USA > New York > Tompkins County > Dryden > The centennial history of the town of Dryden. 1797-1897 > Part 4
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CHAPTER X.
THE WAR OF 1812.
In the minds of the great mass of people of the present age, the im- portance of our war with Great Britain, known as the War of 1812, is overshadowed and lost sight of in view of the War of the Revolution which preceded it by about thirty-five years. It is not so regarded by the careful student of history. The earlier war made our country free, but it required the latter to make us really independent and respected as a nation. The latter war also did much to strengthen the bond of union between the colonies and to make of us a nation rather than a mere confederation of states.
Our ancestors were poorly prepared for either conflict with the mother country, supplied as she was with powerful armaments and standing armies, and it was only the necessities of the occasion which seemed to suddenly call forth and develop in them the courage and heroism which enabled them to suceed. History affords but few in- stances where an inferior number of untrained men, called suddenly and unexpectedly to arms, have overwhelmingly defeated trained sol- diers as did Jackson with his hasty recruits at New Orleans; and we are not required to look so far away from home for instances of the same character. On the Niagara frontier in 1814 (" on the lines," as it
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THE WAR OF 1812.
was termed in those days,) General (then Colonel) Winfield Scott and his brave followers, usually opposed to superior numbers of the en- emy, performed feats of military strategy and heroism, in the battles of Lundy's Lane and Chippewa, which forced from the unwilling Brit- ish officers exclamations of wonder and admiration, and cannot be read by us to-day without arousing pride within us, that we are among the descendants of such heroes. As we read of these instances we can hardly realize that they are not the events of some far-off country, be- longing to some remote period of time, while they actually did occur within the present century and within five hours ride by rail from where we now live. With the exception of some skirmishes with the Indians, and some events of the same character near Oswego, this is the nearest that war ever came, and we trust it is the nearest it ever will come, to our doors. How many of us realize that the company of Dryden militia which went out to "the lines" under Captain (after- wards Major) Peleg Ellis, in July, 1812, were taken prisoners together with Colonel Winfield Scott at the battle of Queenston, which proved to be the Bunker Hill or Bull Run of that war, but was followed by hard earned victories which in the end placed the balance largely in our favor and secured a triumphant result ?
It is to be regretted that we-and especially our young people-in choosing our reading matter, select descriptions of incidents far re- moved from us in time and space, or more often amuse ourselves by reading the alluring inventions of fiction; and then, when we chance to visit Niagara Falls and see on the opposite shore the imposing and magnificent Brock monument, 194 feet high, constructed of Niagara limestone and erected on Queenston Heights, the most prominent landmark as seen from Lewiston on the American side, we are com- pelled to remain silent or expose our ignorance by asking what that imposing column was designed to commemorate. If my readers will obtain from the Southworth Library, or elsewhere, "Lossing's Field Book of the War of 1812, " a large and interesting volume, devoted to the description and illustrating the leading events of this war, they will find that the perusal of it will well repay their effort and enable them to repel to some extent at least the charge so often made with a degree of truth, that Americans are wofully ignorant of their own history. They will find in it a reference to Colonel (afterwards General) Bloom, of our adjoining town of Lansing, and afterwards sheriff of Tompkins county, and to the regiment (which included the first Dryden company) which he led at Queenston, where he was wounded. We are indebted to the researches of Charles F. Mulks, of
32
HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
Ithaca, for the information that Aaron Cass, one of the Dryden com- pany from near Ellis Hollow, was struck on the head by a British cannon ball and instantly killed while the regiment was crossing the Niagara river in boats to take part in the battle of Queenston. Cass had been a distinguished soldier of the Revolution from Connecticut, was a brother-in-law of Aaron Bull, and settled in Ellis Hollow in 1804. Other soldiers of the Dryden company were Aaron Genung, from near Varna; Arthur and Stephen B. June, Marcus Palmerton, Jonathan Luce, George Mccutcheon and Peter Snyder. With the ex- ception of the statement that Judge John Ellis afterwards went out to " the lines " with the second Dryden company of militia, leaving but fourteen able-bodied men in the township, these are all of the re- corded facts which we are able to give concerning Dryden's participa- tion in the War of 1812. It is regretted that the accounts of Dryden's volunteers of that date are so meager, and it reminds us of the necessity of committing to a written record the achievements of the Dryden soldiers in the War of the Rebellion, before all of them shall have passed away, or they, too, will be lost to local history.
