HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



53 



judge, presiding, in the absence of Charles Williamson, 

 first judge. The other assistant judges present were Abra- 

 ham Bradley and Eleazer Lindley, Esq., of what was then 

 the town of Painted Post. 



The court was opened with the usual proclamation, when 

 the commissions of judges, justices, sheriff, coroner, and sur- 

 rogate were read. George Hornell, Uriah Stephens, and Abel 

 White appeared respectively from Hornellsville, Canisteo, 

 and Addison, and were qualified as justices of the peace. 



The following attorneys and counselors were present: 

 Nathaniel W. Howell, Vincent Matthews, William Stew- 

 art, William B. Yerplanck, David Jones, Peter Masterton, 

 Thomas Morris, Stephen Ross, and David Powers. Wil- 

 liam Stewart appeared as district attorney, or, as the office 

 was then called, assistant attorney-general, for the counties 

 of Onondaga, Ontario, Tioga, and Steuben. 



The first court of General Sessions was held in the same 

 year. Besides the judges mentioned in the record of the 

 Common Pleas, there were the following justices of the 

 peace present : John Knox, William Lee, Frederick Bar- 

 ties, George Hornell, Eli Mead, Abel White, and Uriah 

 Stephens, Jr. 



The first grand jury was composed of the following citi- 

 zens : John Sheathar, foreman ; Charles Cameron, George 

 McClure, John Cooper, Samuel Miller, Isaac Mullender, 

 John Stearns, Justus Wolcott, John Coudry, John Van 

 Devanter, Alexander Fullerton, Amariah Hammond, John 

 Seeley, Samuel Shannon. This jury presented two indict- 

 ments for assault and battery, and were thereupon dis- 

 charged. 



FIRST COURT-HOUSE AND JAIL. 



Upon the organization of the county in 1796, the county 

 buildings were located at Bath. A wooden court-house, 

 one and a half stories high, with two wings, was erected 

 the same year. This served the purpose of the county till 

 1828, when a brick court-house was erected on the site of 

 the present building. This was destroyed by fire in October, 

 1859, and the present court-house was erected on substan- 

 tially the same foundation and according to the same general 

 plan, in the summer of 1860. 



About the time of the erection of the first court-house, a 

 jail was built of hewed logs. It stood in the rear of the 

 subsequent stone jail, which was located on the northwest 

 corner of the Pulteney square, and was torn down in 1846. 

 The present stone jail was erected in 1845. 



By an act of the Legislature, passed July 19, 1853, the 

 county was divided into two jury districts, the northern 

 and southern, and the county buildings for the latter were 

 located at Corning. The court-house at Corning is a fine 

 brick edifice. It was erected in 1853-54, at a cost of four- 

 teen thousand dollars. The county clerk's office, erected in 

 1872-73, a neat and well-built brick structure, contain- 

 ing the Bath library in the second story, is permanently 

 fixed at Bath, but the courts are held alternately in Bath 

 and Corning. 



COUNTY POOR-HOUSE AND FARM. 



This institution for the care of the poor of the county 

 is located two miles north of the village of Bath, on the 

 road to Hammondsport. 



The farm consists of two hundred acres, purchased by 

 the county of Moses Lyon for three thousand two hundred 

 dollars. The main building is of stone and brick, forty by 

 eighty feet, and was erected in 1834. The first inmates 

 were admitted November 19 of that year. In 1838 occurred 

 the first fire, in an out-building, the upper story of which 

 was used as a dormitory, when Elias Williams, an inmate, 

 was burned to death. In 1859 another fire broke out in 

 the night, in a separate building, consuming seven helpless 

 victims. The fire was too far advanced to be controlled, or 

 to admit of the rescue of the unfortunate inmates, before 

 the alarm was given. In 1859 a brick building was 

 erected, thirty by forty-four feet in dimensions, for the 

 chronic insane, which was burned in April, 1878, with the 

 loss of sixteen lives. Most of the victims were deaf and 

 idiotic, and unable to escape, the fire occurring in the 

 night. 



The first keeper appointed was Isaac Reeves, in 1834. 

 Since then have been the following : D. B. Lee, Otis Hunt, 

 N. B. Falwell, J. V. D. Terry, John L. Scofield (first term), 

 Eli Carrington (first term), John L. Scofiel(\ (second term), 

 Michael McClane, Eli Carrington (second term), since 

 April, 1872. 



The superintendents (three in number) are elected each 

 year by the county, and each town elects annually one over- 

 seer of the poor. The law makes it discretionary with the 

 Board of Supervisors whether to charge the expenses of 

 maintaining the poor belonging to the several towns to the 

 towns themselves or to the county at large. The latter has 

 been the method adopted in this county till within about 

 ten years past, since which it has been the custom to charge 

 the poor having a settlement or location in the different 

 towns to those towns separately. 



The number of inmates in the institution Dec. 15, 1878, 

 was one hundred and thirteen, of whom seventy-six were 

 males and thirty-seven females. The opening of the Sol- 

 diers' Home, on Christmas, 1878, reduced this number a 

 trifle by the admission to that institution of a few poor 

 soldiers, who had sought an asylum from the inclemency of 

 the winter in the County Poor-House. It is quite a re- 

 markable fact, and we have thought it worth mentioning in 

 this history, that the fifth person admitted to this poor- 

 house, John Edwards, of Hornellsville, is still an inmate. 

 He was admitted on the 2d of December, 1834, over forty- 

 four years ago, and never has been known during that 

 time to be off the premises. His disease is a mild ease of 

 insanity. He was taken into the institution at the age of 

 thirty-two ; now he is an old, white-haired man, seventy-six 

 years of age. 



The commodious and substantial farm-barn on the prem- 

 ises was built in 1868. A new brick building for male 

 paupers, and a dwelling-house for the keeper, were erected 

 in the summer of 1878. 



The farm is under the management of Mr. Carrington, 

 and the labor is furnished by the inmates of the institution, 

 with the assistance of one hired man. The products are 

 consumed on the premises. The estimated cash value of 

 the farm products, in 1878, was $1500 ; estimated value of 

 the real property, $13,278 ; personal property, $5,224.70. 

 Total, $18,502.70. 



