USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Ellicott > The early history of the town of Ellicott, Chautauqua County, N.Y. > Part 7
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In 1848 Capt. Geo. Stoneman, (father Gen. Stone- man, the present governor of California) fastened two large canoes side by side a few feet apart, planked them over and used this affair to bring occasional freight from Mayville to Jamestown. This curious boat was named the Twins and was propelled the first year by horse power, afterwards by a small steam en- gine. A boat called the Hollam Vail was built in 1851. She ran one season and burned at her dock in the fall of 1852. Either before or after the H. Vail a boat which, after building, was found almost unsea- worthy she careened so badly, was built by Mat. P. Bemus and others. She was called the Water Witch, and afterward, I think, the Lady of the Lake. She either sank or was burned at Mayville. It 1856 Capt. Gardner built a large steamboat at Mayville, and put in the best machinery that has ever been in
THE EARLY HISTORY OF
any boat on the lake. This boat was called the C. C. Dennis. She was finished off with dining room, pan- tries, etc., and meals were served on board. The en- gine of this boat put Gardner deeply in debt, but he continued to run her with some intermission up to the close of the season of 1861. Her machinery was then taken out and carried away. The hull of the boat was floated to the west side of the outlet just be- low the steamboat landing bridge and there allowed to rot down. Capt. James M. Murray, when he first came to Jamestown, was connected with this boat. Capt. Murray was afterwards owner and captain of the un- fortunate steamer Chautauqua No. 2, the blowing up of which caused so great a loss of life. Since the abandonment of the Dennis something over forty steamboats, large and small, have been built on Chau- tauqua lake. We now have plowing the waves of o ir beautiful Chautauqua nine or ten large, staunch, first- class steamboats, and of smaller ones a host, and busi- ness for them all. Chautauqua with its lectures, its schools and its colleges, is one of the institutions that has come to stay. It now casts the shadow of a giant, but it will never be less. Chautauqua lake with its shores lined with magnificent hotels has become a noted watering place, and now a railroad is being built along the shores. Notwithstanding this the steam- boats will increase in number, size and beauty until Chautauqua lake will bear upon her bosom a navy larger than any body of water of its size in the world
CHAPTER IV.
PRESENT UTILITY AND FUTURE DESTINY-JUDGE PRENDERGAST'S YARD-ALLEN'S COW YARD-NAM- ING THE VILLAGE-THE JUNTO AND THEIR DIS- COMFITURE-CLOTH DRESSING-DANIEL HAZEL- TINE AND FAMILY-OPERATIVES-HAT MANUFAC- TURING-PIER,-FREEMAN-AND OTHERS-FURS AND PELTRIES-ANECDOTES OF BEARS.
TN considering the present condition and future prospects of any community, it is well to take into account the early trials, successes and failures of those who preceded, and of whom, the present occupants of their places, the representatives of the industries of to- day, are profoundly ignorant. Those who are now the inhabitants of the city of Jamestown, doubtless look upon the knowledge of the present condition of so- ciety,-the transactions of the present day,-present trades, manufacturers and arts,-upon present know- ledge and culture, as more important than any other. That the present, requires all the best thoughts, the best energies of man, from which, if his attention is to
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be in the least diverted, the coming active living fu- ture, is far more important than the dead and silent past. All this is true; but if we would rightfully ap- preciate the present, and guide it to an honorable and useful future, we must, in some degree, be acquainted with the past, for it is that which instructs us to the true positions we now occupy in this drama of life. If we would justly foresee the consequences of the pres- ent, we must be able to see how the present had its origin in that which preceded it. To know the pres- ent we must not be ignorant of that which has been.
And yet, with the great mass of mankind, present utility is the measure of all knowledge and of all pur- suits. The answer given by the Spartan king-"What study is fitted for a boy ?" the reply,-"the present mo- ment," is as sure to be followed to-day as twenty-five centuries ago. The knowledge of our surroundings, of what is affecting us physically, intellectually, and morally, in countless ways, ranks far higher than the knowledge of the circumstances of preceeding genera- tions. "Present Utility" has become the watch word of the man of to-day. The present and its duties will not permit him to study small communities and their gradual growth into the present: we have not the time to study that which happened in our own locality be- fore we were born, or to conjecture what is to happen after we are dead. We have to do our study and our work within the horizon of our own existence; this is the philosophy of the masses at the present time, and it is true. Necessity makes it so. Is this not "destiny ?" Is it strange than man disbelieves that he is intrusted by Providence with the care of his own fate ? Is it strange that he is led to think that he is embarked, without a rudder,-without a sail,-without
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an oar,-upon the stream of destiny, hurried on he knows not how,-and destined to arrive, he knows not whither?