We are fortunately able to give from the relation of Thomas J. Mc- Elheny, whose mother was a niece of Major Ellis, an incident of the battle of Queenston which he has often heard his great-uncle relate, and which is as follows : As the Dryden company were crossing the Niagara river to the Canada side, Stephen B. June, impressed with the importance of the occasion and boiling over with the true martial spirit, arose in his boat and swinging his hat defiantly called out as the watchwords of the expedition : "Death, Hell or Canada." This was early in the morning of the day when everything was hopeful and but few of the enemy were in sight. The battle of the morning was successful. A landing on the Canada shore was effected, the Queens- ton Heights were gallantly scaled and captured and the Commanding General Brock of the enemy was mortally wounded in the conflict. But in the afternoon the reinforcements of the enemy arrived in over- whelming numbers, while the help expected from the American side failed to appear, and after a brave but hopeless effort at resistance, the whole American force, including Colonel Scott and Captain Ellis with their followers, were taken prisoners. Not seeing his townsman, Stephen B. June, among the prisoners, Captain Ellis went back on the battle field to look him up, and after searching found him very severely wounded by a ball which had entered his mouth and passed out of the back of his neck, just below the base of the skull, fortunate- ly missing the spinal cord. Finding that June was alive and still con-
33
EVENTS FROM 1812 TO 1822.
scious, although fearfully wounded, Captain Ellis asked him which it. was now, "Death, Hell or Canada, " to which the wounded soldier feebly but firmly replied : "I can't tell quite yet, Captain, which it is, but when the British bullet struck me I thought I had them all three at once." June lived to return home and, if we are not mistaken, some of his family descendants are still inhabitants of the town.
Since writing the above we learn that Geo. R. Burchell, Esq., of Dry- den, is a great-nephew of that same Stephen B. June, although the most of that family have removed to Alleghany county and further west. The original commission of Major Ellis as captain, issued to him February 11, 1811, by Daniel D. Tompkins, then governor of the state, is one of the relics which were on exhibition at Dryden's Cen- tennial Celebration.
CHAPTER XI.
EVENTS FROM 1812 TO 1822.
In the year 1813 there was published at Albany the first edition of "Spafford's N. Y. State Gazetteer, " which contains the earliest de- scription of the town of Dryden which we have found, and probably the first ever printed, which we therefore reproduce here in full as follows :
" DRYDEN-A post-township in the southeastern extremity of Cayuga county, 35 miles S. of Auburn, 170 west of Albany ; bounded N. by Locke, E. by Virgil in Cortlandt county, S. by Tioga county, W. by Seneca county [which then included Ithaca] and the town of Geneva | Genoa (? ) the part now Lansing.]
" It is 10 miles square, being one of the military townships, and has a considerable diversity of surface, soil and timber.
" Fall Creek of Cayuga Lake with several branches spreads over the northern and central parts, and Six Mile creek, a fine mill stream, rises in the S. E. corner, runs into Tioga county and returns across the S. W. towards the head of Cayuga Lake. There is also another small stream, and there is an abundance of mill seats, with consider- able tracts of alluvion ; though the general character is hilly with pretty lofty ridges. The soil of the alluvion is warm, rich and pro- ductive ; that of the uplands rather wet and cold, but excellent for pasture and meadow. There are two grain mills and carding ma- chines. There are some congregations of Baptists and Presbyterians
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
who have houses of worship, but I am not informed of their number ; and 4 or 5 school houses. The settlements were commenced about 1800, and in 1810 the population amounted to 1890, when there were 310 families and 213 senatorial electors. The whole taxable property, as assessed in 1810, $84,099. There are 3 turnpike roads that cross this town, besides common roads in various directions. The inhab- itants are principally farmers whose farms and looms supply much of their common clothing .-- N. T. R. P."
