USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Ellicott > The early history of the town of Ellicott, Chautauqua County, N.Y. > Part 4
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
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ing a blanket on the floor I soon forgot home and all surroundings. At daybreak I continued my journey, reaching home to find that the dog had preceded me and had added to their fears for my welfare, thinking that he would not leave me unless something very serious had occurred. I met with a hearty greeting, the rolls and * the reeds and the hooks pleased. The boys soon came for their hooks and decided that I should keep half of them as then they would have two more hooks apiece than they had expected. Thus ended my first trip to Jamestown, and the reed is preserved in memory of it."
The fourth saw mill erected by Judge Prendergast was in the fall of 1827. The mill that had burned was rented to Eliakim Garfield and Joshua Wiltsie, and they were manufacturing lumber on their own account. At the request of Judge Prendergast they furnished their sawyers with axes, marched them to the woods near by, and in a few days the timber was cut and hewn and drawn and framed and up. With equal celerity the millwrights did their work, and in a remarkably short time the music of the changing saws were again heard ; the sawyers were again busy drawing in the logs up the steep incline with that long heavy chain,-in carrying out and piling the boards, and in throwing the slabs on the burning pile, the fire of which seldom went out. The sound of those saws was sweet music to the then citizens of Jamestown, as that which their children now enjoy in the opera house and the concert room. This mill was erected on the foundation of the old one.
The cotton factory which had been converted
* One of these reeds was exhibited at the semi-centennial fair held at Marvin Park September 1st, 1886.
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THE TOWN OF ELLICOTT.
into a grist mill in 1823, burned in the fall of 1833, and on its foundation was built the stone mill which is now owned by Daniel H. Grandin. This heavy build- ing was erected for Judge Prendergast by William Bell of Warren, of stone from the Dexterville quarries. The mill work by Elijah Bishop, and when completed was considered as perfect as could be found west of Rochester.
The first saw mill built by Judge Prendergast at the Rapids was the third in southern Chautauqua. Nathan Cass in 1815, made a clearing and built a saw mill at what was then known as the Slippery Rock. In the fall of 1816 or early in the following spring Cass sold his interest at Slippery Rock to John and Darius Dexter of Mayville and Dewittville.
The Dexters were among the earliest settlers of the county. John, Darius and William Dexter came to Mayville in 1808, and bought lands in that vici- nity. Darius Dexter cut the first road from the lake through Mayville towards the Cross Roads. Where the court house now stands was cleared by him. He went back to Herkimer county in the fall and returned in the spring of 1809 with his wife. He was at Black Rock in the war of 1812 as an officer in one of the Chautauqua companies. At the close of the war he became a colonel and was the first commanding officer of the 162d Regiment of N. Y. State militia. He was one of Ellicott's prominent and most valuable citizens. He was a prominent and useful member of the church and will long be remembered for his charities-and also we must add-for his one swear word for which he became as noted as Elisha Allen was for his. Ho was everywhere known as " dom " Dexter.
John Dexter was for many years county clerk,
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serving eleven years between 1815 and 1828. The brothers for several years had a store and ashery at Dewittville and Darius resided there; he removed to Slippery Rock in 1818, and the locality soon after as- sumed the name of Dexter's Mills, afterwards Dexter- ville, now East Jamestown. Mrs. Dexter, a lady of great worth, died there in 1829. His son, Harrison Dexter, now a wealthy lumberman, retired from busi- ness, resides in Cincinnati. His wife, still living, was the second danghter of William and Laura Knight of Jamestown. After selling the property at Dexterville to Falconer, Jones and Allen, Darius Dexter moved to Perry, Illinois, and died there. John Dexter removed to Wisconsin. Harrison Dexter and wife may be usu- ally met with daily in the streets of Jamestown during the summer. The locations of childhood and youth are not easily eradicated from the minds and affec- tions of humanity. For nearly seventy years Dexter and Dexterville have been household words with the people of Jamestown, as also were Tiffany and Tiffany- ville, Work and Worksburg, Plumb and Plumbville. Now all of these locations have changed their names, and the busy residents who crowd the streets and highways of those once peaceful, pleasant hamlets, not one in a hundred ever heard the names of their founders spoken.
