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 9
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went, where they lived and what the captain was engaged in for the next ten years, we are now unable to ascertain, except that he obtained a pass- port to travel in Germany, in 1784, is said to have made a tour of Europe, and, as Charles Stewart testifies, came to Balgray, in the neighborhood of Locherbie, Scotland, in 1787, with his wife and one or two children, and remained there two or three years ; and that on September 17, 1790, he was elected Burgess of Loch Maben.
The observant captain had not wasted his time when first in the States, and the capitalists of Europe, whose attention was then being drawn from the crowded land ownership of the old world to the opportunities in the vast unsettled regions of the new, eagerly sought his opinion and drew upon his stock of information.
His intellectual and social qualities attracted the attention of William Pitt, then Prime Minister, and Patrick Colquhoun, Sheriff of Westminster ; their acquaintance ripened into an intimacy which continued until the death of both. So, when Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, sold on contract to an " Association," consisting of William Pulteney, William Hornby and Colquhoun, the tract of land in Western New York, consisting of over 2,000,000 acres, or 3,500 square miles, stretching from the Pennsylvania line to Lake Ontario, and from Seneca Lake to the Genesee River, they turned at once to Captain Williamson as the man to carry out the scheme of settling the country and disposing of their purchase in smaller parcels. Desirous of a further acquaintance with America, Will- iamson readily accepted the appointment of agent of the association.
He repaired to Scotland and arranged his own affairs ; he selected a party of brave, ambitious and intelligent Scotchmen to assist him in his new field ; among them were John Johnson and Charles Cameron, whose uncle, Mr. Stewart, had smoothed the family frowns that greeted William- son and his Yankee wife, and claimed his nephew's preferment as a reward.
Late in the fall of 1791, with his wife, children and assistants, he sailed for Norfolk, Va., which he reached in December ; thence he went by packet to Baltimore and on to Philadelphia, where he must have first made the acquaintance of Robert Morris. January 9, 1792, he appeared before the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, took the oath of allegiance, and was made a citizen of the United States.
Anxious to obtain some idea of the work before him, and of the lands of which he was about to take possession, he went, via Albany and the Mohawk Valley, into Western New York. He gives us this graphic des- cription of the condition of the route he traveled : "The road, as far as Whitestown, had been made passable for wagons, but from that to the Genesee was little better than an Indian path, sufficiently opened to allow a sledge to pass, and some impassable streams bridged. At Whitestown I
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was obliged to change my carriage, the Albany driver getting alarmed for himself and horses when he found that for the next one hundred miles we were not only obliged to take provisions for ourselves, but for our horses, and blankets for our beds. On leaving Whitestown we found only a few straggling huts, scattered along the path, from ten to twenty miles from each other, and they affording nothing but the conveniency of fire and a kind of shelter from the snow."
Hastily exploring the northern part of the territory, he selected a town site at the junction of the Canaseraga and Genesee rivers, to be called Williamsburg, probably in honor of both Pulteney and Hornby. It is a strange commentary that Williamsburg, the first creation of the English land speculators, which in the beginning seriously threatened to rival Bath, and which existed for over fifty years, can not now boast any other landmark than waving fields of grain, while our lovely village, with the vigor of youth, celebrates its hundredth birthday.
Returning to Philadelphia, on the 11th day of April, 1792, Williamson received in his own name, from Robert Morris and wife, for a stated con- sideration of £75,000 sterling, a deed of what was thereafter known as the Estate of the English Association. After long consultations with Morris, having concluded that the most feasible route to the lands was from the southward, he made Northumberland, Pa., then the largest settlement near the state line, the base of his operations and moved his family to this frontier town.
He says, "Sensible of the advantages this new country would reap from a communication with Pennsylvania, his first object was to trace out the possibility of opening a communication across the Allegany Mount- ains ; discouraged by every person he enquired of for information relative to the route, he determined to explore the country himself, and on the 3d of June, 1792, taking leave of the inhabitants on the west branch of the Susquehanna, entered the wilderness, taking a northerly course. After a laborious exertion of ten days he came to the Cowanesque creek * * pro- ceeding thence towards the north-north-west, after six days more travel- ing, the party pitched their tents in an Indian clearing, where Williams- burg stands," 170 miles from the Susquehanna. Resolved that a road was practicable and necessary, his vigor and push are demonstrated by the fact that in November he had thirty miles of it made, and the whole made pas- sable for wagons in August of the next year.
