H O R IT B Y. 



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GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



Hornby was erected from the old town of Painted 

 Post, on the 27th of January, 1826, and was named in 

 honor of John Hornby, an eminent English land-holder. 

 The town of Campbell was taken from it in 1831, and 

 part of it was annexed to Orange, Schuyler Co., April 11, 

 1842. It lies near the centre of the east border of the 

 county, and has a high, rolling surface, intersected by deep, 

 narrow valleys, chiefly formed by Dry Run and Post and 

 Border Creeks. Border Creek is in the southwest part 

 of the town and flows into the Chemung, while Post 

 Creek, in the south, enters the Chemung opposite Corning. 

 The soil is a clayey and shaly loam of superior quality. 



EARLY settlement. 



Asa and Uriah Nash, the first settlers in Hornby, set- 

 tled in 1814 in the north part of the town, called Nash 

 Settlement. Edward Stubbs, Ezra Shaw, Samuel Adams, 

 and Jesse Underwood settled in 1815. In the same year 

 Jesse Piatt, John Bobbins, and Amasa Stanton settled in 

 the Piatt Settlement, in the southwestern part of the 

 town. James S. Gardner, Chester Knowlton, and Aden 

 Palmer settled in the Palmer Settlement in 1816. Others 

 came near the same time, among whom were Hiram and 

 Benjamin Gardner, John St. John, Isaac Goodell, Aaron 

 Harwood, John Sayer, and Jacob Goodsell, with his two 

 sons, Daniel W., aged thirty-three, and Henry, aged twenty- 

 eight, each having families. 



The first tavern was kept by E. Shaw, in the Under- 

 wood District, near the present school-house. A. B. Dick- 

 ason, who afterwards spelled his name Dickinson, opened 

 the first store on the old homestead about 1824. One of 

 the first settlements was that of Levi, father of Ira Nash, 

 the schoolmaster, near Nash Lake, a bottomless body of 

 spring water, comprising some 60 acres, surrounded by 

 hills and abounding with fish. Nash built a saw-mill at 

 the outlet of the lake. Isaac Goodsell kept the earliest 

 tavern at Hornby Forks. 



Lorena A. Hendrick, daughter of Theodore and Char- 

 lotte Hendrick, the first white child born in Hornby, was 

 born Jan. 19, 1818. 



John Bidler and Lucy A. Piatt, the first couple mar- 

 ried in Hornby, were married, Feb. 2, 1813 or 1814, by 

 William Mulhollen, justice of the peace, and commenced 

 housekeeping on Mead's Creek (now Campbell). 



In 1838 the farmers first commenced to break up or 

 plow land. Most of the land was sowed on new fallows 

 with winter wheat, but sometimes with spring wheat and 

 oats. In no case was there a failure of a crop. 



To guard against wolves, Hon. A. B. Dickinson in early 

 times built a high fence around a field to preserve his 

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sheep. Wild-cats were numerous, destroying sheep for J. 

 H. Humphreys as late as 1859, and one was killed in 1875. 

 Mr. St. John, a native of Rutland Co., Vt., came from 

 Otsego at the age of twenty-four years, and located near 

 where he now lives, in 1816, and boarded with his neigh- 

 bor, Asa Nash, built the log house whose walls are still 

 standingi made a small clearing, and returning brought out 

 Theodore Hendrick, and bought the Nash place. His 

 housekeepers locating for themselves, he again returned to 

 Otsego, bringing his sister, who remained with him until 

 he found a permanent housekeeper, Lucinda, daughter of 

 Ledger Shumway, of Connecticut, and sister of Mrs. Jesse 

 Underwood, whom he married in 1822. Mr. St. John 

 had three daughters, one of whom was the wife of Mr. M. 

 Nichols, Esq., of Bath. Although nearly eighty-seven 

 years of age, he is still in good health and vigor, and well 

 remembers the events of the early days in which he par- 

 ticipated. He is the oldest of the early settlers remaining, 

 and one of the few who, living in a land of game and 

 hardy adventure, stuck quietly to his business, and made 

 himself a home, while the early hunters of his day are 

 '' hunters" still, though less successful thaa in days of 

 yore 



At that time a crowd of upwards of 100 would assem- 

 ble for their annual three days' election and general holi- 

 day, when an unusual amount of jollification took place. 

 Wolves levied their tax upon sheep, so that it was almost 

 impossible to keep them. Hogs fattened upon beech-nuts, 

 which were abundant in the woods. Indians were never 

 numerous nor troublesome, though their appearance some- 

 times did frighten the women. In 1824 they clothed 

 themselves in home-made and home-spun wool and flax, 

 which when made into cloth was taken to the primitive 

 factory to be finished. The nearest store previous to Dick- 

 inson's was Bonham's, kept, at the river, by William Bon- 

 ham, a small, thick-set, slow and easy man, who had the 

 general reputation of being " a good fellow." Goods were 

 brought from Newburg, on the Hudson, in wagons, and 

 consisted of bake-kettles and skillets, in place of the modern 

 stoves. Ammunition was a heavy item of trade, all the 

 boys having guns of some kind. Tea, cofi'ee, and notions, 

 which were sold in exchange for hides and grains, which 

 were sent down the river in arks, or maple-sugar, which the 

 teamster took North on his way after goods, many families 

 making the greater part of their living from the sap brush. 

 Wheat sold for five shillings and oats one shilling a bushel. 

 Ferenbaugh's, five and one-half miles from Corning, is 

 in the town of Hornby, in a thickly-settled farming local- 

 ity, four miles from Hornby Forks, on the old farm first 

 opened by Fredalius Ferenbaugh, in 1826. The first farm 

 on the left, just opposite the creek bridge, is that of Mr. 



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