The duties of life are too exacting to permit man to step aside for the purpose of examining the foot- steps in the path he is now treading. The omnipo- tent, all exacting present, requires if we would suc- ceed, the expenditure of the utmost moment of time in its service. And when this has been most faith- fully done, the lives of the ablest and most successful, are too frequently disappointing, and their results un- fruitful. Of the thousands of seeds sown, and watered with sweat and tears, only one brings forth the healthy, vigorous plant. A hundred soldiers die in the trenches for one who mounts the breach. Half our efforts are in the wrong direction, and the other half are too clumsy or feeble to attain their aim. If at the close of life, we can say we have enjoyed a lit- tle happiness and done some good, we shall have cause for deep gratitude and humble hope. But a sense of complacency, of satisfaction, as of a part faithfully ful- filled, and a work thoroughly accomplished, can be- long to no man who looks back over his course with a single eye, and in the light of an approaching change. The finer the spirit, and the profounder the insight, the more unconquerable will be the feeling of disap- pointment. There comes to us an irresistible intima- tion that this world was not given us to be rested in, to be acquiesced in, as the only one or the brightest one; a conviction and a suggestion sent, perhaps to weaken our passionate attachment to a scene, which otherwise it might have been too hard to loose our hold upon. Centuries have added scarcely one new fact to the materials on which reason has to work, nor per-
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fected a single one of the faculties by which that work is done. We possess scarcely a single item of know- ledge, either human or divine, which was not as famil- iar to Plato and to Job as to ourselves. Assuredly we have no profounder poetic insight than the one, no finer philosophie mind than the other. The deepest and saddest ever remains to grieve the heart and to originate faith. The unknown is the constant re- mainder, hope the solvent.
In reading these chapters if any one should com- plain that the events follow no chronological order, we reply, that it was not our intention to follow such order, but to take up various pursuits, trades and pro- fessions of the early settlers as they come up in our minds, and to write of them, and of the persons con- nected with them, at the same time. We have found it impossible to carry out fully our original design, for some persons from time to time were engaged in many different occupations; nevertheless we have adhered to this plan as nearly as practicable. Not unfrequent- ly, an old memory-some anecdote-some transaction of the early days-disconnected with the subject in hand, has welled up in the mind and we have not hesitated to transcribe them at once, contrary to our own pre-arranged rules, which we had intended should be our guide. We have feared that if we did not pen down the item then and there, it might not occur to us again. We are free to acknowledge that the matter contained in these pages would admit of better arrangement, and we have made several attempts in that direction, but with no very desirable results. As we now offer the pictures from the store house of memory we give you the result of our best efforts. It
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has been our great desire and study to arrive at the principal facts in our history, giving generally the dates of their occurrence,-but to follow up that his- tory year after year from 1810 to 1840 or 45, and even later, we have discovered to be a task impossible for us to perform. We have not attempted a bare dry diary of events as they occurred day after day, but have attempted without much arrangement to give pictures of the past as photographed in our own mem- orv.
JUDGE PRENDERGAST'S "YARD."
In August, 1814, Judge Prendergast built a small one story house, consisting of one large room, two bed- rooms in the east end, with a passageway for the stairs to the garret between them. In the end towards the street was but one window and that lighted the garret. There were two windows on the south side and two on the north side with a door between the latter two. A large Dutch fire-place and chimney occupied the west end. This house was made of plank and covered with wide unplaned clapboards, and was guiltless of paint. It stood on the ground now occupied by Hevenor's store, on the west side of Main street, and its east end was about 15 feet from the street. As long ago as we can remember Judge Prendergast's "yard," as it was called, extended from Main to Cherry street, and from Second street to a line drawn at the north side of the store now owned by L. L. Mason. The east, south and west sides were enclosed by a rough board fence (stakes "wythed" together to hold the boards); the north by a shed and fence which divided it from the barn yard of Ballard's tavern which occupied the south-west corner of Main and Third streets. Sliding
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bars of wide 16-foot boards answered the purposes of front gate. These bars were precisely where now is the front of McNaughton's grocery.