In the year 1814 at a special town meeting a board of town school superintendents was first elected, consisting of Joshua Phillips, Peleg Ellis and John Ellis. Afterwards in the same year they met and divided the town into fourteen school districts, which have since been increased to twenty-seven. The amount of public school money dis- bursed by this board to all the districts in 1814 was $192.47, not one quarter of the amount now annually received by the Dryden village district alone. In no department of public affairs has there been such a marked and continual improvement as in the matter of education in the common schools. Our young people should realize that in school opportunities they have a great advantage over the school children of even twenty-five years ago, while their privileges in this respect are not to be compared with the very meager opportunities which were offered for school education in the Pioneer Period of Dryden's history.
The year 1816 was known as the " cold season, " in which nearly all of the crops were destroyed by summer frosts, and great scarcity, almost a famine, resulted. It should be borne in mind that there were no such means of transportation then as now to relieve a section where the crops had failed, and no great supply of produce was car- ried over from year to year.
In this year, 1816, Elias W. Cady moved in from Columbia county and located on the farm near Willow Glen which he owned and oc- cupied for more than sixty years, becoming one of the most prosper- ous farmers of the town. He was a member of the State Legislature in 1850 and 1857, and his grandson, John E. Cady, has in recent years twice held the same position. Elias W. Cady in his later years used to delight to tell how, when he first came to Dryden, Parley Whitmore, who kept a store in Dryden village near where the M. E. church now stands, refused to trust him for a few pounds of nails, and he was obliged to take a load of produce to Albany to get them.
In the next year, 1817, the new county of Tompkins was formed, and Dryden became a part of it, instead of being the southeast cor-
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THE PIONEER PERIOD.
ner of Cayuga county. Cortlandt county (so spelled in those days) had been formed in 1808, and an unsuccessful effort was made in the Legislature in the same year, supported by petitions from some of Dryden's citizens, to make this town a part of it.
A state census made in 1808 shows that the number of electors at that time in the town of Dryden whose farms exceeded in value £100 (about $500) each, was seventy-four ; two others had farms exceeding in value £20 (about $100), while the number of electors who rented tenements of the yearly value of forty shillings was returned at 174. The census of 1810 having shown a population in the town of 1890, that of 1814 shows an increase to 2545, while that of 1820 returns a population of 3995, showing a very rapid increase and reaching, near the end of the first quarter of the Century Period, a number slightly exceeding that of the present population, the highest number ever reached being 5851 returned in 1835, while the latest returns, accord- ing to the census of 1892 after the loss of seven lots in 1888, show a present population of 3912. The causes which have influenced this sudden increase and afterwards the gradual decrease of our popula- tion will be treated of in a separate chapter hereafter.
CHAPTER XII. 1235123
REVIEW OF THE PIONEER PERIOD.
We have now hastily passed over the first twenty-five years of the history of the town of Dryden, as a whole, commencing from the first settlement in 1797 and extending to the year 1822. We shall refer to it hereafter as the Pioneer Period, being the first quarter of the cen- tury of Dryden's inhabitation by her present race of population. To obtain a correct and reliable view of this period, we have been obliged to look back beyond the reach of human memory and to rely upon such information as tradition and the fragmentary records of those early times afford. Reliable memoranda of those times, when ob- tainable, have been quoted minutely as furnishing the most trust- worthy means of obtaining a correct idea of the condition and habits of our ancestors in that distant period.
