Reservation Commission.
President Porter has been fortunate in securing the promise of the attendance of Governor Odell at the picnic of this year, 1902. The "Pioneers" have always com- inanded excellent talent on their annual field days. From the character of their recent speakers it will be seen that there is no retrogression in this respect.
With the flight of time the history of the early days will become more highly considered than ever, and "Pioneer Day" should for years to come be cherished and dedicated to the nurture of patriotism and the recounting of the deeds of the fathers who subdued the land and converted a wilder- ness into a garden.
The Founder of the Pioneer Association.
Andrew Ten Brook, whose portrait is given on page 19, is as much an integral part of this Association as the Prince of Denmark is of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
He originated the idea of the first meeting, sug- gested the annual gatherings, proposed and saw to the building of the famous "log cabin" at Olcott, and has had the sole charge and direction of all the picnics, having been the general manager for a full quarter of a century : and he is the only man who ever held that position. It is a re- markable record, and the steady growth of the "Pioneers," both in popularity and in attendance, to its present position of an unofficial county holiday, has been due almost en- tirely to his energy and efforts. There has probably not been a single day during the past twenty-five years when the next Pioneer picnic, and the plans therefor, have been out of his mind.
Andrew Ten Brook's ancestor, Wessel Ten Brook, came from Westphalia, and reached this country in 1659.
One of Wessel Ten Brook's descendants was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Revolution. William Ten Brook, Andrew Ten Brook's father, was born in 1812, came to this coun- ty in 1848, and up to his death, in 1889, was one of our best known citizens. He settled at Olcott in 1872, and became the owner of the famous grove, and was for years the pro- prietor of the hotel, "The Grove House," there, where the Pioneer Association was organized. He married Eliza Hause. Their third child, Andrew, was born in 1838. He married Barbara Shanley. He is now a prominent resident of Lockport, though from his long and successful identifica- tion with the village, the grove and the "Pioneers," his heart is probably still at Olcott. And if any one who attends the twenty-fifth anniversary of the "Pioneers," the Silver jubilee, shall ask, "What is to be Andrew Ten Brook's Monument ?" the answer is: "It has been erected during his lifetime. It is going to keep on growing. This is it. Just look about you."
Pioneers of niagara County.
BY PETER A, PORTER.
ICTIONARIES define a pioneer as "one who goes before, as into the wilderness, preparing the way for others to follow," and that description ex- actly portrays Niagara County's earliest settlers. And yet in the way in which our Association inter- prets its title the word is extended to embrace not only the first few, but also the subsequent many, who, during a period of over a score of years, were our early, if not earliest pioneer settlers, in all parts of the county. I have been compelled by force of circumstances to limit myself to 1812 as the latest year in which to treat of individual settlers.
My reasons are, that 1810 is the last year which Turner includes in his lists of the county's pioneers, and I have been unable to find either the original Holland Land Com- pany's papers, or any list of settlers, for later dates. And, so far as the records of our County Clerk's office are con- cerned, because some settlers were not land owners, some few land owners were not settlers, and in many, many, cases actual settlers had articles of agreement for their lands for many years before they received their deeds; for articles of agreement or land contracts were not placed on record here then as they are now.
Again, knowing that the record I had been able to gather of the years prior to 1813 was so incomplete, and that no doubt many names which belong there are omitted, I have confined my search to the first dozen years of the last century.
To try and give a correct record of settlers and land owners, who came after 1815 (when the war being over set- tlers came in great numbers), and up to 1825, would make a list too long to admit of publication in an article of this kind. It is a difficult task to gather, in even an aprox- imately correct way, the data of what I thus call our earliest pioneer settlement. A full century has elapsed since those first pioneers settled here. That generation has long since passed away. The few of the succeeding generation who survive are of great age, and in their minds the exact dates of events that occurred so long ago, and of which they know only from the narrations of their ancestors, are naturally uncertain.
To be absolutely correct in the details, if indeed that could ever be accomplished, would require an amount of historical research among public records, books and private papers, and by correspondence and interviews, that it has not been possible to devote to it.
TURNER'S HOLLAND LAND PURCHASE.
I have placed great and justifiable reliance on the re- searches of Orsamus Turner, who, in 1849, after long and careful preparation, published his "History of the Holland Purchase."
He had far greater advantages in his search for facts about the early history of our county than we now enjoy. The settlement of the county was then less than fifty years in the past. He had conversed with many of those pioneers themselves, and he seems to have had access to substantially all the valuable records and papers of the Holland Land Company.
Turner's work embraced the whole of the "Purchase,"
that is all Western New York. He did not publish anything like the whole of the knowledge he had gleaned about Ni- agara County ; and he made mistakes; in such a work that was unavoidable. So his book, while it furnishes the groundwork of much of our county's pioneer history, gives it largely in skeleton.
I have tried to supplement the facts as he gives them by a good deal of other investigation, among records and books, by letters and by inquiries.
The result is here grouped together, though it is by no means as full, nor as accurate, as I would have liked to have made it; nor is it a tithe of what is due, nor of the tribute we would all like to pay, to the memories of those pioneer families, whose foresight, labors and hardships laid the foundations for the blessings and prosperity that we, their descendants, enjoy today.
