166 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



Canisteo. My success in trade that year gave me another 

 fair start. My brother, in the mean time, went to Phila- 

 delphia to lay in a fresh supply of goods for both stores ; 

 but on his way home he died very suddenly at Tioga Point 

 He had laid in about $30,000 worth of goods. I returned 

 to Bath with my family ; continued my store at Dansville ; 

 opened one at Penn Yan, and sent a small assortment to 

 Pittstown, Ontario Co.* 



^' My next project was to build a schooner on Crooked 

 Lake, of about 30 tons burden, for the purpose of carrying 

 wheat from Penn Yan to the head of the lake 



" Indians were very numerous at that time. Their hunt- 

 ing camps were within short distances of each other all over 

 the county. The Indian trade was then an object. I hired 

 a chief by the name of Kettle-Hoop, from Buffalo, to teach 

 me the Seneca language. He spoke good English, All 

 words that related to the Indian trade or traffic I wrote 

 down in one column, and opposite gave the interpretation 

 in Seneca ; and so I enlarged my dictionary from day to day 

 for three or four weeks, until I got a pretty good knowledge 

 of the language. I then set out on a trading expedition 

 amongst the Indian encampments, and took my teacher 

 along, who introduced me to his brethren as seos cagena^ 

 that is, very good man. They laughed very heartily at my 

 pronunciation. I told them I had a great many goods at 

 Tanighanaguanda ; that is, Bath. I told them to come 

 and see me, and bring all their furs, and peltry, and gammon 

 (the hams of deer), and I would buy them all, and pay them 

 in goods very cheap. They asked me, Tegoye ezeefligat/i 

 and Negaiigh ? that is, ' Have you rum and wine, or fire- 

 water?' That fall, in the hunting season, I took in an 

 immense quantity of furs, peltry, and deer- hams. Their 

 price for gammon, large or small, was two shillings. I 

 salted and smoked that winter 3000 hams, and sold them 

 next spring in Baltimore and Philadelphia for two shillings 

 a pound. 



"At this time there was an old bachelor Irishman in 

 Bath, who kept a little store or groggery, by the name of 

 Jimmy McDonald^ who boarded himself and lived in his 

 pen in about as good style as a certain nameless four-legged 

 animal. He became very jealous of me after I had secured 

 the whole of the Indian trade. The Indians used to com- 

 plain of Jimmy, and say that he was to% cos; that is, not 

 good^ — too mack cheat, Jimmy. When I had command 

 of the army at Fort Greorge, in Upper Canada, about six 

 hundred of these Indians were attached to my command. 



" The next spring I started down the rivers Conhocton 

 and Canisteo with a large fleet of arks loaded with flour, 

 wheat, pork, and other articles. The embargo being in 

 full force, the price of flour and wheat was very low. At 

 Havre de Grace I made fast two or three arks loaded with 

 wheat to the stern of a small schooner, which lay anchored 

 in the middle of the stream, about half a mile from shore. 

 Being ebb-tide, together with the current of the stream, 

 we could not possibly land the arks. Night setting in, 

 there was no time to be lost in getting them to shore, as 



* The account of the purchase of the Cold Springs property, and 

 of Gen. McClure's operations there and on Crooked Lake, will be 

 found in the history of the town of Urbana. 



there was a strong wind down the bay, and it would be 

 impossible to save them if they should break loose from 

 the schooner. I left the arks in charge of William Ed- 

 wards, of Bath, while I went on shore to procure help to 

 tow to shore. Whilst I was gone the wind increased, and 

 the master of the schooner hallooed to Edwards, who was 

 in one of the arks, that he. would cut loose, as there was 

 danger that he would be dragged into the bay and get lost, 

 and he raised his axe to cut the cables. Edwards swore if 

 he cut the cables he would shoot hitn down on the spot, 

 and raising a handspike took deliberate aim. It being 

 dark the captain could not distinguish between a hand- 

 spike and a rifle. This brought him to terms. He dropped 

 the axe, and told Edwards that if he would engage that I 

 should pay him for his vessel in case she should be lost he 

 would not cut loose. Edwards pledged himself that I 

 would do so. 



" When I got on shore I went to a man named Smith, 

 who had a fishery and a large boat with eighteen oars, and 

 about forty Irishmen in his employ, and offered to hire 

 his boat and hands. He was drunk, and told me with an 



oath that I and my ark might 'go to the d 1.' He 



would neither let the boat nor the hands go. I went into 

 the shanty of the Irishmen, and, putting on an Irish 



brogue, told them of my distress. ' The d 1 take 



Smith ; we will help our countryman, by my shoul, boys,' 

 said their leader. They manned the boat, and the arks 

 were brought to shore in double-quick time. They refused 

 to take pay, and I took them to a tavern and ordered them 

 as much as they chose to drink. My friend Edwards and 

 those jolly Irishmen saved my arks and cargo. Edwards 

 is yet alive, and resides in Bath.'j' 



" The loss I sustained in flour and wheat this year was 

 great, but I did not feel it to be a serious interruption to 

 my business. On my return I concluded that I must sus- 

 pend the purchase of wheat while that ruinous measure, 

 the embargo, was in force, and fall upon some other scheme 

 and project. So I opened a large distillery, which opened 

 a market to the farmers for their rye, corn, and even wheat, 

 which I converted into ' tire-water,' as the Indians very 

 properly call it. Jefferson's embargo did not injure the 

 sale of it, but the contrary, as whisky was then worth by 

 the barrel from eight to ten shillings a gallon, and all men, 

 women, and children drank of it freely in those days. I 

 converted much of my whisky into gin, brandy, and cor- 

 dials, in order to suit the palates of some of my tippling 

 customers. 



" I purchased in the fall droves of cattle and sent them 

 to Philadelphia. I also stall-fed forty head of the best and 

 largest cattle in the winter, which I shipped on arks to 

 Columbia, and drove to Philadelphia^ where they sold to 

 good advantage. This mode of sending fat cattle to market 

 astonished the natives as we passed down the river. It 

 proved to be a profitable busincvss. 



^' In the year 1814, I sold my Cold Springs mills to 

 Henry A. Townsend, for $14,000. I erected other mills 

 at Bath. In 1816, I ran down to Baltimore 1,000,000 

 feet of pine lumber, and 100,000 feet of cherry boards and 



f He died in March, 1851. 