We can readily understand that the wilderness was not transformed into fine cultivated fields, such as we now have, during that time. The best of the farms must have been thickly beset with stumps and cradle knolls when the year 1822 dawned upon the new country. Farming tools and implements of husbandry were then few and of the rudest
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
character. Mr. Bouton says that the first cast iron plow seen in the town of Virgil was introduced there in the year 1817, and we may as- sume that Dryden was not much in advance of her older sister town in that respect. Hitherto plowing had been done with a home-made wooden implement, held with a single handle, the original "mould board " being of wood instead of iron. Fortunate was the farmer in those days who possessed a sickle with which to cut by hand his grain standing in the fallow, a handful at a time, and when it had been threshed with the flail, the willow fan and riddle afforded the best means of cleaning it for use or market. Such roads as then existed through the woods would now be considered almost impassable and all means of transportation were so difficult and expensive that people lived as far as possible upon their own productions. Log houses were the rule and frame buildings the exception, even at the end of this period. We have queried as to whether any old houses, first con- structed in those times, still exist, without becoming much the wiser for the speculation ; but we mistrust that the little red house, now used as a storage building on the Burlingame farm, near the reservoir of the Dryden Village Water Works, is among the oldest survivors of former dwellings. It was the home of Edward Griswold, Sr., when he was the owner of a large part, at least, of the lot (No. 39), a mile square, near the center of which it still stands. John C. Lacy, in his Reminiscences, states that within his recollection (he was born in Dry- den in 1808) the Dr. Briggs house, originally built by Dr. Phillips, on South street, but now moved off and occupied by John McKeon, on Lake street, was the finest house in Dryden village.
All of the dwellings of this period were lighted as well as heated from the fire in the open fire-place, tallow candles even at this time being a luxury only to be used on special occasions. Many a time has the thrifty, industrious housewife of our ancestors, with the aid of the numerous small children " who played around her door, " gath- ered in at twilight a supply of pine knots so that she might have them to throw on the fire as needed to enable her to spin by their light in the long fall and winter evenings. We regret that we are unable to do justice to the pioneer Mother of that period, for the reason that no record was ever made and kept of her hardships and privations, there having been no " strong-minded women " in those days to record them ; and our only remedy is to give to her a full half of all the credit which belongs to the pioneer families for all of that which was accomplished.
Sheep husbandry prospered in the new country as soon as the
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THE PIONEER PERIOD.
sheep could be protected from the wild animals of the surrounding forests, and the cultivation of flax was early introduced. So abundant was the flax seed left after the fiber was worked up into cloth, that an oil mill to express the linseed oil was early in operation on what is now Sonth street in Dryden village, the heavy frame of which mill still serves to support a dilapidated barn, the covering of which was put on new since its use as an oil mill was discontinued. The plain clothing of the family was made from homespun linen and woolen cloth, coarse and heavy but at the same time strong and durable.
Joseph McGraw, Sr., already referred to as the father of the mil- lionaire, John McGraw, came into the settlement in this period as a professional weaver, going from house to house to work on the hand looms of those days and to instruct others in the art; and his fellow townsman, Benjamin Wood, the grandfather of our ex-governor, A. B. Cornell, at the same time was known and employed as a "reed maker, " manufacturing by hand from reeds the delicate parts of the looms by which the warp was manipulated in the process of weaving. Mr. Wood early resided near Willow Glen in the little old wood- colored house recently taken down on the farm formerly owned by Charles Cady ; but afterwards he became the proprietor of the premi- ises near Etna, known as Woodlawn. A subsequent chapter will be devoted to Mr. Wood and his family.
We have intentionally omitted from our narrative some hunting and fishing stories which have come down to us, suspecting that even the good and true old men of those times, like their descendants, might be given to exaggeration upon those subjects, and preferring to leave them ont altogether rather than to furnish exaggerated fiction under the guise of reliable history. We should, however, say something con- cerning the wild animals which were native here when disturbed in their haunts by the pioneers.
Of the larger animals the deer were very abundant and did not wholly disappear from the forests of the town until about 1835. It seems to be stated upon good authority that Peleg Ellis, during the first autumn of his settlement in Dryden, killed eighteen deer so near his log house that he drew them all up to his door upon his ox sled. The woods were full of small game and the squirrels and chipmunks were so abundant that when the raising of grain was first attempted in the small clearings entirely surrounded by the forest, it was almost impossible to save it from destruction by these pests. It was only by persistent trapping and hunting and sometimes by the use of poisoned bait that the crop was secured. The bears and wolves were some-
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
what troublesome, but they soon avoided the neighborhood of the settlements. The only animal which seriously endangered human life, and that not often except when hunted and at bay, was the cou- gar, or puma, or American lion as it was sometimes called, and often referred to by old people as the painter or panther, but improperly so, the true panther being a denizen of Africa. This cougar or puma was a cat-like carniverous animal about five feet long, of a reddish brown color above and nearly white underneath, being closely related to the leopard family of animals. It was King of Beasts on the American continent, nearly all of which it originally inhabited, and woe to the unsuspecting deer or other animal which passed under the tree from which it was watching to spring upon its prey. It had a peculiar cry which was sometimes mistaken for that of a human being in distress, and many were the thrilling stories told of it by the early settlers, although it was too cowardly to often attack mankind.