In 1816 Benjamin Ross built a mill on the Cassa- daga, a couple of miles north of Work's, which was the fifth. The 6th was Myers on the Conewango, and in rapid succession several others followed. Many saw mills were very soon erected on small streams which furnished water for sawing from one to three months of the year. The lumber from these mills was used by the settlers near them, for there were no
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THE TOWN OF ELLICOTT.
means of getting it to any other market. Mills multi- plied so fast from 1820 to 1830 that this region was stripped of nearly all its first class pine lumber pre- vious to 1840. Vast fleets of lumber, boards and shin- gles were sent yearly down the Allegheny to Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and New Orleans. For several years all the lumber used in the south 'was from western New York and northwestern Pennsyl- vania, and it was crowded upon the market so rapidly that for several years the best pine was worth but four to five dollars per thousand feet, and for two or three years it sold for two dollars and fifty cents to three dollars per thousand feet, a sum not sufficient to pay the cost of rafting and sending to market. At one time good boards manufactured in Jamestown and vicinity sold in the Cincinnati market for one dollar and fifty cents per thousand feet. The pine lumber sent to the southern market up to 1826 never more than paid the cost of production, notwithstanding, as has been alleged, many "arabed" the trees from which the lumber was cut, and a few even after they were cut into logs, and instances are recorded where whole rafts of boards were stolen while on their way to mar- ket-"broke loose, you know " Probably the boards manufactured in Jamestown brought as remunerative prices in the springs of 1827, 1828 and 1829 as in any years. Between 1820 and 1830 Eliakim Gar- field, one of the rentors of the Prendergast mills, sold boards, "clear stuff" and " good common," to his brothers-in-law, Horace Bacon and Richard Hil- ler, for three dollars per thousand feet, and with the money made by him during that period purchased the large farm in Busti on which he now resides. For many years the slabs from Prendergast's mills were
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THE EARLY HISTORY OF
burned ; finally lath mills were introduced and the slabs were cut into lath. In early times shingles were rived and shaved out of the best pine timber, but as the first class pine timber diminished shingle machines were brought into use and timber which would not admit of riving and shaving was made into shingles. A few days ago we saw hemlock shingles put on a roof in our city, which were shaky and at least one-quarter rotten. Many shingles now used in early times could not be sold at any price.
The first grist mill in the town of Ellicott was erected at Work's, now Falconer, in 1809, and was a great accommodation to the early settlers over a large extent of country. The erection of Work's grist mill, although one of the rudest kind, the stones hay- ing been cut out of a large rock found on the surface of the ground near there, and with no means of bolt- ing the flour after it was ground, was not only a great accommodation , but a great benefit also, by stimulating the settlers to open roads to the mill .. The first roads opened in the country were from the various settlements to Work's mills as the center. This mill was built four years before there was any real settlement at the Rapids. There were a few fam- ilies there engaged in the erection of Prendergast's mills but that was all. The first grain was ground in Prendergast's mill at the Rapids during the winter of 1814, and the mill was not completed until mid-sum- mer of that year.
Several years ago much was said of John Blowers's house at the boatlanding, and of the burial of a child there, that Blowers came here as early as the spring of 1809, and remained, not returning with James Pren- dergast to Pittstown. John Blowers, an ignorant and
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THE TOWN OF ELLICOTT.
hard working man, came to the Rapids with Mr. Prendergast in the fall of 1809, and returned with him. Blowers's wife was maid of all work to Mrs. Prendergast, and Blowers was the almost constant at- tendant, servant one might say, to James. He was one of the rowers of the skiff that brought Prendergast and Bemus to the Rapids as previously related. He returned with Mr. P. to Pittstown that fall and re- turned with him the next season. He worked in building the first and second dams and first and sec- ond saw mills and lived at first, it might be said, in James Prendergast's house. When the log house was built at the foot of the Rapids an addition ten feet square was made to the south-west corner where Blow- ers and his wife slept. After the burning of the house and the first mills, a long, low one story plank house with a big chimney in the center was built for Mr. Prendergast and Captain William Forbes, on the east side of Cherry street about centerway between First and Second streets. Blowers then built for himself a slab cabin on the corner of First street and Potter's alley, on the east side of the alley. He never built a log house near the steamboat landing and never buried a child of his own there.
