170 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



1839. 



Oliver Rice. 



1860. 



Henry Pier. 





A. D. Read (v.). 



1861. 



E. W. Buck. 



1840. 



Ziba A. Leland. 



1862. 



James Lindsay. 



1841. 



Chester Whitaker. 



1863. 



Joseph B. Westcott. 



1842. 



George Huntington. 



1864. 



Abram C. Bryan. 





Win. S. Mulliollen (v.). 



1865. 



Cliarles L, Baily. 



1843. 



Nathan Barny. 



1866. 



Dwight Ostrander. 



1844. 



William S. Mulhollen. 





James Lindsay. 



1845. 



Chester Whitaker. 



1867. 



Augustus F. Barnes. 



1846. 



James Shannon. 



1868. 



Frank Hardenbrook (y.) 



1847. 



Arnold D. Read. 





Abram C. Bryan. 



1848. 



William S. Mulhollen. 



1869. 



Frank Hardenbrook. 



1849. 



Chester Whitaker. 





Henry J. Norris (v.). 





Luther R. Hopkins (v.). 



1870. 



James Lindsay. 



1850. 



Nathan Sawyer. 



1871. 



Hiram R. Hess. 



1851. 



Arnold D. Read. 



1872. 



Hamilton Lane. 



1852. 



Henry Pier. 



1873. 



Frank Hardenbrook. 



1853. 



Chester Whitaker. 





Henry J, Norris. 



1854. 



James Lindsay. 



1874. 



James Lindsay. 



1855. 



Arnold 1). Read. 



1875. 



Hiram R. Hess. 



1856. 



Henry Pier. 



1876. 



Horace L, Lewis. 



1857. 



Chester Whitaker. 



1877. 



Frank Hardenbrook. 



1858. 



James Inndsay. 





Henry J. Norris, 



1859. 



Arnold D. Read. 



1878. 



James Lindsay. 



SCHOOLS. 



At the first town-meetiDg, held in April, 1797^ three 

 town commissioners of schools were elected, viz. : George J). 

 Cooper, John Sheathar, Charles Williamson, and Benjamin 

 F. Young. These and their successors, annually elected by 

 the people, continued to exercise the functions of their 

 office, to lay out school districts, and to take the general 

 supervision of the schools of the town till 1822. We have 

 no record of their proceedings, but undoubtedly the school 

 district in the village of Bath was the first organized and 

 equipped for educational purposes in the town, and as the 

 inhabitants spread over the town, new districts were formed 

 from time to time to meet the exigencies of a growing 

 population. 



The first school inspectors elected in this town were 

 David Higgins, George C. Edwards, and Fletcher M. 

 Haight ; the last were Aaron C. Switzer and Robert L. 

 Underbill. The first town superintendent of schools — 

 Peter Halsey — was elected in 1844 ; the last — Robert 

 C. Rogers — in 1851. By the new law, commissioners of 

 schools were elected in each Assembly district, and have 

 since continued to have charge of the interests of common 

 schools in their respective districts. 



Report of Edwin F. Churchy August^ 1847. 



'^ I, Edwin F. Church, Town Superintendent of Common Schools 

 of the town of Bath, in the county of Steuben, in conformity to the 

 statutes in rehition to common schools, do report: That the number 

 of entire school districts in said town^ organized according to law, is 

 sixteen ; that the number of parts of districts in said town is eleven ; 

 that the number of joint districts — the school-houses of which are sit- 

 uated wholly or partly in said town — is Jive; that the number of entire 

 districrts from which the necessary reports have been made for the 

 present year is fifteen; that the number of parts of districts from 

 which such reports have been made is eleven ; and that the number 

 of schools for colored children taught in said town is one/' 



It appears from this report that the amount expended in 

 all the schools 



For teachers' wages was... $790.58 



For library $170.95 



Number of children taught.. 1382 



Number over five and under sixteen in town 1526 



VILLAGE OF BATH. 

 ORIGINAL SITE AND EARLY PROSPECTS. 



The village of Bath was laid out in the midst of a wil- 

 derness of hundreds of miles in extent, broken only here 

 and there by a few scattering settlements. Two important 

 Indian trails crossed each other in the valley where now 

 run the principal streets of the village, and these being 

 known to a few hunters served to designate the point of 

 their intersection as the " Cross-Roads," — the earliest name 

 given to Bath. 



It appears, from the travels of Maude, an English gen- 

 tleman, who wrote an account of Bath in the year 1800, 

 that Col. Williamson visited the site of the village in 1792, 

 accompanied by his friend and relative, Mr. Johnstone, a 

 servant, and a backwoodsman, whom, with much difficulty, 

 he had prevailed upon to join the party. At that time he 

 probably selected the site of his prospective city on the 

 Conhocton, and the spring following arrived from North- 

 umberland with his little colony to commence the active 

 operations of settlement. He seems not to have taken 

 charge of his little company in person, but gave instruc- 

 tions to his guide, on his arrival at the designated place of 

 settlement, to halt and " camp at the cross-roads." 



The site of Bath at that time has been described in the 

 words following : " Sixteen miles above the mouth of the 

 Conhocton, the valley of the Crooked Lake, uniting nearly 

 at right angles with the river-valley, opens in the hills a 

 deep and beautiful basin, which presents, when viewed from 

 an elevation, a rim of some ten or fifteen miles in circuit." 

 . . . This basin was originally covered with a pitch-pine 

 forest, " save where the alluvial flats, close at the foot of the 

 dark hemlocks of the southern range, support their noble 

 groves of elm and sycamore, and where a little round lake 

 shone in the sunlight below the eastern heights. . . ." 



The prospect from these hills is singularly beautiful at 

 the present day, but the place was evidently selected by 

 Col. Williamson with a view to its advantages for naviga- 

 tion, being near the head of the navigable waters of the 

 Susquehanna, and on the highway of the prospective trade 

 and commerce of the Genesee country and great West with 

 the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia. We quote again 

 from the little book, the '' Travels of Maude," also referred to 

 by Hon. William H. Seward, in his speech to the members 

 of the Legislature, at the Astor House, in the city of New 

 York, in March, 1851. This writer spent a considerable 

 time with Col. Williamson at Bath in the year 1800. He 

 says : 



" Bath is the capital of Steuben County, which county 

 contains at present [1800] about 300 families. On the 

 first settlement of the country these mountainous districts 

 were thought so unfavorably of when compared with the 

 rich flats of Ontario County [or the Genesee country], that 

 none of the settlers could be prevailed upon to establish 

 themselves here till Capt. Williamson himself set the ex- 

 ample, saying, ' As nature has done so much for the north- 

 ern plains, I will do something for these southern mountains '/ 

 though the truth of the case was that Capt. Williamson 

 saw very clearly, on his first visit to the country, that the 

 Susquehanna and not the Mohawk would be its best friend. 