The American eagle, too, in early times made his home in Dryden, as appears from the following account published in the Ithaca Daily Journal of April 20, 1880, as copied from the Dubuque (Iowa) Times of an earlier date :
" In the years of 1828-9 a man discovered an eagle's nest in the top of a pine tree on the bank of Fall Creek in the town of Dryden, Tomp- kins county, N. Y., east of the town of Ithaca. The tree was cut and three young bald-headed eagles just ready to fly left the nest before the tree reached the ground. They were caught. One of them was presented to Roswell Randall, a wealthy and prominent merchant re- siding in Courtland Villa, Courtland county, N. Y. He caged, fed and cared for the bird two or three years. It grew fast and became a very large, noble bird of attraction. Mr. Randall placed the caged prisoner by the side of the front walk leading to his beautiful mansion, in the foregrounds, that visitors and passers-by could easily enjoy the sight. Finally the bird caused so much trouble that Mr. Randall gave it to William Bassett, a near neighbor, who was an engraver and silver- smith ; in politics an old line Whig. In 1831 a Fourth of July cele- bration was had in the village. Mr. Bassett being a public spirited man, added largely to the enjoyment of the day by preparing a silver clasp with these words engraved upon it, viz: 'To Henry Clay, of Louisville, Ky., from Wm. Bassett, of Courtland Villa, Courtland coun- ty, N. Y.,' and riveting it loosely, around one of the legs of the eagle carried the bird and placed it on top of the cupola of the Eagle Hotel in the village, its head in a southwest direction. The military corps
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THE PIONEER PERIOD.
and citizens being drawn up in front of the hotel, the eagle was set at liberty. It stood erect upon the cupola, made three flaps with its wings, then set off southwest. The military were ordered to fire, the citizens, swinging their hats, gave three cheers for Henry Clay. The eagle continued its course till out of sight."
This was on the Fourth of July, 1831. The sequel subsequently appeared in the Western papers giving an account of a "large bald- headed eagle being shot by an Indian on a high, towering bluff on the west bank of the Mississippi, about three miles north of Dubuque, on the eleventh day of July, 1831, measuring seven feet three inches from tip to tip of outstretched wings, having an engraved silver clasp rivet- ed around one of his legs reading as follows, viz : 'To Henry Clay, of Louisville, Ky., from Wm. Bassett, of Courtland Villa, N. Y.' In seven days from the time this noble bird graced the dome of the Eagle Hotel and set sail in the direction of Henry Clay's residence he was shot as above stated."
This incident was first furnished to the press by G. R. West, who was present at the celebration at Cortland in 1831 and saw the eagle take its flight from the old Eagle Hotel, which stood where the Mes- senger House is now located in Cortland village, and the promontory on the Iowa bank of the Mississippi river, where the eagle was shot as above stated, has since been known as "Eagle Point," and is a land-mark for all steamboat men on the upper Mississippi.
But the most interesting of the native animals which inhabited Dry- den was the beaver. These industrious creatures were about the size of a small dog, and lived on the bark of trees, taking up their habita- tions in colonies of fifty or more each, in the streams, across which they built dams with wonderful instinctive sagacity. They formed houses of sticks plastered with mud so regular and perfect that they seemed almost to be the work of human hands. It was some time before the writer could ascertain to a certainty that the beaver in- habited Dryden. The name "Beaver Creek," applied to a sluggish, muddy stream in the northeast corner of the township, first suggested the thought and was followed up by inquiry which develops the fact that the remains of a beaver dam could be distinctly seen in the woods on this creek as late as twenty-five years ago. These interesting ani- mals carried so much value in the fur upon their backs that they could not long survive the efforts of the pioneer hunters to capture them, and hence they early disappeared from this section of the country, so that their former presence here had been almost forgotten.
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