It is probable that it was upon that exploring tour that he selected the site of our handsome village. Until the first of the year he was busy in Northumberland, along the line of his new road, and in different parts of the Genesee tract. In January, 1793, he went to Philadelphia and to New York, where he staid until February 6, when a courier from the midst of
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the wilderness brought him news of a mutiny among the Germans in Janu- ary. He hurried back to Northumberland, and went on to the Lycoming to confer with one Berezy, who had charge of the 129 Germans. Colqu- houn, without consulting Williamson, had arranged with this same Berezy to collect a colony of steady German farmers to be settled in the Genesee country, whither they were to be carried free, and where they were to be supplied with twenty-five acre farms at reduced rates. When the greater number of them arrived in Philadelphia, instead of New York, where it was agreed to land them, they proved to be a motley crowd of loafers and malcontents which poverty, laziness and necessity had gathered together in that pestilential port of Hamburg. Robert Morris concluded that the only way out of the dilemma was to use them in cutting the road to their future settlement. They were lazy and mutinous on the way ; they were shiftless, ungrateful, gormandizing dead-beats while they remained at Williamsburg, and in a year or so all straggled over into Canada on the invitation of Governor Simcoe. They were the poorest investment the Pulteney Estate ever made.
In a letter of November 2, 1793, Williamson washes his hands of the whole business, and says he has expended £8,000 currency, or about $21,- 000, tor them since they landed. Many pages of his account book are filled with items of drafts drawn on him by "Berezee"; and the entries for moneys paid out between July 21, 1792, and March 26, 1793, for the Ger- mans who came through Northumberland, show an outlay of $13,241.60 ; while the second party, who landed in New York and went via the Mo- hawk, are charged in the same time with $10,570.60. The trial of the riot- ous ones at Canandaigua in September, 1793, cost more money, and other expenses and litigation followed.
April 15, 1793, Cameron reached Bath, and the Captain, who had fol- lowed two days later and gone on to Canandaigua and Williamsburg, returned a few days afterward to give his personal attention to the foun- dation of his forest city. Turner says he then suffered some of the hard- ships and privations of the wilderness, and quotes an unknown authority that, "He would lay in his hut with his feet to the fire, and when the cold chills of ague came on, call for some one to lie close to his back, to keep him warm." In July his wife and two children joined him at Bath and brought cheer to his home in the midst of stumps and rattlesnakes. Mrs. Williamson deserves praise in thus helping her husband in his enterprise. For undoubtedly he had her bring the family into the heart of the woods to show other families that they could do the same. But he must have had little time then for the pleasures of the family fireside. For in Sep- tember he was compelled to go to Canandaigua to attend the trial of some of his German rioters, and after that to the cattle fair and races at Will- iamsburg, for which he gave one fifty-pound purse, besides subscribing two
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pounds to another, and spending £15 in entertaining those in attendance. If he had any political aspirations that year, they must have suc- cumbed to the advice of Robert Morris, who writes him in April, 1793 : " My own opinion is that you and Tom (the writer's son) might be better employed than you would in going as members of the Assembly. He is too young, and you ought to be always at the receipt of customs in Ontario county for the sale of lands. * * I think you can't be judge and representa- tive." But the next year Tom represented Ontario county in the legislature, and Captain Williamson was appointed a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the same county. Whether he anticipated this, April 23, 1794, when he expended, at New York, the sum of $16 for a sword, I know not ; but it is also certain that on the same day he invested in one hundred quills, foolscap and Queen's folio, besides a dozen spelling books. His judicial labors were probably not onerous, and were chiefly confined to taking acknowledgements. In July he was at Whitestown, in attendance before the Commissioners who were endeavoring to conclude a treaty with the Indians.
Early in the same year (1794), the Captain had begun a settlement at Sodus, on the shore of Lake Ontario, and arranged for the erection of mills, a tavern, a storeliouse and a wharf. It seems that the British authorities in Canada had not lost the hope of renewing the Revolutionary struggle and invading New York ; consequently they had retained possession of many forts which the treaty of peace required them to surrender and looked with an evil eye on this settlement at Sodus ; and Governor Simcoe, then in control of the Canadian government, even threatened to send Williamson to England in irons.