Judge Prendergast's "yard" at that early day was the play ground of all the children in the town, and we dare say they consumed at least a milkpan full of Aunt Nancy's doughnuts daily; and better doughnuts were never made in either the village or city of James- town. South of Ballard's tavern on Main street a gate- way opened into the barn yard. This gateway was im- mediately north of Mason's present jewelry store. Where the Sherman House now stands there was a deep and seemingly bottomless swamp belonging to Prendergast; the alley (Mechanics) was not opened through that block or through the blocks north of it until 1838. This swamp lot, where the Sherman House now stands, years afterwards was sold to Joseph Waite, and he built a comfortable residence on the corner, and later a two storied stone office east and near the center of the lot. A board fence extended north from Ballard's barn across what is now Third street to the premises of Wm. Hall (Solomon Jones's tavern) where the Prendergast block now stands. In Judge Prender- gast's yard, the east half of which was in grass, and the west part in smart weed, was the house described and several small buildings for poultry. On the west there was a large barn, immediately north of the present Chautauqua Democrat building, and barn- yard, and a large goose pond where the Journal building now stands, which was fed by a large and constant stream of water arising in the swamp above, passing obliquely across Second street west of the Journal Printing establishment. Crossing Mechanic's
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alley about sixty feet south of the street and crossing First street about ten feet west from the west side of the present Baker block, and emptying into the mill- race. On Second street was a high bridge requiring two bents and three lengths of timbers. Under, above and below the bridge was a deep, miry slough, through which the stream passed. Elisha Allen's large barns extended from the alley nearly to the corner of Cherry street on the south side of Second. We have at- tempted to be explicit in our description of this old stamping ground of Jamestown's early youth, hoping that our description will induce some home painter to commit it to canvass. There is one whose father well remembers what we have here attempted to describe. Get him to assist you. The following anecdote of this locality is brought forcibly to mind:
ALLEN'S WAGONS.
Elisha Allen lived in a large house * at the south- west corner of Main and Second streets. Samuel Bar- rett lived on the north-west corner of Cherry and Sec- ond streets, and in the house now standing there, and Wilford Barker boarded with him. ยง Mr. Allen kept many horses and wagons, and usually half a dozen wagons were to be found at any time in Second street, between Main street and the bridge spoken of above. One dark night as Barrett and Barker were going home, they fell over the tongue of one of the wagons, prone into the filth of Allen's cow vard, for he used the street for his cows as well as for his wagons. Pro-
* This house (the old Cass tavern) was removed west to the alley when A. F. and D. Allen built their brick block at the corner of Main and Second streets in 1836. It formed the kitchen part of the Jamestown house, and was lately torn down.
SThis house has been much changed in appearance by additions and repairs.
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voked by the fall and the soiling of their clothes, they ran the wagon down an almost perpendicular bank on the north side of the bridge into the mire twelve feet below. Several days after this, Barrett needed to use a wagon and went to Allen to borrow. "H-1, Mr. Bar- rett," said Allen, "I am very happy to lend you a wagon. There is no better religion than that which leads us to be kind and charitable, and forgiving to our neighbors. I have always found it best to repay evil with good." He remembered the transaction of ten days previous and a glance at Allen's smiling face was sufficient to prove that he was in a serape. "Which of the wagons shall I take, Mr. Allen ?" "H-1, Barrett, the one you pushed over the bank," was the quick reply. "You will find it just where you and Barker left it." "H-1, Sam, I knew that you would have to pull that wagon out, but thought I would not ask you to do it until it had gone clean out of sight. 'Old Argue' # saw you when you pushed it down there." There was but one way out of the difficulty. Securing a stout rope and several men, Mr. Barrett succeeded after two hours of hard work in withdraw- ing the wagon from the mire into which it had sunk nearly out of sight. We witnessed the pulling out of the wagon, as did a score or more of men and boys, and frequently since have heard the Major tell the story, with the addition, that the expense to him- self was $2.40. "It cost too much to interfere with Old Lishe's wagons," he would say, and never repeated the exploit.
