USA > New York > Steuben County > Bath > The official records of the centennial celebration, Bath, Steuben County, New York, June 4, 6, and 7, 1893 > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
179
REMINISCENCES.
The packet boats superseded the stage coaches in my boyhood, as they also ran night and day, served meals on board, had berths, and made bet- ter time. The introduction of the railway, however, drove the packet boats out of the water, and they are now, only after a half a century, almost entirely forgotten, and probably not one-quarter of my hearers ever saw one.
From the beginning, the settlement at Bath occupied the most con- spicuous position in the settlements of this portion of Western New York. The original charters of the companies and States were so loosely drawn on their western boundaries that Massachusetts and Connecticut were each granted a portion of the land covered also by that held by the State of New York, which included the present boundaries of that State. The controversies over these charters were amicably settled by State Com- missions, in December, 1786, at Hartford, Conn., confirming the sovereignty of New York to the territory of the State, but yielding to Massachusetts the right of pre-emption of the soil from the Indians to all lands west of a line that ran, starting eighty-two miles west of the north-west corner of the State line of Pennsylvania, and running due north through the Seneca Lake to Lake Ontario, excepting a mile wide the whole length of the Ni- agara River, reserved by the Indians as portage grounds. Massachusetts also obtained the pre-emption rights to ten townships.
The Connecticut claim was not settled till 1800, when Congress passed a law authorizing the President of the United States to release to Con- necticut 3,300,000 acres, known as the Western Reserve (now within the State of Ohio), on condition that Connecticut ceded all claims lying west, north-west or south-west of the old boundary line of 1733, which was accepted by Connecticut, and New York's title confirmed.
At the Declaration of American Independence, probably no white man dwelt in Western New York. The depredations of the Indians upon the frontier settlements at Cherry Valley and Wyoming aroused such indignation that Sullivan's expedition to check these invasions and punish the Indians was sent out in 1779. He followed the Susquehanna and Tioga Rivers to Elmira, then crossed to the head of Seneca Lake, and passed between Lakes Seneca and Keuka, around the foot of Canandaigua Lake, and thence to the Big Tree, on the Genesee River, destroying their villages, fruit trees and corn fields, and killed all that came in his path.
In 1784, 1785 and 1786, we made treaties of peace with the Six Nation tribes, by which we obtained the Indian title to a few reservations. In 1789, New York obtained its cession from the Cayugas. The Legislature, in 1782, set apart what was known as the military tracts of 1,680,000 acres, divided into twenty-eight townships of one hundred lots, each of six hun- dred acres. Each private soldier and non-commissioned officer of the
180
THE CENTENNIAL OF BATH.
State troops had one lot assigned him, and the officers larger awards in proportion to their rank.
The pre-emption rights of Massachusetts to 6,000,000 acres were sold to Phelps and Gorham, in 1787, for $200,000, or, more exactly, £300,000, Massachusetts currency, payable in consolidated securities of the State, worth at the time two shillings English in the pound. The purchasers were Massachusetts men, and they went through the wilderness and made their headquarters in Canandaigua, in 1788 and opened a treaty with the Indian chiefs, Red Jacket and Farmer's Brother. July 8, 1788, they con- cluded a treaty for 2,000,000 acres, which the Legislature of Massachusetts ratified, November 21, 1788, and Phelps and Gorham relinquished the rest of the tract to the State of Massachusetts. They opened a land-office at Canandaigua, surveyed their land and cut it into ranges and townships, the former six miles wide, and the townships in each range were four- teen, cut into lots of one hundred and sixty acres each. They commenced selling, and in 1790, sold nearly all that remained then unsold (1,264,000 acres), at eight pence an acre, to Robert Morris. Mr. Morris sold his con- tract to Charles Williamson, who conveyed his title to Sir William Pul- teney, an English gentleman. Colonel Williamson then acted as the agent of Sir William Pulteney and his associates, and commenced the sales to actual settlers. The property was called afterwards the Pulteney Estate. Colonel Williamson opened a land-office at Bath, and one was also opened at Geneva, N. Y.