STATE AND HOLLAND COMPANY.
So far as concerns its pioneer settlement, Niagara County must be divided into two parts. First, that part owned by the Holland Land Company, which embraced all the present county, except the Tuscarora Reservation, and that portion of the Mile Strip, from Lake Ontario to Tona- wanda Creek; and, second, that portion of the Mile Strip itself. That strip, as its name implies, extended back from the river one mile, and in 1784, by Legislative enactment, was inhibited from sale. In 1798 the State of New York authorized the Mile Strip to be surveyed and subdivided into lots of about 160 acres each, and a town to be laid out therein, where the Indian title had been extinguished. That Indian title had then been extinguished only from Lake Ontario to Gill Creek, and the Surveyor General de- cided on the site of Lewiston for the proposed town. It was not until 1805, when it had been surveyed and divided into lots, and was opened for sale, that any title could be obtained to any part of this Mile Strip.
The Holland Land Company perfected their title, that is, purchased the Indians' right to the soil, in 1798: and their entire tract had been surveyed into ranges and townships by the end of 1800.
So as early as 1800, any one wanting to settle on any part of the Holland Land Company's tract, could buy land or get a contract therefor, and a record would be kept in the Company's office. Yet it seems to have been a common, and not an unnatural thing, for a settler to go out, select his land, erect his rude cabin and spend a few months, or per- haps a year, to see how he liked the location, before he took the time to make the journey to the Company's office at Ba- tavia, to "book" his home. Hence many men became ac- tual settlers months before any record thereof was made. Joseph Ellicott, in 1801, wrote, "Settlers generally wish to defer entering in articles before they are enabled to com- mence their improvements." But some men, at an early day, wanted to locate near the river. The State would not sell them the land then, nor was it certain when it would do so. So many located in the Mile Strip prior to 1805. They took their chances of buying, when the sale should occur, either from the State, or from whoever did buy from it. The chances were not very great, for settlers who had made im-
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
provements on the land were sure to be considered and re- tained by any owner. So these men simply located them- selves on the Mile Strip, and of them and their location there is no official record; in fact, no record, save only in the re- collections of their neighbors; and comparatively few of the recollections of any of those early settlers have been pre- served in any tangible form. The official record of the titles in the Mile Strip began in 1805.
SOLDIERS AND SQUATTERS.
The present Niagara County became United States soil in 1783, but owing to the retention of Fort Niagara by the British, it did not come under American jurisdiction till the British evacuated that fort in 1796.
In that year it is recorded that "outside of Forts Niag- ara and Schlosser there was but one white family in the territory embraced within its limits." Neither the name nor the location of that "one family" is given; but it was no doubt that of John Stedman, near Fort Schlosser; and immediately after the British evacuation, which was on Au- gust II, he removed to Canada.
Up to that time no American had thought of "settling" in this western wilderness, which was still under British jurisdiction, as exercised at Fort Niagara.
Prior to 1796 this frontier had had many inhabitants, mostly military, some few civil; all the latter being here solely because the former were.
Joncaire and his French soldiers occupied the block house, under the guise of a "trading house," at Lewiston, from 1719-1726.
Fort Niagara was garrisoned continuously, from 1725- 1759 by the French ; and from 1759-1796 by the British.
The French occupied Fort Little Niagara, above the Falls, from 1745-1751. They also occupied the "ware houses," that stood respectively at the top and at the foot of Lewiston Mountain, from 1751-1759; and Britain con- tinued that occupation till 1764; and France occupied the second Fort Little Niagara from 1750-1759.
Britain garrisoned Fort Schlosser from 1760-1796; and her eleven block houses along the portage and her fort at Lewiston for many years, beginning with 1764.
It is probable that between 1760 and 1794, at all times, there lived around Forts Niagara, Lewiston and Schlosser, men, not members of the garrisons, but connected with the business of the portage, and it was solely for the protection of that portage that these forts were maintained.
But those men came here merely to do business for a time, with no intention of remaining permanently. They would never have come here but for that portage business, nor did they remain after that business dropped off.
They were all Colonists, who sympathized with the British in the Revolution, and at the close of that war most of them moved away. After the signing of Jay's treaty, in 1794, when the summer of 1796 was fixed for British evac- uation of Fort Niagara, and it was certain that their business was at an end, even the few of them who were still here promptly departed. They had been merely "squatters." They never intended to be, and never were, settlers.
John Stedman, who long had charge of the portage business, was here much of the time from 1760-1796.
The Tuscaroras, some of them, actually settled here in 1780, on their reservation. In 1788 Martin Middaugh, a Dutchman, kept a tavern at Lewiston. He went there be- cause the United Empire Loyalists, in great numbers, were continually passing that way, going to Canada. Before 1794 that travel was over, and in that year we find him lo- cated as the first settler at Buffalo.
Other names might be cited, men who were here dur- ing the "Hold-over Period," 1783-1796, including those of Henry Huff, Hank Mills, Philip and William Stedman and McBride. But they were only temporary dwellers, here on some particular business. They were not the actual pioneer settlers of Niagara County.