HOW THE VILLAGE WAS NAMED.
Perhaps the present will be as convenient time as we shall have to give the principal doings and
A character we shall speak of hereafter.
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sayings at a meeting of a few gathered for the purpose of giving a name to the hamlet of the rapids. There was much ill feeling at the time, and words were spoken which we do not transcribe from the record. During the summer of 1815, frequent mention was made of giving the town a name, especially by the junto as it was called, which consisted of five or six in- dividuals opposed in all things to Judge Prendergast. Some good, as well as some astounding names had been proposed. In the fall of that year a few friends of Judge Prendergast, fearing a name might be foisted upon them in the establishment of a post-office, through the legislature, or otherwise, that would not meet the views of most of the inhabitants, came to- gether in the office room of Dr. Hazeltine, in his resi- dence (the Blowers house) which up to that time had been a usual place for such gatherings, to consider the subject. Nine persons attended this meeting, and all agreed that it was best to have a name other than "Prendergast's Mills" or "The Rapids," the names then in use.
It certainly is strange that in a small hamlet con- taining but thirteen families, located in a wilderness and almost cut off from civilization, should thus early be divided up in to cliques and juntos, and quarreling with one another worse than a pack of wolves over a half-picked bone, and that this quarrel should con- tinue unabated for 15 or 20 years and until the princi- pal personages should be removed by death or other- wise from the scenes of their bickerings and turmoils. And yet, for the most part, we are convinced that these very persons had in view the best interest of the little town in which they were the leading and most im- portant citizens. The truth is that at that early day,
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not only the citizens of Ellicott but of the county, be- lieved, and this belief extended beyond the county to the eastern portion of the state and into New Eng- land, that the little hamlet of the rapids was to be- come a place of importance in the not far distant fu- ture. The forests were not only vast in extent, but the trees were larger than any ever before known. Its pineries were the wonders of the day and their fame had extended even to Europe. The great wealth which they represented, the vast water powers which everywhere penetrated these forests in every direction, rendering their conversion into lumber and shipments to market easy, by continuous water way through the great Mississippi valley. The conversion of this water power when the lumber was gone, into power for factories of various kinds which even then had entered the minds of the settlers in their dreams of future greatness and prosperity,-the beautiful Chautauqua lake, distant but a midday walk from the greatest chain of inland lakes in the world-this lake bordered by the richest agricultural lands in the state, and itself a'vast reservoir of water power. All these things had passed through the minds of the early set- tlers at the rapids, and filled their brains with ideas of future greatness. Our fathers were the " Creme de Creme " of the emigrating classes of those days and in prophetie vision saw these things nearly as clearly as we, their descendants, see them after the changes of two-thirds of a century have stamped themselves on the country. The truth is, those strong, sturdy men were fighting for leadership in the grand movements soon to follow. It was a praiseworthy ambition that gave origin to the junto, nevertheless we must confess that their ambition was not without alloy. Human nature
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is prone to stoop to the basest trickery, deceit and falsehood, to accomplish her ends. As a record of this meeting, by one who was present, says: "The junto in- tends to rule us. The Judge is opposed and vexed on all sides, in the most trivial things, and his friends are prompted to work against him, not knowing that they are doing so; The devil is surely here; some think his headquarters are on the Stillwater, but Unele Solo- mon Jones says we need not travel so far as that to find him." "Forbes says Jakins is full of tricks but harmless. Why is somebody so anxious to have a post office here? I tell you they have got it all cut and dried to name the town and intend to use the post office as a handspike to raise themselves up to the top of the heap. Akins was over here yesterday and the junto had a meeting.
y ** know that we intend to give this locality a name to-night; they are troubled but dare not interfere." "Captain Forbes," said Phin Palmiter, " they take off sealps about as savage as they did over on the 'Conjockety;' but you remember that it was Stillwater, not the Rapids that run away there; we are to be depended on every time."
" And Stillwater will run again now-not us. You stand by us as you stood by me at Conjockety and if we don't whip the junto I'll foot the bill." "These two sallies caused a great laughter which brought several to the door; Forbes went out but soon returned saying they were sawyers and he sent them about their busi- ness, if any of the Akins' crew had been there I should have brought them in." The document from which I have taken these extracts is too long for our present purpose.
