HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



47 



cured for building the Cayuga bridge, Col. Burr and Gen. 

 Swartout subscribed for the whole of the stock. At that 

 time Col. Burr had other business connections in this 

 region. "Thus commenced the intercourse of Aaron 

 Burr with the people of Western New York, many of 

 whom, with Col. Tyler, were drawn into the " great South- 

 west expedition." Col. Tyler and Israel Smith were com- 

 missaries of the expedition. They went upon the Ohio 

 River and purchased supplies, and shipped them to Natchez. 

 Col. Tyler was arrested and indicted, but was never tried. 

 With fortune impaired by all this, in a few years after Col. 

 Tyler removed to Montezuma, and became identified in all 

 the early enterprises and improvements at that point. He 

 built the first canal-barge, which appeared with flying colors 

 at Syracuse on the opening of that portion of the Erie 

 Canal in 1820. In the war of 1812 he acted as assistant 

 commissary-general to the Northern army. He died at 

 Montezuma in 1827. 



In the progress of settlements westward, there followed 

 Danforth and Tyler, John L. Hardenburgh, whose location 

 was called in early years " Hardenburgh's Corners," now 

 the city of Auburn. In 1789, James Bennett and John 

 Harris settled on either side of Cayuga Lake, and estab- 

 lished a ferry. This was about the extent of settlements 

 west of the lower valley of the Mohawk, when settlements 

 in the Genesee country began to be founded. The late 

 venerable Joshua Fairbanks, of Lewiston, who, with his 

 then young wife, came through from Albany to Geneva in 

 the winter of 1789-90, was sheltered "the first night in 

 the unfinished log house" of Joseph Blackmer, who had 

 becom.e a neighbor of Judge Dean ; the " next night" at 

 Col. Danforth's, there being no intermediate settler. They 

 camped out the third night ; the fourth stayed with John 

 Harris on Cayuga Lake. 



The parents of Gen. Parkhurst Whitney, of Niagara 

 Falls, came through to Seneca Lake in February, 1790, 

 camping out three nights west of Rome. It is mentioned,* 

 in connection with the account of the early advent of Maj. 

 Danforth, in May, 1788, that his wife saw no white woman 

 durinir the first emht months. These incidents are recited 

 to remind the younger class of readers that the pioneers of 

 this region not only came to a wilderness, but had a long 

 and dreary one to pass through before arriving at their 

 destination. They literally passed through the " wilderness" 

 to inherit their " promised land." 



In 1788 all the region west of Utica was the town of 

 W^hitestown, and included in its jurisdiction all the settlers 

 in the Genesee country. The first town-meeting was " held 

 in the barn of Capt. Daniel White, in said town, in April, 

 1789. Jedediah Sanger was elected supervisor. At the 

 third town-meeting, in 1791, Trueworthy Cook, of Pompey, 

 Jeremiah Gould, of Salina, Onondaga Co., and James 

 Wadsworth, of Geneseo, were chosen pathmasters. Ac- 

 cordin.irly, it may be noted that Mr. Wadsworth was the 

 first pathmaster west of Cayuga Lake. It could have been 

 little more than the supervision of Indian trails ; but the 

 "warning" must have been an ominous task. Mr. Wads- 

 worth had the year previous done something at road-making, 



* Clark's Onondaga. 



which probably suggested the idea that he would make a 

 good pathmaster. In Clark's " Onondaga" it is said, 

 " The first road attempted to be made in this country was 

 in 1790, under the direction of the Wadsworths, from the 

 settlement at Whitestown to Canandaigua, through a coun- 

 try then but very little explored, and quite a wilderness." 



At the first general election for Whitestown the polls 

 were opened at Cayuga Ferry, adjourned to Morehouse's, 

 at Onondaga, and closed at Whitestown. 



At this period the settlements in Western New York 

 had just begun. At Geneva (then called Kanadesaga) 

 there was a cluster of buildings occupied by Indian traders 

 and a few settlers who had come in under the auspices of 

 the Lessee Company ; Jemima Wilkinson, with her small 

 colony, was upon her first location on the west bank of 

 Seneca Lake upon the Indian trail through the valley of 

 the Susquehanna, and across Western New York to Upper 

 Canada,— the primitive highway of all this region ; one or 

 two white families had settled at Catharine's Town, at the 

 head of Seneca Lake. A wild region of wilderness sepa- 

 rated the most northern and western settlements of Pennsyl- 

 vania from those of the lakes and the Genesee Valley. All 

 that portion of Ohio bordering upon the lake had of our 

 race but the small trading establishment at Sandusky and 

 the military trading post upon the Maumee. Michigan 

 was a wilderness, save the French village and British garri- 

 son at Detroit, and a few French settlers on the Detroit 

 River and the river Raisin. In fact all that is now included 

 in the geographical designation — the Great West — was In- 

 dian territory, and had but Indian occupancy, with a few 

 exceptions similar to those made in reference to Michigan. 

 In what is now the western portion of the Dominion of 

 Canada, there had been the British occupancy of a post, oppo- 

 site Buffiilo, early known as Fort Erie, and a trading station 

 at Niagara, since the conquest of the French in 1759. Set- 

 tlement in its proper sense had its commencement in Canada 

 West during the Revolution. It was the off'spring of one 

 of its emergencies. Those in the colonies who adhered to 

 the kino* fled there as refugees. The termination of the 

 struij<>le in favor of the colonies and the encouragement af- 

 forded by the colonial authorities gave an impetus to this 

 emigration ; and yet at the period of the commencement of 

 settlement in Western New York settlement was confined 

 to Kingston and its neighborhood, Niagara, Queenston, 

 Chippewa, along the banks of the Niagara River, with a 

 few small settlements in the immediate interior. Upon Lakes 

 Erie and Ontario there were a few British armed ves- 

 sels, and three or four schooners were employed in a com- 

 merce which was confined wholly to the fur trade and the 

 supply of British garrisons. By the conquest of the 

 French, Great Britain had prepared a place in her Canadian 

 colonies for those who chose to be loyal to her during the 

 Revolutionary struggle, and would avail themselves of such 

 an asylum, but they were an element too insignificant to 

 colonize a country with, and were even despised and 

 shunned by the better class of European emigrants. 



Within the Genesee country, other than the small settle- 

 ment at Geneva, the Friends' settlement, which has been 

 before mentioned, there were two or three Indian traders on 

 the Genesee River, a few white, families, who were squatters 



