CHAPTER IV 



In Pennnsylvania and Elsewhere — A Tale of Re- 

 liable Observations by John Lyman, a Pioneer 



IN the annals of Potter county we find that settle- 

 ment was made first m the vicinity of Coudersport, 

 and at Roulette and at Burtville, in 1804. In the spring 

 of 1805, late in May, a hard freeze killed all the crops 

 and the forlorn pioneers had no seeds to replant them 

 in their gardens and meagre fields. Floods in all the 

 streams made it impossible to cart seeds from Jersey 

 Shore, on the Susquehanna. John Lyman, a youth 

 of 18 or 19 years age, offered to go by boat, down 

 the Allegheny to Olean, or Hamilton as it was first 

 named, where Adam Hoops had started a settlement 

 in 1803, to get some seeds for their urgent need. 



With a companion he started, at once, with food 

 for the trip and money to buy seeds. Seven miles be- 

 low Coudersport, at the mouth of Trout brook, they 

 landed and found an Indian family, planting corn in 

 a narrow field on the river bank, which, with the In- 

 dian cemetery, half a mile below, upon a high gravelly 

 bank, and a few deserted lodges, was all that then re- 

 mained of the Seneca's outpost and hunters' town of 

 Allegheweo. 



At a later date Mr. Lyman bought and cleared a 

 farm there, where he spent the remainder of his life. 

 In 1866 he told this story, and many others, to the 

 writer, in great detail, as we saw thirty Senecas from 



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