240 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



roused up and yawningly replied, " Took judgment against 

 you by default." The defendant replied that he thought 

 the justice honest, but he was a very ignorant man. 



Another case was pending in a justice court, in which 

 Dan. H. Davis was attorney. After working faithfully for 

 his client, with very little hope of success, — the case grow- 

 ing darker and darker as it proceeded, — he resolved not to 

 incur the mortification of a defeat, and, rising from his seat, 

 he seized the minutes of the court, deliberately rolled them 

 up, thrust them into his pocket, and coolly walked out of 

 the room, remarking, " I will take care of the merits of 

 this case." 



In 1823, Joseph Wilkinson built a barn, which is now 

 standing, on the farm of W. H. Smith. Like many of 

 the early settlers, Mr. Wilkinson had his peculiarities. In 

 employing workmen to build the above-mentioned barn, he 

 agreed to pay them fifty cents a day if he did not provide 

 them with whisky, or two and sixpence a day and furnish 

 whisky. Thinking they could have free access to his jug, 

 at any rate, they accepted the former oiFer, — the fifty cents a 

 day without the whisky. 



The barn was framed, and at the raising, as was the cus- 

 tom in those days, the new building had to be named. The 

 person selected to perform this ceremony w^as Jonas Cleland, 

 one of the most intelligent of the early settlers, and not 

 without a certain quaint humor, which served him in good 

 stead in such emergencies. Mr. Cleland took his place on 

 the plate of the barn, and, after the usual drink and flour- 

 ishing of the bottle, got off the following shrewd poetical 

 version of the bargain made between Mr. Wilkinson and 

 his builders : 



^'This is a fine frame^ and deserves a good name, 

 And what shall we call it ? 



It stfinds upon a rise ; 

 Two and sixpence was its price. 

 Fifty cents he had to pay. 

 And then he hid the jug away." 



This was followed by the customary " three cheers," which 

 ended the ceremony. 



When Mr. Cleland came here, in 180*5, and for quite a 

 number of years afterwards, the Indians used to come here 

 to fish and hunt and trade their articles of native manufac- 

 ture with the whites. They had a very neat lodge, covered 

 with hemlock-bark, which stood about sixty rods below the 

 Davis mill, on the bank of the river, and other lodges along 

 the valley, one of which stood on the Larrowe farm, east of 

 Liberty. Usually they would come and occupy the same 

 lodge for several successive hunting seasons, but they came 

 at last and would not enter the one on the bank of the river, 

 on account of a superstitious belief that it was haunted by 

 some evil spirit. 



At that period game was very plenty, and the streams 

 and river abounded with fish ; speckled trout sported in the 

 clear waters ; deer crossed the paths of the pioneers, and 

 even entered their door-yards ; bears roamed through the 

 forests of the surrounding hills, and the how^ling of wolves 

 made unwelcome music during the night. The few early 

 settlers who kept sheep were obliged to enfold them in 

 walled inclosures, to protect them from the ravages of 

 wolves during the night. 



On the road leading from Potter Hill to Jerome Flint's 

 may be seen the ruins of an old log structure, built up in 

 the form of a square pen. This was Jonas Cleland's " bear 

 trap." Such structures were often built by the pioneers, 

 and baited with mutton, or some other kind of meat, for 

 the purpose of decoying bears to enter at a trap-door in the 

 trap ; and such was the nature of the structure that, when 

 once in, his bearship found himself a prisoner to the superior 

 cunning of his captor and unable to escape. Mr. Cleland 

 built the pen in 1815, but did not complete or use it, for at 

 that time one Robbins, a hunter, brought from the East a 

 large, five-spring iron trap, which was substituted for the 

 more primitive method of catching bears. Mr. Valentine 

 Van Wormer afterwards caught a deer in the same trap, 

 and it is now an interesting souvenir of by-gone days in 

 the possession of James Cleland. 



On the Dusenberry farm there was at an early time a 

 famous bear-path along the side of the river. Jonas Cle- 

 land once set a "dead-fall" in this path, in which he 

 caught some thirty or forty bears. 



ORGANIZATION. 



Cohocton was formed from Bath and Dansville, June 18, 

 1812, and takes its name from the Conhocton River, which 

 flows in a southeasterly direction through the central part 

 of the town. A part of x\voca was taken off" in 1843, and 

 the principal part of Wayland in 1848. In 1874, an 

 addition was made to the eastern part of the town from the 

 town of Prattsburgh by the adoption of the following reso- 

 lution by the Board of Supervisors : 



'' RpHolvcd, That so much of the western part of Prattsburgh as is 

 now described, viz. : All that tract or parcel of land situate in the 

 town of Prattsburgh and bounded as follows (according to the com- 

 promise line agreed upon betweeen the parties residing on the adver- 

 tised district) : commencing at the northwest corner of lots No. 96, 

 on the township line ; thence east, along the north line of lots Nos. 96, 

 97, and 98, to the northeast corner of said lot 98 ; thence south, along 

 the east line of lots Nos. 98, 85, and 76, to the southeast corner of said 

 lot 76 ; thence east, along the north line of lot 62, to the northeast 

 corner thereof; thence south, along the east line of lots Nos. 62 and 

 55 to the east bank of Twelve-Mile Creek ; thence along the east bank 

 of said creek to the township line; containing 3853 acres of land, 

 more or less, be set off from said town of Prattsburgh, and annexed to 

 said town of Cohocton, as those petitioners have so earnestly prayed. 



"Charles K. Minor, 

 "Ira Carrington. 



" Commt'ftce." 



The act erecting the town of Cohocton, passed June 18, 

 1812, provided that the first town-meeting should be held at 

 the house of Joseph Shattuck, Jr. This meeting was held 

 in April, 1813, and the following town officers were elected : 

 Samuel Wells, Supervisor ; Charles Bennett, Town Clerk ; 

 Stephen Crawford, John Slack, and William Bennett, As- 

 sessors ; Jared Barr, John Woodard, and Isaac Hill, Com- 

 missioners of Highways ; John Slack and Samuel D. Wills, 

 Poormasters ; James Barnard, Constable and Collector ; 

 Isaac Parmenter, Constable ; James Griffis and Thomas ' 

 Rogers, Fence- Viewers. The following were chosen Path- 

 masters of the ten districts then in the town, in the order 

 named, beginning with District No. 1 : Samuel D. Wells, 

 Seth Kellogg, David Reynolds, James Griffis, Jonas Cleland, 

 Jonathan Danforth, Stephen Crawford, — Drake, Elisha 