By Simcoe's orders, Lieutenant Sheaffe, commanding at Fort Oswego, on the 16th day of August, 1794, visited Sodus, left a protest against the prosecution of the settlement, and appointed a meeting with the Captain ten days later. The Captain was not afraid of all this blow and bluster, and kept the engagement. But with a brace of loaded pistols on his table he received, in the log cabin, the representative of Simcoe, who landed with great military display ; and the following lively dialogue, which is worthy of the loyal captain, took place :
Sheaffe-"I am commissioned by Governor Simcoe to deliver the papers (the protest), and require an answer."
Williamson-"I am a citizen of the United States, and under their authority and protection I possess these lands. I know no right that his Britannic Majesty, or Governor Simcoe, has to interfere or molest me. The only allegiance I owe to any power on earth is to the United States ; and so far from being intimidated by threats from people I have no connection with, I shall proceed with my improvements ; and nothing but superior
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force shall make me abandon the place. Is the protest of Governor Sim- coe intended to apply to Sodus exclusively ?"
Sheaffe-"By no means. It is intended to embrace all the Indian lands purchased since the peace of 1783."
Williamson-" And what are Governor Simcoe's intentions, supposing that the protest is disregarded ?"
Sheaffe-" I am merely the official bearer of the papers ; but I have a further message to deliver from Governor Simcoe ; which is, that he repro- bates your conduct exceedingly for endeavoring to obtain flour from Upper Canada, and should he permit it, it would be acknowledging the right of the United States to these Indian lands."
This was a bold answer from one who had not consulted the war office ; but the Captain at once notified the government at Washington, prepared for war, and sent a letter detailing all the insolence of Simcoe to William Pulteney to be shown to Prime Minister Pitt. But Mad Anthony Wayne taught the Indians and their British friends a lesson, and prevented our seeing how bravely the Captain could take up arms against his native land.
In 1795, Captain Williamson entertained at Bath the Duke de la Roche- foucault de Liancourt, who t :us describes his manners, his wife and his life in the backwoods : " And here it is but doing him common justice to say, that in him are united all the civility, good nature and cheerfulness which a liberal education, united to a proper knowledge of the world, can impart. * * We spent four days at his house, from an early hour until late at night, without ever feeling ourselves otherwise than at home. Per- haps it is the fairest eulogium we can pass on his free and easy urbanity to say that all the time of our stay he seemed as much at his ease as if we had not been present. He transacted all his business in our presence, and was actively employed all day long. We were present at his receiving per- sons of different ranks and descriptions with whom the apartment he allots to visitors is generally crowded. He received them all with the same civility, attention, cheerfulness and good nature. They came to him pre- possessed with a certain confidence in him, and they never leave him dis- satisfied. He is at all times ready to converse with any who have business to transact with him. He will break off a conversation with his friends, or even get up from dinner, for the sake of dispatching those who wish to speak to him. From this constant readiness of receiving all who have busi- ness with him, should any conclude that he is influenced by a thirst for gain, this surmise should be contradicted by the unanimous testimony of all who have had dealings with him, those not excepted who have bought land of him, which many have sold again with some considerable advan- tage to themselves. But were it even undeniable, that money is his lead- ing or sole object, it is desirable that all who are swayed by the same passion would gratify it in the same just, honorable and useful manner.
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His way of living is simple, neat and good. Every day we had a joint of fresh meat, vegetables and wine. We met with no circumstances of pomp or luxury but found ease, good humor and plenty. * * * She (his wife) is yet but a young woman, of fair complexion, civil, though of few words, and mother of two lovely children, one of whom, a girl, three years old, is the finest and handsomest I ever saw."
In the fall of 1796, after the erection of this county, he was elected a member of the Assembly from Ontario and Steuben, and held the same office for four successive terms. On March 23, 1797, John Jay, Governor of the State of New York, commissioned him a " Lieutenant Colonel, com- manding a regiment of militia in the county of Steuben."