Several names were suggested in which the name of
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Prendergast was used; all of them with a suffix of town, or ton, berg or ville, &c. It did not appear to have entered the minds of our fathers that Prender- gast would have been an appropriate name, for that was not according to the fashions and usages of those days. It was decided that any name containing Pren- dergast would be "too long for so short a town." They then took up the word James and hitched all kinds of suffixes to that. Finally the majority favored James- ville as the name but Dr. Hazeltine opposed it because there was one if not two towns by that name in the state already, and favored the name of Jamestown which was finally decided upon, although the major- ity were in favor of adjourning a few days before the name was fully adopted. Hazeltine and Forbes de- clared that any name they chose would have the approbation of the Judge and that no one would dare to attempt a change; and declared for immediate ac- tion. Blanchar declared that it was time to go home, that he should take the responsibility of naming the town himself, and that if they would examine the grist mill door in the morning they would find the name there. That if the "junto" wanted to shear their goats they would find him and Walt at the grist mill, and they would grind their grist or pick and card their wool, he didn't care a cuss which-that he had lived at the Rapids too long to be whipped by Still- waters and old Jacob's boarders. True to his word there was found on the grist mill door next morning an advertisement of Simmons & Blanchar, done with pen and ink on half a sheet of fools cap paper, calling for wool to be cleaned, dried, picked, oiled and carded into rolls if delivered to them at their carding works in the village of JAMESTOWN, formerly known as the
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Rapids. The junto declared that the advertisement was in Dr. Hazeltine's handwriting; that it was a miserable hoax which Simmons & Blanchar permit- ted fearing that Prendergast would make them take their carding machines out of the grist mill if they did not submit.
During the winter they attacked the new name with all kinds of ridicule, giving the town all sorts of ridic- ulous or sarcastic names instead, such as Pendergasses dam town, Martinsburg, Jeddediasville, Blowerstown, Hezzletonsburgh, etc. Their plan at the time ap- peared to be to defeat the name by ridic iling it, but they continued the method too long. Within six months the name was used by all except the junto, and during the following year through the influence of the Prendergast party, a post office was established at Jamestown, Chautauqua County, N. Y. The oppo- sition afterwards declared that they favored the name from the beginning, but did not wish to have Hote Blanchur go wool gathering from the office of Jim Prendergast's pet doctor. Thus it was that the city of Jamestown of to-day received its name and the junto of the Stillwater beat in their first engagement at the foot of the Rapids 81 years ago.
CLOTH DRESSING AND MANUFACTURING.
The first carding of wool in the town of Ellicott was done by Simmons & Blanchar on a small single ma- chine built for them in Sheridan and erected in Pren- dergast's grist mill in 1814. In 1812 Solomon Jones wrote to his nephew, Daniel Hazeltine, then 17 years old, residing in Wardsboro, Vt., advising him to learn cloth dressing and come to Ellicott and set up his trade; that there was then no such establishment in this region of country and one was sorely needed. He
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acted on the advice and immediately commenced an apprenticeship at an establishment not far from his home. In 1816 he came to Jamestown with Samuel Barrett. He immediately erected a small building, where the west end of Broadhead & Sons' worsted mills now stand, for cloth dressing and the next season a much larger one for his carding ma- chines and dye works.
In those early days nearly every settler kept a few sheep, as many as he could protect from the wolves, and in nearly every log house was a spinning wheel and a loom. The most of the cloth for both men's and women's wear was made at home. In May and June nearly every farmer coming to the grist mill, brought with him one or more big bundles of wool. This was carded and made into rolls which were then taken home and spun into yarn and the yarn woven into cloth. In the fall the cloth was brought to the factory, scoured, fulled, colored, napped, sheared and pressed, then taken home and made into garments. Madder red and London brown were the favorite col- ors for women's wear. In imagination we can see a woman clothed with one of those dresses now. High in the neck and fastened together by hooks and eyes along the back, very short waisted, very narrow sleeves, skirt narrow and short, reaching to the ankle. A woman was seldom seen who was not clothed in one of these home-manufactured dresses. Calico was sometimes used, by those who could afford it, for " dress up" occasions. The more frequent colors for men's wear were black and dark brown.
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