March 12, 1791, the State of Massachusetts sold to Samuel Ogden 500,- 000 acres lying west of the Phelps and Gorham purchase (except one-six- teenth sold to Robert Morris), and this tract was conveyed to the latter, which extended from the north line of Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, and was bounded on the west by a line twelve miles from the south-west corner of the Phelps and Gorham purchase to Canada. The residue of the lands were sold by the State of Massachusetts to Robert Morris, which covered all the residue of the State west, and was known as the "Holland Purchase."
Bath was founded on the great divide which separated the higher water-sheds of the great American rivers. From three miles down the valley road to Lake Keuka is the Cold Spring, whose waters, flowing through Lakes Keuka, Seneca and Ontario meet the sea, thus passing the gateway of the grand St. Lawrence River. A few miles from Bath on the Mitchellville road along the same divide, I remember a barn from the eaves of which on the one side the water ran through the Wheeler Creek and Conhocton to the sea by the Susquehanna, and from the other by the Lakes to the St. Lawrence Gulf. Bath was, by natural selection, the cen- tre of the early pioneer settlers of the head water navigation by the rivers to the sea.
181
REMINISCENCES.
Lake Lamoka at Wayne is within cannon shot of Lake Keuka, 395 feet below the water level of the former, whose waters flow into the Con- hocton at Savona, passing through Lake Waneta which, via Bradford, was head of river navigation for ark and raft before the age of steam.
Lake Waneta is a most beautiful sheet of water. The mounds on its shores are full of reminiscences of the red man. It is the finest fishing grounds of the State even to this day, and I have picked up arrow heads and stone implements and weapons there, where I have for years wet my fishing lines in its waters, and the farmer turns them up continually now with his plow.
It is to commemorate the men who came here and wrested this region from its former masters, who transformed the wilderness into the fer- tile fields and farms and homes of to-day ; and to speak of them and their descendants, who, since the Revolutionary War have borne any part in the wondrous changes, that we are met to-day.
The settlement of the Genesee Valley commenced in 1788, and it is probable that the first settlement was made at Geneva at the foot of Lake Seneca in the same year, six or seven families locating there. There are records of a settlement at Canandaigua, at the foot of that lake, in the year 1789. They came in up the Mohawk from Schenectady by boat, and by Wood Creek and Oneida Lake to and through the Canandaigua Outlet.
Colonel Charles Williamson settled in Bath in 1792. A company from Berkshire, Mass., had settled the year before, 1791, at Naples at the head of Canandaigua Lake. Colonel Williamson transported his flour from North- umberland, in Pennsylvania, and his pork from the city of Philadelphia up the rivers by canoe. This whole country was then called the County of Ontario. From the census of 1790, it would seem that all of the present County of Steuben was embraced within the towns called Painted Post, containing ten families and fifty-nine souls, Wayne, one family and nine people, Erwin, eleven families and fifty-nine souls, Canisteo ten families and fifty people. In the whole County of Ontario, including the settle- ments in the Genesee country and around Canandaigua and Geneva, 205 families and 1081 population. In all of the present County of Steuben there were twenty-one families and 118 people, and not one in the present township of Bath.
The construction of roads was the most successful means of opening and starting the settlements. The State Road from Utica to Avon was the first road through Bath. It was perfected in 1794. The first stage passed over it from Utica to Genesee, starting its first trip upon September 30, 1799, and run thence regularly. In 1800, this road was established by law as a turnpike road. Colonel Williamson was quick to see the value of the construction of roads. He said that fifty families settled on the State Road in the space of four months after it was opened, and he and his company
182
THE CENTENNIAL OF BATH.
constructed many roads, opening the lands for sale to the early settlers as a matter of public policy. In May, 1799, the Manhattan Company, of New York City, commenced building the long bridge across the Lake Cayuga, completing it in September, 1800. I have driven across it when a boy, and its old timbers are still, some of them, standing in the lake. Five years before it was built there was hardly a white settler there, and the timber used in its construction was in the forest in undisturbed possession of the Indian.
In 1796, Steuben County was created. Prior to 1789, Montgomery County embraced all Western New York west of the pre-emption line. When Steuben was first created, Barrington and Starkey and part of Jeru- salem were in Steuben, but now form part of the County of Yates. The western tier of towns was afterwards taken off the west side and attached to the County of Allegany, and part of a township and the village of Dans- ville detached and added to Livingston. Later, Dix and Tyrone and part of Wayne were taken off Steuben to help form the new County of Schuy- ler. The population of Steuben in 1796 was 1,788 ; in 1810, 7,246 ; and 1820, 21,989; 1830, 33,975 ; in 1840, 46,138 ; in 1845, 51,679.
