H [STORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



51 



The scene connected with the Pickering treaty of 1794 

 is thus described : 



"As soon as it was known by the Indians that Col. Pickering, the 

 agent, would come prepared to give them a great feast, and distribute 

 among them a large amount of money and clothing, the attendance 

 was very general. For weeks before the treaty they were arriving in 

 squads from all of their villages, and constructing their camps in the 

 woods, upon the lake-shore, and around the court-house square. The 

 little village of the whites was invested, overrun with the wild natives. 

 It seemed as if they had deserted all their villages, and transferred 

 even their old men, women, and children to the feast, the carousal, 

 and the place of gifts. The night scenes were wild and picturesque, 

 their camp-fires lighting up the forest, and their whoops and yells 

 creating a sensation of novelty, not unmixed with fear, with the far 

 inferior numbers who composed the citizens of the pioneer village, and 

 the sojourners of their own race. At first all was peace and quiet, 

 and the treaty was in progress; beeves had been slaughtered, sufficient 

 to supply them all with meat, and liquor had been carefully excluded ; 

 but an avaricious liquor dealer secretly dealt out to them the means 

 of intoxication, and the council was interrupted, and many of the In- 

 dians became troublesome and riotous. Gen. Chapin, however, sup- 

 pressed the liquor-shop, harmony was restored, the treaty concluded, 

 and the gifts dispensed. A general carousal followed, but no outrages 

 were committed. The Indians lingered for weeks after the council, 

 displaying their new broadcloths, blankets, and silver bands and 

 brooches.'* 



Judge Porter was then in Canandaigua, acting as the 

 agent for Phelps and Gorhara. In the name of his prin- 

 cipals he had to make the Indians presents of provisions 

 and w^hisky, when they came to Canandaigua, and that 

 was pretty often. On the occasion above referred to, he 

 denied an Indian whisky, telling him it was all gone. '' No, 

 no," replied the Indian ; " Genesee Falls never dry." This 

 w\as a shrewd allusion to the gift to Phelps and Gorham of 

 the enormous " Mill Lot," which embraced the Genesee 

 Falls.* 



The town-meetings held at Canandaigua were the first 

 occasions of bringing the pioneers together, who were spread 

 over most of the eastern portion of the Phelps and Gorham 

 Purchase. 



During this period two towns were formed in what is 

 now Steuben County, and were represented in the Board of 

 Supervisors at Canandaigua. The old town of Painted Post 

 was formed as a town of Ontario County in 1793, — three 

 years before the erection of Steuben, — and Eli Mead, the 

 first settler at the mouth of Mead's Creek, was its super- 

 visor. The town which he represented extended from 

 Tioga (now Chemung) County to the west line of the 

 present town of Rathbone, including the settlements at the 

 head of the Chemung, Painted Post, Tioga Valley, and in 

 the lower valley of the Conhocton and Canisteo. 



The other town was Williamsburgh, and lay west of 

 Painted Post, as then formed, embracing a large extent of 

 country. This was also erected in 1793, and was repre- 

 sented in the board at Canandaigua by Jedediah Stephens, 

 in 1793 and 1794. 



There were then no roads to the county-seat, and Mr. 

 Mead and Mr. Stephens went on Indian trails, a distance of 

 seventy miles through the wilderness, carrying their pro- 

 visions in knapsacks on their backs and sleeping in the 

 shades of the forest when night overtook them. 



Courts were not organized in Ontario County till 1793. 



* Turner's Phelps and Gorham Purchase, p. 167. 



The first Court of Oyer and Terminer was held at ^' Patter- 

 son's tavern in Geneva" in June of that year. The pre- 

 siding judge was John Stop Hobart, one of the three 

 Supreme Court judges appointed after the organization of 

 the judiciary in 1777. A grand jury was called and 

 charged, but no indictments preferred. The first Court of 

 Common Pleas and General Sessions was held at the house 

 of Nathaniel Sanborn, in Canandaigua, in November, 1794. 

 The presiding judges were Timothy Hosmer and Charles 

 Williamson, associated with whom as assistant justice was 

 Enos Boughton. Attorneys, Thomas Morris, John Wick- 

 ham, James Wadsworth, and Vincent Matthews. A num- 

 ber of suits upon the calendar, but no trial. One indict- 

 ment found by the grand jury. 



At the next session, in June, 1795, occurred the first 

 jury trial ever had west of Herkimer County. The party 

 was indicted at the previous session for stealing a cow-bell. 

 The records of 1799 show that the " chiefs of the Seneca 

 nation acknowledged the receipt of eight thousand dollars 

 from Gen. Chapin, as a dividend upon the sum of one 

 hundred thousand dollars, which, the United States Gov- 

 ernment had received of Robert Morris as purchase-money 

 of the Holland Purchase and Morris Reserve, and invested 

 in the stock of the United States Bank. 



The first sheriff of Ontario County was Phineas P. Bates, 

 who was succeeded by James K. Guernsey in 1806. 



Ontario County, by a special act of the Legislature, was 

 made eligible to a representative in the General Assembly 

 in 1791, although not entitled to it by population. Col. 

 Eleazer Lindley, under whose auspices settlement had 

 begun on the Tioga, in Steuben County, received the 

 election, and was the first member of Assembly from all 

 the Genesee country. Gen. Israel Chapin was the repre- 

 sentative in 1792-93. 



Thomas Morris, son of Robert Morris, was the first 

 representative in Congress from all the region west of 

 Seneca Lake. 



Mr. Morris, in his manuscripts, which were published 

 in 1844, says : '' The excursion which has been spoken of 

 was undertaken by me, partly from a desire to witness an 

 Indian treaty and see the Falls of Niagara, and partly with 

 a desire to see a country in which my father at that time 

 had such an extensive interest, and with the determination 

 to settle in it if I liked it. I was pleased with it, and 

 made up my mind to settle at Canandaigua as soon as I 

 should have attained the age of twenty-one and my admis- 

 sion to the bar. 



" Accordingly, in the early part of March, 1792, I left 

 New York for Canandaigua. I was induced to fix upon 

 that place for my residence from the character and respect- 

 ability of the families already there. In the course of that 

 year I commenced building a framed house, filled with 

 brick, and which was finished in the early part of the year 

 1793. That house still subsists, and even in that hand- 

 some town, where there are so many beautiful buildings, 

 it is not considered an eyesore. When it was completed, 

 that and the house built by Oliver Phelps were the only 

 framed houses west of Whitesboro'." 



The first leather manufactured in Ontario County was 

 by John Clark, a tanner and currier, who came to Canan- 



