CORNING. 



GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION 



The town of Corning, originally township No. 2 in the 

 first range, is situated on the eastern border of Steuben 

 County, and is the second town north from the Pennsyl- 

 vania line. It is bounded north by Hornby, east by Che- 

 mung County, south by Caton, and west by Erwin. 



PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



The surface of the town is divided into two nearly equal 

 upland portions by the valley of the Chemung River, 

 which extends northwest and southeast through nearly the 

 centre. This valley and the valleys of the lateral stream 

 divide the uplands into rounded hills and narrow ridges. 

 The principal tributaries entering the Chemung River on the 

 north are Borden, Post, Narrows, Clump Foot, and Win- 

 field Creeks ; and on the south. Monkey Run and Steele's 

 Creek. The soil upon the hills is a heavy slaty loam, and 

 in the valleys a fine quality of sandy and gravelly loam, 

 occasionally intermixed with clay. As an agricultural sec- 

 tion the town will compare favorably with any other portion 

 of the county. 



EARLY SETTLEMENT. 



The first settlements in this town were made by Fred- 

 erick Calkins, Ephraim Patterson, and his son Ichabod, in 

 the autumn of 1789. Mr. Calkins was a native of Ver- 

 mont. In the summer of 1789 he had located on land in 

 what is now the town of Erwin, near the present Erie Rail- 

 road bridge, across the Conhocton River, and commenced 

 clearing a farm ; but finding he was on lands which had 

 then been recently purchased by Col. Arthur Erwin, he 

 withdrew, and in the autumn of that year erected his cabin 

 on the south side of the Chemung River, opposite the 

 Chimney Narrows. The following spring he became one of 

 the original purchasers of the town of Corning. The deed 

 to Mr. Calkins and his associates, Caleb Gardner, Ephraim 

 Patterson, Justus Wolcott, Peleg Gorton, and Silas Wood, 

 from Nathaniel Gorham and Oliver Phelps, for township 

 No. 2 in the first range, or what is now Corning, was exe- 

 cuted May 10, 1790, and recorded in Book 2 of Deeds, 

 page 151, etc., in 1801. All the proprietors, except Silas 

 Wood, took possession of their lands as early as 1792. 

 Ephraim Patterson, in 1789, settled on the west bank of 

 Post Creek, just above the Chimney Narrows, and his son, 

 Ichabod, upon the old Nehemiah Hubbell farm. 



Frederick Calkins' farm of 140 acres, upon a portion of 

 which he erected his cabin in 1789, was situated on lot 14, 

 on which a part of the village of Corning now stands. The 

 village was not then thought of, and for more than forty 

 years after its site remained an unbroken wilderness, with 

 the exception of a portion of the farm cleared by Mr. 

 252 



Calkins and the Bradley farm, which were afterwards in- 

 cluded within its corporate limits. 



On the 15th of March, 1792, Caleb Gardner, Ephraim 

 Patterson, Frederick Calkins, George Goodhue, Hezekiah 

 Thurber, and Justus Wolcott reconveyed to Oliver Phelps 

 10,040 acres of the lands of the town originally purchased 

 of Phelps and Gorham. And April 4, 1792, Peleg Gorton 

 reconveyed 2000 acres to Oliver Phelps, which were not to 

 include any intervale or flat lands. 



PARTITION OF THE LANDS. 



After the purchase of the tract now forming the town of 

 Corning, the proprietors had it surveyed by John Konkle, 

 and apportioned among them by Brenton Paine and Elijah 

 Buck. The apportionment was made in 1792. In 1801, 

 it not appearing that all parties were satisfied with the 

 division, the questions in dispute were submitted to Wil- 

 liam Jenkins, Eleazer Lindley, and John Hendy, to arbi- 

 trate. Their report or award was soon after submitted. It 

 left the original division undisturbed, but awarded certain 

 sums to be paid some of the proprietors as compensation for 

 difference in the value of the lands. This settled forever 

 the questions of titles as among the first purchasers. 



In 1793, a log grist-mill was built on Post Creek, near 

 the house of Ephraim Patterson, by a Mr. Payne and Col. 

 Henderson. The first store was opened by Benjamin Eaton, 

 in 1795. It was situated in what is now the highway at 

 the head of the street leading from Knoxville to the Corning 

 bridge. His first stock of goods was brought from Wattle's 

 Ferry, now Unadilla, by a man named Comstock and Samuel 

 Cook, a lad then of sixteen, whose father settled at Painted 

 Post in 1792. They drifted down the Chemung in a canoe 

 to Tioga Point, then poled their boat up the Susquehanna, 

 drawing it upon the shore at night and sleeping under the 

 trees. In five days they accomplished their journey, and 

 set out upon their laborious return home. 



Col. Williamson, in 1796, purchased a tract of land on 

 the north side of the Chemung Biver, since known as the 

 Jennings farm, and commenced the erection of a large two- 

 story frame building on the high-road for a first-class hotel. 

 It was commodious and well furnished for those times, and 

 was the first two-story frame house built in the town that 

 was clapboarded, and completed in the best style the means 

 at hand would permit. That it was well built, is evident 

 from the fact that for eighty-two years it has withstood the 

 elements. It is true, some years ago Mr. Sly repaired and 

 painted the old building, so that it gives promise of lasting 

 another eighty years. It was long known as the Jennings 

 Tavern, on account of John Jennings having purchased the 

 property in 1813 from the Pulteney estate, and kept a 

 tavern there until his death in 1834. Col. Williamson, 