I have been requested by the Committee to say something regarding a few of the prominent men connected with the early history of Bath and its vicinity within my own time and those I have personally known. My father emigrated from Jefferson County, N. Y., to Hammondsport, then the head of canal navigation on Lake Keuka, in 1835, attracted by the excitement incident to the founding of a village at the head waters of that lake, where I spent my early life and resided until 1861, when I removed to Bath, at or near the outbreak of the Rebellion ; and I shall speak of some of the men I knew who were prominent actors in the early life and history of Bath and its immediate vicinity.
If I were asked to name four men outside of the learned professions who were foremost in influence in Bath in early days, who, in my judg- ment, were most conspicuous and influential in its development and pro- gress, and who most impressed me, I should name John Magee, Constant Cook, William S. Hubbell and William W. McCay. In speaking of these men, I shall divide the group, and place in contrast Mr. Magee and Mr. Cook, who by their joint action played so important a role in the develop- ment of this region, especially in constructing the railways, which revolu- tionized the trade and commerce of the State and overthrew all precon- ceived ideas of men as to its future. John Magee was the elder of the two, born September 3, 1794, near Easton, Pa., the son of Irish parents, Henry and Sarah Magee, who emigrated about 1784. His father was a cousin of the prelate Archbishop William Magee, of Dublin, who died April 5, 1868, in his seventy-fourth year. Constant Cook was born three years later in Herkimer County, November 10, 1797, and was the son of
183
REMINISCENCES.
Philip and Clarissa (Hatch) Cook, a farmer in that county. His boyhood was spent on a farm until his marriage in 1819; he moved in 1820 to Co- hocton, N. Y. His early life was one of severe manual labor and he told me, as a boast, that he shod two pairs of horses all around upon his wed- ding day.
In 1812, John Magee, with his father and his brother Hugh, enlisted in the war, and served in a Michigan regiment, and he was one of the army surrendered by General Hull to General Brock in November of that year. Released in January, 1813, young Magee joined Major Chapin's command, and in June, 1813, was again taken prisoner at the Battle of Beaver Dams, near St Catherine. He escaped at the imminent risk of his life, by secur- ing a horse and running the guard under a shower of bullets. He distin- guished himself in the service. Attracted by the prospects of Bath, in 1816, he settled there with his brother Jefferson, at 22 years of age, and com- menced life at chopping cord-wood, and the severest kind of manual labor. He did not marry until January 6, 1820, when he was 26 years of age, a year after Mr. Cook had married his wife. In 1818, he was constable and collec- tor of Bath, and in 1819, was appointed deputy sheriff by Henry Shriver, sheriff, whom he succeeded as sheriff in February, 1821, on the death of that officer. So successful was his official course that he was elected by the people in 1822 and held the office the constitutional term. This office brought out the sterling qualities of Mr. Magee and brought him also into great prominence, and he early gave attention to the establishing of stage lines from Bath. It was in these enterprises that Jolin Magee and Con- stant Cook met as business associates, and in the development of which, and in the subsequent construction of a section of the Erie railway from Bing- hamton to Corning, of which Mr. Cook took the active management, as- sociating with them his cousin, Charles Cook, of Havana, John Arnot, of Elmira, J. S. T. Stranahan and John H. Chedell. Mr. Magee was elected to Congress in 1826 at the age of 32 years, and served in the 20th, and was re-elected and served in the 21st Congress.
Mr. Cook, in 1840, was made one of the Judges of the County Court, serving three years, and, although not a lawyer, took, and always there- after kept, the title of Judge Cook, in Steuben County. The success of the joint efforts of Cook and Magee in the Erie Railway construction was fol- lowed by like results on the Buffalo, Corning & New York, from Corning to Buffalo, and later the Blossburg Coal Company at Arnot, near Bloss- burg, Pa. The Steuben County Bank was organized in 1831, in which Mr. McCay and Mr. Magee were associated for many years.