Big John Bale, a half-breed Seneca Indian, who had a white woman for a wife, occupied a small cab- in near the spring on the opposite side of the outlet. Bale came home from a long hunting excursion and found a woman named Sprake living in the cabin with his wife. A child of the Sprake woman lay dead in the dwelling, and John ordered it carried out. Bale's wife persuaded him to take a skiff and cross the outlet to where Blowers was cutting logs on what is now Fairmount, and induce the latter to come over
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THE EARLY HISTORY OF
and see her. Bale, knowing what was wanted, went, and Blowers returned across the outlet with him, but in his own skiff as Bale would not permit him in his. The women made an agreement with Blowers to bury the child, but as Big John would not permit the burial to take place on his side of the outlet, Blowers came across with the Sprake woman and the dead child, which was placed in a bark coffin prepared by the women, and buried near the outlet below the present high- way iron bridge at the boatlanding. A tombstone has since been erected not far from this grave. This is the true history of the burial at the boatlanding. Why some are anxious to establish Blowers in a log house at the boatlanding belongs to the unwritten history of those days and so it shall remain. It has been stated that this was the first burial of a white child in James- town ; this is not so, for this burial took place in the fall of 1816.
For many years before and after Judge Prender- gast settled here the place was known as the Rapids, taking the name from the natural dam, which extends from the boatlanding to the present bridge connecting West Second street with Steele street. This dam is one of the beneficent provisions of a designing and all-wise Creator. But for it our lake at its lower portion would be too shallow for navigation, even by canoes. But for it, the large fleet of steamboats on the lake; the big hotels on its beautiful sloping banks; the Assembly and schools at Fair Point, now Chautauqua, would never have existed. But for . the Rapids the "Chau- tauqua idea " would never have developed.
In the year 1822 an attempt was made to deepen the water at this part of the outlet by plowing and re- moving the bottom, but it was a task so difficult of ac-
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THE TOWN OF ELLICOTT.
complishment that it was abandoned. At this time there was discovered a row of white oak piles, four in- ches in diameter and five feet long, driven firmly into the earth across the stream. The finding of these oc- casioned no surprise, for Cornplanter, the great Indian chief, had frequently stated to Prendergast and others that detachments of soldiers had several times come over the Portage and in flatboats down Chautauqua lake to the Rapids on their way south, and that pre- vious to Braddock's defeat they had to raise the water by driving stakes. He also stated that it had been the tradition for nearly two hundred years among the Senecas or Five Nations, that Chautauqua lake, the outlet and the Conewango had been a prominent high- way from the great lakes to the Allegheny and the Ohio. The Prendergast farm in Kiantone is where an important Indian village was located in the last part of the XVIIth century. It was one of the granaries of the Five Nations. Cornplanter, when the French passed down to Fort DuQuesne was but eighteen years old, nevertheless he led a party of sixteen braves to the defense of the fort, embarking his warriors at what has been known as Oxbow Bend on the Cone- wango about a mile north of what is now Fentonville.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME CHAUTAUQUA .- We have al- so the authority of Cornplanter in conversation with Judge Prendergast, that Chautauqua (Ja-da-quel) signi- fied the place where a body ascended or was taken up. The Seneca tradition is that a hunting party of Indians was once encamped on the shore of the lake. A young squaw of the party dug and ate a root that created thirst, to slake which she went to the lake-and dis- appeared forever. Thence it was inferred that a root grew there which produced an easy death ; a vanish-
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ing away from the afflictions of life. I am well aware that the name of the lake has been ascribed to sev- eral other traditions and that other derivations have been given. Such as "a pack tied in the middle," and others equally improbable and ridiculous. President Alden, the first president of Allegheny college, says Cornplanter's version is doubtless the correct one. This is Cornplanter's, and he alludes to it in his cele- brated speech against Phelps and Gorham, the pur- chasers at an early day of a large portion of the Hol- land Land tract in the state of New York. (They were purchasers previous to the Holland Land Com- pany.) I transcribe the following from the long speech made before the committee appointed by the government to enquire into the subject in dispute :
"Fathers :- You have said that we are in your hand, and by closing it you could crush us to noth- ing. Are you determined to crush us ? If you are, tell us so, so that those of our nation who have be- come your children and have determined to die so, may know what to do. In his case, a chief has said, he would ask you to put him out of pain. All- other, who will not think of dying by the hand of his father or his brother, says he will return to Jada- queh, eat of the fatal root and sleep with his fathers in peace."
