288 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



been an uncommon occurrence, in excavating for cellars and 

 digging post-holes, to come upon graves in which have been 

 found the bones of Indians, pottery, arrows, and other relics. 

 In 1847, Mr. Erwin, in sinking a post-hole on the south- 

 west corner of his residence lot, exhumed an Indian skele- 

 ton, and in the same grave found an arrow-point as white 

 as marble, and pieces of broken pottery. In 1860 another 

 Indian skeleton was unearthed, while excavating the cellar 

 of the Bronson block, on the southwest corner of Hamilton 

 and Water Streets. This grave contained the bones of a 

 very large person, the thigh and arm bones being of an 

 unusual length. It was buried in a sitting posture ; in the 

 same grave were broken but well-preserved pieces of Indian 

 pottery and arrow-heads, showing that he had been amply 

 provided with ammunition and cooking utensils for the long 

 journey to the happy hunting-grounds. 



The old town of Painted Post was organized as a part of 

 Ontario County in 1793, and was represented by its super- 

 visor, Mr. Eli Mead, in the board which met at Canandai- 

 gua. Mr. Mead went on foot, by Indian trails, through the 

 vast wilderness nearly seventy miles to meet his associates 

 from the different scattered settlements at the county-seat. 

 There was scarce a habitation on his route, and he was 

 compelled to " take his hotel and bar in a knapsack upon 

 his back in the daytime, and use them for a pillow at night, 

 under the protecting roof of the dense foliage of the trees 

 near his path." When the county of Steuben was erected 

 in 1796, Painted Post became one of its original towns. 

 It comprised the territory now embraced in the six towns 

 of Hornby, Campbell, Erwin, Lindley, Corning, and Caton. 

 The first division occurred in 1826, when Erwin and 

 Hornby (including Campbell and Lindley) were taken off, 

 leaving Painted Post reduced to townships numbers one and 

 two in the first range, or Caton and Corning. Caton was 

 taken off" as '^ Wormley" in 1839, reducing Painted Post to 

 the single town of Corning, to which name it was changed 

 on the 31st of March, 1852. 



We have desired to obtain a complete list of the super- 

 visors and other town officers of Painted Post during the 

 time it was a town of Steuben County, but owing to the 

 loss of the records, and the absence of reliable verbal in- 

 formation, we have been unable to do so. We find that 

 Benjamin Patterson was supervisor of the town in 1806, 

 and we have obtained from miscellaneous records in the 

 county clerk's office the following list since 1823 : Thomas 

 McBurney, 1823-24; John Knox, 1825; Thomas McBur- 

 ney, 1826-27; John Knox, 1828-29; Henry H. Matthews, 

 1830-32; Daniel Gorton, 1833-34; William Bonham, 

 1835; Samuel K. Wolcott, 1836; John McBurney, 

 1837-38; H. H. Matthews, 1839; Thomas A. Johnson, 

 1840-41; John McBurney, 1842-43; John Sly, Jr., 

 1844; Thomas A. Johnson, 1845-46; H. B. Noyce, 

 1847; Jonathan Brown, 1848; Benjamin P. Bailey, 

 1849-50; Daniel B. Cumpston, 1851. 



PROGRESS OF SETTLExMENT. 



David Fuller with his family settled in the town in the 

 autumn of 1789; Eli and Eldad Mead, in 1790; Capt. 

 Samuel Erwin and his brother Francis, David and Jona- 

 than Cook, Capt. Howell Bull, and several others, in 1792. 



The first hotel, called the Painted Post Hotel or Tavern, 

 was built by David Fuller in the spring of 1790 ; it was of 

 round logs, one and a half stories, contained two rooms, and 

 was located near the north end of the Conhocton bridge. 

 Mr. Fuller was an agent and tenant of Col. Arthur Erwin, 

 and for a long time the popular landlord of the hotel. 



NARRATIVE OF THE LATE SAMUEL COOK. 



^' In the summer of 1792, I came with my father and 

 family to Painted Post. Our goods from Tioga Point were 

 pushed in a canoe up the Chemung and Conhocton Rivers 

 by my father, and our cattle, sheep, and hogs were driven 

 along the banks by my mother and sister and the children. 

 In the Chemung Narrows we were met by a large party of 

 Indians who were going to Tioga Point to make a treaty. 

 At first my mother was very much frightened, but the In- 

 dians were very civil, and passed us with their friendly 

 salutation of ' sachoo,^ how do you do ? or ' sachoo-ca-cho,^ 

 how are you, my friend ? We met with no other unusual 

 incident until we reached and landed at a log tavern sit- 

 uated on the north shore of the Conhocton River, near the 

 end of the bridge built there that spring. This tavern was 

 kept by David Fuller, with whom my father and family 

 boarded some days, or until he found a log shanty situated 

 near the Post Creek road, into which he moved. I was 

 then thirteen, and now I am eighty-one years old. Eph- 

 raim Patterson was then living in a house on the west bank 

 of Post Creek, just above the Chimney Narrows ; Ichabod, 

 his son, was living in another, situated upon the farm re- 

 membered as Nehemiah Hubbell's (father of Hon. Wm. S. 

 Hubbell, of Bath, and Philo P. Hubbell, of Winona, Minn.) ; 

 and Frederick Calkins was then living on the south side of 

 the Chemung River, nearly opposite the Chimney Narrows. 

 We lived in this shanty a little more than a year, then 

 moved up to Mr. Lindley's, who was just commencing a 

 new settlement, and built a log house near where Col. Mor- 

 gan now lives. In 1793 or 1794 there was a log grist-mill 

 built on Post Creek, just above Patterson's house. 



" In 1795, Benjamin Eaton opened the first store in the 

 town,* if not in the county, for the benefit of civilization. 

 It was situated upon the ground now used for the highway, 

 at the head of the street leading from Knoxville to Corning 

 Bridge. A man by the name of Comstock, from the mouth 

 of Goodhue Creek, up the Canisteo, and myself, then nearly 

 sixteen years old, started in a canoe for Wattles' Ferry (now 

 Unadilla) after his first stock of goods. We floated down 

 the Chemung River to Tioga Point, then poled up the 

 Susquehanna to Wattles' Ferry, drawing our boat upon the 

 shore at night and sleeping under the trees upon the banks. 

 We reached our destination in five days, where we found 

 Mr. Eaton, who had gone by land. The stock of goods was 

 too large for our canoe, though it was a very large one, 

 which compelled Mr. Eaton to purchase another small one, 

 for which he paid one gallon of whisky. We loaded the 

 canoes, and took charge of the small one, and we started 

 down the river on our return. The water was low and the 

 boats heavily laden, and we were frequently compelled to 

 unload and ' tote' the bundles past the rapids. Without 



* In what is now the town of Corning. 