And it seems that in the midst of his judicial, legislative and military duties, which sometimes interfered with the extensively advertised fairs and races, he was called upon to entertain in a most regal manner the fas- tidious speculators in land and horse-flesh ; but in the midst of all that, he turned his versatile talents into the realm of architecture ; and Maude, who visited him in 1800, says : "Here (that is, on his Springfield farm) Capt. W. has built an excellent mansion, much superior to the one in Bath vil- lage, and which he proposes as his future residence. The plan is original, Capt. W. being his own architect. I have seen no plans for country dwel- ling houses that I would more readily adopt than Captain Williamson's ; this is a single house. with two stories and wings. The Americans have a great antipathy to wings ; they invariably hold to the solid column, the cellar kitchen and the dormer windows." In this house, with its high ceilings and heavy mouldings, Colonel Williamson dispensed his generous hospitality on a liberal scale. For years it was famous for the brilliant assemblies which gathered the beauty, wit and fashion of the Genesee and Susquehanna valleys. But he did not devote himself entirely to races and social gatherings, which were only some of the many means he employed to make this district attractive to settlers who boasted family and fortune. He found time in 1798 to write a very readable little pam- phlet of thirty-seven pages, being a "Description of the Genesee Country; its Rapidly Progressive Population and Improvements." He was a be- liever in the merit of printer's ink, and this offshoot of his pen is well done.
More than that, he improved the navigation of the Conhocton and Canisteo, built bridges, hotels, jails, court houses, school houses, mills and theatres, placed boats on Lake Ontario, and built or contributed to the building of the State road from Fort Schuyler to Geneva, the "Niagara Road," the one from Lyons to Palmyra, the one from Hopeton to Towns- ends, the one from Seneca Falls to Lyon's Mills, and the one from Cushong to Hopeton ; and he was a heavy stockholder in the great bridge across the outlet of Cayuga Lake. All these required money ; his principals
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declined to advance any more, and decided to take advantage of an act authorizing aliens for three years to take title to lands, and placed a new agent in charge. Accordingly, there was an accounting and appraisal ; Williamson assigned to his principals $551,699.78 worth of bonds, mort- gages and notes, and on March 31, 1801, conveyed to them the unsold lands which were valued at $3,547,494.58 ; besides the original purchase, he conveyed over 5,000 acres of land just west of the Genesee, the Cottinger tract in the Morris Reserve, six hundred acres in the Military tract, besides thousands of acres in Otsego, Herkimer, Chenango, Clinton, Albany and Montgomery counties. Under his administration he had expended in pur- chasing lands, making improvements and other expenses, $1,374,470.10 ; he had received for lands sold, $147,974.83 ; besides this there was an indebtedness outstanding of about $300,000, the most of which was the unpaid purchase price of land outside of the original purchase. It showed, I believe, a better condition of affairs than either party anticipated. For the Pulteney Estate spent but little after that, and has ever since kept up the sale of lands at continually advancing prices.
The Colonel's integrity was unquestioned, and the English syndicate should thank him for his devotion to his trust and for many shrewd finan- cial moves. A large part of his payments he made in drafts ; and when his principals were slow in remitting funds he raised money by drawing on Morris, or some other friend at a distance, and hazarding the loss of three or four per cent. interest and twenty per cent. damages for non-ac- ceptance, in the hope of getting money by the time the draft should be presented to meet it.
Colonel Williamson must have experienced great disappointment in relinquishing the trust at a time when he believed he was about to bring it to a successful issue ; and it is not strange. We are ignorant of the exact state of the feelings he bore toward his principals and they toward him, except such as is thrown on the canvas by letters of Troup on the subject of settlement, and the following from Sir William Pulteney to Dr. Roneayre, under date of Weymouth, October 10, 1804 :
"I am much obliged to you for sending me that part of Mr. Troup's letter which relates to Mr. Williamson. *
* He supposes that I have instigated some persons to resentment against him, which I can assure you is not the fact. I disapproved of the large sums Mr. Williamson had drawn for, but I never entertained any doubts of his integrity, ability or good intentions, and I shall certainly be very glad to see him when he comes over. Some persons in America, he says, had impressed him in a belief that he had everything to apprehend from me, if he came to Eng- land, than which nothing could be more untrue, and I can in no way account for it. I feel myself much obliged to Mr. Troup for the letter he took the trouble to write me on my affairs, and the interest he takes in Mr. Williamson is very satisfactory to me."