THE REAL PIONEERS.
The real pioneers, the men and women whose deeds and memories our Pioneer Association honors and reveres, were those Americans who, after 1796, when this territory came under the jurisdiction of the United States, came to this sec- tion with the intention of making it their home. What I may call the primary pioneers were those who settled here before the War of 1812. Those whom I may designate as the secondary pioneers settled after 1812 up to at least 1825, and probably up to 1835.
When John Stedman departed to Canada, in 1796, he deputed Jesse Ware to look after his property. This con- sisted of a pretended grant of some 5,000 acres, bounded by the Niagara River and the present Portage Road from Fort Schlosser to the Devil's Hole. He declared the Senecas had given all this land to him, because of his escape from the Devil's Hole massacre in 1763. Less than 200 acres of this, all of it lying near Fort Schlosser, had been cieared by Stedman when he left. Neither the Senecas nor the Brit- ish had ever recognized the claim, and in 1806 the State of New York ejected Ware, and, still later, the courts declared the claim valueless. In 1796 Ware's family was living in Massachusetts, and he appears to have come on here each summer.
FIRST TAX ROLL.
On October 6, 1800, the first tax roll for the territory west of the Genesee River was made out, all that land being in the Town of Northhampton. There were on that roll but three taxable persons in what is now Buffalo, and not a sin- gle one in the present Niagara County.
FIRST SETTLEMENT, ISO2.
No settler seems to have located in our county until the fall of 1801. Then, tradition says, one John Lloyd, who had been a soldier at Fort Niagara, settled on the lake shore, three miles east of the Fort, but it does not appear from the Holland Land Company records that he "booked" any land. After the War of 1812 he is said to have settled on lot 27.
In 1802 the real pioneer settlement of our county com- menced. In that year Lemuel Cooke, who had been a sol- dier at Fort Niagara in 1798, and from then till 1802 had had charge of the ferry to Canada at that point, the ferry being dominated by the army, moved his family to Lewiston, and settled there, moving later to the so-called Brant farm, three miles from the river. So far as I can learn he was the first bona fide white pioneer settler in our county. Tur- ner, speaking of the Cooke's, says: "No other family has been longer identified with the Holland Purchase here- about."
In the same year Jesse Ware seems to have moved his family from Massachusetts to Schlosser; and in the sum- mer of that year Silas Hopkins, an American, but who had been doing business in Canada, came and settled in the Town of Porter, probably near Fort Niagara. So far as I can find out, those three men were, in the order named, Niagara County's earliest pioneer settlers. Descendants of all three, and bearing their respective family names, are today res- idents of our county.
Adam Strouse (a brother-in-law of Howell's, who made
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SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
the first settlement on Howell's, or Eighteen-Mile Creek), located in Lewiston (probably so as to have a neighbor in Cooke), in the fall of 1802; but early that winter he was in- duced to move to Cold Springs, east of Lockport, where he erected a shanty. The special object of his locating there was to accommodate the mail contractor between Canandai- gua and Fort Niagara, so that his mail carrier could find a fire at which to warm his fingers, Cold Springs being on the Indian trail between those two places.
John Dake and Jedidiah Darling "booked" land in Township 14, Range 6, that same year, according to Turner. Jacob Christman seems to have located at the Rapids on Tonawanda Creek, and George Van Slyke at the mouth of the same creek, in 1802, both becoming land owners later. And in that same year four men by the name of Beach, all brothers, it would appear-John, Jesse, Philip, and Harvey- moved into this territory. Just then the Beaches comprised one-third of the entire male population of the present Ni- agara County.
CENTENNIAL SETTLEMENT- 1902.
With such records of these twelve men settling here in that year, 1802, we rightly celebrate at this 25th anniversary, in 1902, the centennial of the bona fide settlement of Ni- agara County by the whites.
THE EARLIEST SETTLERS
According to Turner the following list embraces the names of all "settlers" of the Holland Land Company, that is, those who contracted for land, in what is now Niagara County, from the commencement of their sales, up to Jan- uary 1, 1807, and in the order in which contracts were taken.
From examination of many original "articles of agree- ment" made by the purchasers with the Holland Land Com- pany (two volumes of which are in the Buffalo Historical Society), I find that the list is incomplete.
The general survey of the Holland Company was made by Joseph Ellicott in 1798 and 1799, the whole tract west of the Genesee River being divided into townships and ranges. The map will show what townships and ranges were included in Niagara County.
As noted elsewhere many men "settled" before they received contracts for their land :
1802. Town 14, Range 6-John Dake, Jed. Darling.
1803.
Town 14, Range 5-Gad Warner, Lemuel Ashley, Henry Ellsworth, David Munn, John Caldwell.
Town 14, Range 6-Michaga Howe, Daniel Batcheldor, John Pickard, Major (Joshua) Slayton, Henry Schwartz, John Brewer, Israel Owen, Nathan Powers, Dennis Mac- Kay, Ransford White, Stephen Hoyt, James Dunn, Thomas Slayton.
Town 14, Range 9-John Beach, Lemuel Cook, David Thompson, Samuel Taylor, John Gould, Solomon Gillett.
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