WILLIAM BEMUS.
If not the first among the first to settle on the banks of Chautauqua lake was William Bemus spoken of in the former chapter. He was born in Saratoga county in 1762, at what was then known as Bemus' Heights. His father was one of the prominent men of that section in wealth and influence. He was owner and resident on the grounds on which the bat-
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tle of Saratoga was fought, and in the most literal sense it may be said of him, that he fought bravely for his home and his fireside. William Bemus re- moved to Pittstown, Rensselaer Co., purchased lands, and married Mary, the eldest daughter of William Prendergast, in 1782. Early in the present century, when the Prendergasts and himself were agitating the question of a removal to the western wilderness, where their fast increasing families would have plenty of room in which to grow and expand, he sold his large landed property, to be in readiness for the move which he concluded would soon be undertaken. Soon after this sale was consummated, he made a trip to the west to visit a brother who had preceded him, and who at that time was living at or near Batavia. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Thomas Prendergast. After their visit to Mr. Jotham Bemus it was their intention to pass into Canada and view a lo- cation which had been recommended as a desirable one for their future home. While at Batavia they made the acquaintance of Wm. Peacock who had lately returned from a surveying tour in the neighbor- hood of Chautauqua lake, and through his influence they were induced to pay a visit to Chautauqua be- fore they returned. This was in 1803.
The leaving of the families in 1805, their long and wearisome travel to Tennessee, and then back again through Ohio to Chautauqua-a pilgrimage in the wilderness of over five months duration, we have given in the previous chapter.
As soon as Mr. Bemus had seen his family com- fortably housed in the log tenement, not far distant from Thos. Prendergast's, as already spoken of, he made a visit to Chautauqua lake and found that a
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squatter had already been there at work. It was a rule at the land office, that if a person built a tenable log house on any unoccupied lands, that he should be entitled to the article of 100 acres for each house so erected. Dr. Mcintyre had built up a small hut of poles 6x8, and about 6 feet high, covered it with brush and bark and had claimed that it was habitable, and had on false representations received an Article for 100 acres at what is now known as Bemus Point, and for another pole hut on the opposite side, had secured the Article of a second 100 acres.
This was undoubtedly the choicest location on the lake, viewed from the outlook of 1805. At least a hundred acres at the point bore evidence of former human occupancy, and there were two fields, each of about 20 acres area free from trees and which gave evidence of recent cultivation of corn and beans, those two staples of Indian agriculture. Near by was a large orchard of wild plum trees. and in this orchard were the remains of wigwams and their contents. In one of the fields were two large mounds, showing that it was an Indian burial place.
This visit of Wm. Bemus to his much desired lo- cation was in October, 1805. The recently erected pole huts he felt confident could not hold the lands, never- theless they filled him with anxiety. He returned home, and from thence started immediately for the land of- fice in Batavia. The result of this visit was that he was authorized to locate at the narrows, and in the following January Wm. Bemus was booked at the land office for lots 53 and 54, tier 2, range 12, with the choice of other lots in the spring at a large discount for cash down. He had plenty of money in his pocket and did not wish to pay $2.50 and $3.00 per
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acre when it could be purchased for $1.50 cash at time of purchase. One dollar and a half is the price paid by William Bemus for several hundred acres on both sides of the narrows of Chautauqua lake in 1806.
Dr. MeIntyre claimed that the pole huts were sufficient to hold the lands and to avoid all vexation Bemus gave him $100 for his interest. Afterwards he found a very curious claim upon his lands. Dr. Thomas B. Kennedy of Meadville, Pa., had a deed from the Indians which called for 1,500 acres of land indefinitely bounded "between the two hills on each side of the creek which empties its waters into the lake at the narrows." This worthless deed included Bemus' purchase on the east side. He offered Ken- nedy $80 for his interest which was accepted. In July, 1806, he took articles for a large amount of lands near his first purchase of which it is not neces- sary to give the land office record here.