Both Magee and Cook were typical and representative Americans. They had strong characters ; each was eminently the architect of his own fortune. Trained by hardship and privation in early life to habits of labor, thrift and strict economy, they each amassed enormous private for-
184
THE CENTENNIAL OF BATH.
tunes. Positive and aggressive men, they each made enemies, and each had great obstacles to overcome in the way of success.
They were firm and fast friends to those whom they liked, and the man who opposed either, or sought to thwart or overcome them recog- nized, before he finished, that his hands were full. Uneducated in the learning of the schools, they were profound students of human nature, of men and of affairs. It was a common saying, especially of Mr. Magee, that he was illiterate and could hardly write his name. It seems incredi- ble how such an idea should ever have obtained currency.
Mr. Magee was all his life immersed in accounts and financial trans- actions, frequently of enormous magnitude. While not an accountant, he thoroughly understood accounts, and from his earliest duties as constable and deputy sheriff to his bank presidency and railway construction, through a long life, no day ever passed in which he was not engaged in accounts, often intricate and difficult, save in his public life and in his relaxations. His acts of generosity were many.
I regard these two men as the truest, best types of successful, honor- able men the county of Steuben has ever produced, for I rank them both as Steuben county men. And it will be difficult to find in the State or Nation two lives more honorably or notably devoted to the development of a section of the State than those of John Magee and Constant Cook.
William W. McCay and William S. Hubbell were men in every way as remarkable, but men of a different type. William W. McCay was the son of John S. McCay, who emigrated from Ireland to Geneva in 1800, and who died in Pittsford in 1819. Mr. McCay was born April 9, 1790, being four years older than Mr. Magee, seven years older than Constant Cook, and nearly eleven years older than Mr. Hubbell. In business life they were, however, contemporaries. He died November 21, 1852, at the age of sixty-two years, being of shorter life than either of the four men. He was a clerk in the Land Office at Bath in 1828, and had been since 1817 or 1818, when Dugald Cameron, the agent of the Pulteney Estate, died.
Through the courtesy of Hon. A. J. McCall, I have the draft of a let- ter to Colonel Robert Troup, in the hand-writing of Hon. Edward Howell, recommending William McCay for that position in the land office at Bath. I give it to show, not only the estimation in which Mr. McCay was then held, but the vast importance to the early settlers of a proper selection of a man for that position :
BATH, June 8, 1828.
To Colonel Robert Troup, Chief Agent of the Pulteney Estate:
SIR-The death of Dugald Cameron, Esq., who was so long the instru- ment of dispensing your patronage and favor to the settlers on that part of the Pulteney Estate laying in this county, has produced among its
185
REMINISCENCES.
inhabitants feelings of the deepest regret and apprehension ; regret for the loss of a man so long honored by your confidence, and through whom so much of your liberality and kindness has been extended to them, and apprehension that a successor, equally qualified to advance the prosperity of the county and carry into effect those enlarged and liberal schemes for the prosperity of your Agency which have so eminently characterized your administration, could not be found. Having so deep an interest in the appointment to be made, we have been led to consider the character and qualifications of every person within our acquaintance, and encouraged by the candor and affability with which you have uniformly received all com- munications on subjects affecting the interests of your Agency, we beg leave to submit the result of our reflections upon the subject. It appeared evident to us, upon the first view, that the candidate must possess, in addition to that high standing and character for talents and integrity which we knew requisite to obtain so important a trust at your hands, an intimate acquaintance not only with the affairs of the Estate, but of the settlers, individually, to enable him to discharge the duties of the station with the greatest usefulness. And among all our acquaintances, there is no other person who so entirely unites in himself all the qualifications requisite to a correct discharge of the duties of sub-agent in this county as William W. McCay, Esq. We have most of us been personally acquainted with him as a clerk in your land office at this place for ten or eleven years past, and all of us have had business with your Agency during the last three or four years, have necessarily transacted a great part of it with him (owing to the many engagements of Mr. Cameron from the office, in the care of his private concerns, or in his inability to transact business by reason of the feeble state of his health), and the indefatigable industry, undeviating integrity and evident devotion to the affairs of the Agency have at all times excited our admiration and obtained our entire confi- dence.