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After his settlement with his principals, Williamson found himself in possession of several farms, village property in Geneva and Bath, wild lands, bonds, mortgages, and much personal property. He owned the whole of Bluff Point, and once contemplated erecting a magnificent castle on its towering heights. There is a legend among the "oldest residents" that he was wont to ride on horseback along the west shore of Keuka Lake to about Gibson, and then swim his steed bearing him on his back across the lake to his commanding domain.
He maintained his headquarters on the Springfield farm, upon which he had put Major Thornton and his charming wife. Williamson's wife was in Albany much of this time. He busied himself with his personal affairs, and for pleasure or business was a frequent visitor at New York and the large cities of the country ; once he made the journey from New York to Bath within one week. It would seem from some letters written about the time of his retirement from the agency, that his domestic rela- tions were somewhat strained, probably owing to the difference of tem- perament and breeding of himself and his wife. He was fond of enter- taining and attending all social gatherings. He joined the Masons; and his personal account book shows that on November 16, 1802, prior to a visit to England, he gave a supper to the society of Masons, at Metcalf's Inn, at an expense of $45.24. That was the same year that all his taxes in the town of Bath were only $8.14, and that he gave $500 to Canandaigua Academy.
About January 10, 1803, he sailed for Falmouth, England, and spent the summer on the British Isles. By December of that year he returned to this country, where he remained until at least the close of 1806; for Charles Williamson Dunn, the first white child born in this town, has re- lated that he saw the Colonel at Major Thornton's funeral in December, 1806. About that time he again crossed the Atlantic, and left the Genesee Coun- try for the last time. It must be that it was at this period of his life that he was sent by the English Government to Egypt to investigate the con- dition of affairs in that illy-governed monarchy, over which Great Britain finally established her protectorate. His report was so carefully and justly drawn that he was publicly thanked in the House of Commons ; and not- withstanding it ran counter to his interests, its truthfulness was acknowl- edged by the Pasha of Egypt, who presented him with a jeweled sword. In 1808, he was sent on some governmental mission to Cuba ; and on the return voyage from Havana he died of yellow fever, in the 51st year (1808) of his age. And so he died, as he had lived, in the midst of danger, hard- ship and toil.
George McClure, who had known him intimately in the early days of Bath, passed this well rounded eulogium upon his character : "He was a
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perfect gentleman, high-souled, honorable man, generous, humane, oblig- ing and courteous to all, whether rich or poor."
And Turner, who made a thorough study of the early history of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, adds : "Well educated, possessing more than ordinary social qualities, with a mind improved by travel and associ- ation with the best classes of Europe, his society was sought after by the many educated and intelligent men who came to this region in the earliest settlement ; and he knew well how to adapt himself to circumstances, and to all classes that went to make up the aggregate of the early adventurers ; changing his habits of life with great ease and facility, he was at home in every primitive cabin, a welcome, cheerful and contented guest, with words of encouragement for those who were sinking under the hardships of pioneer life ; and often ready with substantial aid to relieve their neces- sities ; when found prostrated with disease he would furnish some bracing tonic or restoring cordial."
In 1830, the Penn Yan Democrat said of him : "Col. Williamson was a gentleman of great worth and enterprise ; and his memory will be cher- ished by the early settlers of this country with every demonstration of respect to which the character of a great and good man is entitled. Under his agency the settlers experience the benefits of a liberal and enlightened policy. He was not restrained by those narrow views which covetousness creates in sordid and avaricious men. The rapid settlement and development of the country under his direction was beheld with won- der and admiration. Mills were erected, roads constructed, and every avenue to market opened of which the nature of the country admitted. These, with many other improvements, are both an evidence of his zeal for the prosperity of the settlers, of his unwearied exertions to increase the value of the property confided to his care, and form a striking feature in the history of his administration. No wilderness ever disappeared and became the abode of a numerous population in so short a period as did this, under his agency. Oppressing the settlers by exacting the perform- ance of hard and ill-judged contracts, or driving them to despair by inces- sant demands of compound interest formed no part of his system. The remuneration of the proprietors from the future ability of the settlers to pay was the leading feature of his policy."
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