After his return from the land office at Batavia, he immediately employed a number of hands and proceeded to the narrows. In less than two weeks and before the 1st of December, 1805, he had erected a large and substantial log house about 30 or 40 rods north-east from what is now known as Bemus Point at the ferry. As this was a time of famine in Chau- tauqua he concluded to leave his family where they were until spring. On the 9th day of March, 1806, his goods and chattels and family were placed on sleds at their temporary home in Westfield and started for their future home. Arriving at the lake the teams were too smooth shod to stand on the ice. The sleds were propelled by hand across the lake, and the teams sent around by land. At sundown, March 9th, 1806, the first white settlers on Chautau-
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THE EARLY HISTORY OF
qua lake were at home in their new log house (and which many now living will well remember) at the narrows of Chautauqua lake, now Bemus Point.
Bemus commenced his farming operations im- mediately by girdling the trees which were mostly oak and chestnut, and in due time planting between them corn, potatoes, &c. At an early day no man did more for the advancement and welfare of the country than William Bemus. He was a highly re- ligious man-the Bible was his constant pocket com- panion, and all his acts were guided by its precepts ; but he had one peculiar belief, and which he gave up only a few hours before his death. That belief was that he should live forever. He died January 2d, 1830.
To William and Mary (Prendergast) Bemus were born seven children, viz : Daniel, Elizabeth, Thomas, Tryphena, Charles, Mehitable and James.
Daniel Bemus was a physician of note ; resided for many years in Meadville, Pa., and there died in 1866.
Charles Bemus served in the war of 1812. He died in Jamestown at the residence of his son, Dr. Wm. P. Bemus, in 1861.
Elizabeth became the wife of Capt. John Silsbee. She died many years ago.
Thomas Bemus died in 1829. He had eight children. Thomas Bemus, now a resident of the town of Portland. in this county, and Mary, wife of Horace Cullum late of Meadville, now of California, were children of Thomas Bemus.
Tryphena became the wife of John Griffith, and died in 1851.
Mehitable, the youngest daughter, became the wife of Daniel Hazeltine in 1818, and is still living.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY SETTLERS THE DESCENDANTS OF THE PURITANS-A TRIAL AT THE FIRST COURT HELD IN THE COUNTY-THE EARLY BOATMEN-EARLY ROADS-THE VILLAGE OF STILLWATER -- FIRST NAVIGATION OF THE LAKE-THE STEAMBOAT CHAUTAUQUA-MILE'S CANOE-DURHAM BOATS- SCHOONER MINK-THE HORSE BOAT.
T HE early settlement of the western counties of New York from seventy-five to one hundred years ago, was something entirely different from the settlement of a new section of country now. At the present day, when a new state or portion of a state is opened to settlement, an immense flow of emigration sets in from all portions of the globe, especially from all European countries, and speedily that section is filled up with the people of all nations. of all lan- guages, and all religions. To those who come after, these locations will have no early history to which they can look back with loving pride and filial venera- tion. They look back upon a motley group too fre- quently representing the poor-houses and prisons of
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many countries-the low, degraded, dangerous classes, from the vilest dens of the cities of Europe.
This was not true, when the wilderness of Chau- tauqua received her first settlers. They were, for the most part, the hardy, well educated, reverent descend- ants of the Puritans,-the yeomen and artizans who shipped at Delf Haven and landed on Plymoth Rock, -or of the more noble families, better educated but poor, more refined although oppressed, Dissenters and Huguenots who soon after landed in Massachusetts bay.
On the banks of the Charles they commingled and became one people,-the New England Fathers. During the last century they colonized Vermont, es- pecially that portion of it, of which Windham county is the center. They served under Standish ; they were with Wolfe at Quebec,-they fought with Stark at Bennington, with Allen at Ticonderoga, and with Gates on the Stillwater. Their blood cemented the union of states.
They conquered the Dutch on the banks of the Hudson, and in the valley of the Mohawk, by marry- ing their daughters and becoming the fathers of the most hardy race of pioneers of which the world can boast.
The descendants of the Puritan settlers of the Charles,-of the New England Fathers in Vermont,- of the hardy home loving pioneers from the valley of the Mohawk, with a few noble spirits from the bloody vale of Wyoming, were the early settlers of Chautau- qua county. They were a noble race, the flowers of the families from which they sprang.
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