" While we submit for your consideration the decided advantage which Mr. McCay possesses over every other candidate, who can be named, in the intimate acquaintance which he has acquired, as well of the interests of the Estate and the system of business pursued in the land office, as of the circumstances and character of almost every settler upon that Estate, we. cannot forbear to add that he has acquired that knowledge by ten or eleven years of devoted and laborious exertions to recommend him to you as in every respect qualified for the station, and can add, with the most perfect confidence, that his appointment would give to the settlers upon the Estate, and inhabitants of the county at large, entire satisfaction."
Mr. McCay was a contemporary of Mr. Magee, of Mr. Cook, and this flattering recommendation was signed by the former, and, I think, by the latter, and by the leading men of Bath, led by Edward Howell, of the Bar.
-
186
THE CENTENNIAL OF BATH.
He was appointed and held the position until his death, in connection with his duties in the Steuben County Bank. Mr. McCay was a highly cultured, polished gentleman of most agreeable presence and manners. His complexion was fair, his eyes blue, and his hair light. He was one of the most agreeable and handsome men in Bath. Socially, Mr. McCay was a universal favorite. If asked to describe him to those who never saw him, I should say he was a typical Irish country gentleman of the present day, in the higher circles of the Irish gentry.
He had a large family of sons and daughters. He dispensed a gen- erous hospitality, and entertained in a style far excelling any other gentle- man I knew in Bath. He paid great attention to dress and personal ap- pearance, and while in no sense a fop, was always well dressed, always a thorough high-toned, courteous gentleman. He usually wore a ruffle in his shirt and was usually in full dress at dinner at his own table, and main- tained the old English habit of keeping the gentlemen for nuts and wine after the ladies had left the table. As an agent of the Estate he was admi- rable. He well understood the policy of the Estate, was master of the subject of the causes of difficulties with the settlers, and helped in a most conspicuous and successful way to maintain with the community that respect for and confidence in the administration of the Pulteney Estate and its probity, honesty, fairness and liberality of dealing, which have ever characterized its management since my earliest recollection. In my judgment, no wiser selection could have been made of an agent, and I feel sure the owners must have entertained this opinion.
His favorite daughter, Fanny, married the son of N. H. Howell, the celebrated lawyer of Canandaigua, and I am indebted to her for glimpses of his private and domestic life, which showed him to be one of the most lovable of men.
William S. Hubbell was born January 17, 1801, and died November 16, 1873, at 72 years of age. He was one of the most magnetic and charming men I ever knew. I feel sure no man in Western New York was his equal in personal beauty, grace of manner, or ability to please, especially for those he liked or sought to win. Lord Chesterfield would have been glad to have accepted him as a model in grace, address and charming manners.
The leading trait of Mr. Hubbell's character and career may be said to be his unconquerable cheerfulness and amiability of temper. No obstacle daunted, no impediment overcame or thwarted him. Disaster and reverse only sharpened him for future contest and future victories. I doubt if a man in Bath ever saw him discomfited, or met him without his constant and perennial smile ; it was not assumed, it was a part of his nature. He, after the death of his wife, gave the wealth of his great affectionate heart to his daughters.
187
REMINISCENCES.
Mr. Hubbell was a Democrat, and represented his district in the 28th Congress. His eye was black and brilliant, and his hair as black as the raven's wing. He was a perfect foil in complexion to Mr. McCay, but for charm of manner and magnetic personality William S. Hubbell was my youthful beau ideal of a high-toned, polished gentleman and a thorough man of the world. I could give many examples of his kindness of heart and acts of generosity, especially to the young men, as I could of Mr. Magee and of Mr. Constant Cook ; but I group these four lustrous, lumin- ous names, not so much with the pioneer history of Bath, but as a view of that middle distance which we admire in the contemplation of a picture, between the far background and the present view.
Joseph Fellows was born at Redditch, in Worcestershire, England, July 2, 1782. His father emigrated, with his wife and seven children, in September, 1795, to Luzerne County, Pa., where the city of Scranton now stands. At fourteen he commenced the study of the law with Isaac L. Kip, was admitted to the bar, and shortly after entered the office of Col. Troup, then the general agent of the Pulteney Estate. In 1810, he came to Geneva as a sub-agent in the Pulteney Land Office, and the detail duties there were discharged by him until the death of Col. Troup in 1832, whom he succeeded as general agent, which position he held until his death.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.