TOWN OF HORNELLSYILLE. 



321 



the above has been taken, with some verbal alterations, in 

 company with his brother, in 1828 or 1829, visited old 

 Shongo at his village residence on the Genesee River. He 

 was then an old, white-haired man. Upon his attention 

 being called to his encounter with Van Campen the old 

 chief laughed, and pulling aside his blanket showed the 

 scar, which was still plainly visible. He knew Judge Hor- 

 nell well, and called him by his Indian name, Ton-equin-e-da. 

 He also had in his possession a copy of a treaty signed by 

 George Washington. 



The Tories and Indians from Niagara, on their way to 

 Wyoming, in 1778, came across the Genesee country and 

 reached the Canisteo in this town. About a mile above 

 the village of Hornellsville they cut the pine-trees and 

 built the canoes which carried them down the Susquehanna 

 to the scene of that terrible massacre. The place where 

 they built their canoes has often been pointed out by the 

 late Col. John R. Stephens, being on the bank of the river 

 on his farm where the stumps from which the trees were 

 cut were standing. At the time Col. Stephens settled on 

 the place a partly-finished canoe and some of their tools 

 and implements were found there. 



Nathaniel Thacher, father of Deacon Mowry Thacher, 

 removed from Troupsburgh, and settled about a mile below 

 the village of Hornellsville, on the site of the xlrnott grist- 

 mill, in 1810. His house, for that day, was considered a 

 very excellent one, being constructed of hewed logs. In 

 about two years he settled on what is now known as the Hart 

 farm, where he resided ten years. He then moved into the 

 village, where he spent the remainder of his days. He died 

 in Florence, Ala., about 1825, leaving his widow, four sons, 

 and two daughters. His third son, Otis Thacher, resided 

 on the homestead in the village, where his family still reside, 

 till his death, March 14, 1868. He was a prominent citizen, 

 and was often called to fill positions of honor and trust. He 

 held military commissions under Governors De Witt Clinton 

 and William L. Marcy. In 1840 he was appointed one of 

 the associate judges of the Court of Common Pleas of the 

 county, in which position he acted for five or six years. In 

 1850 he was deputy marshal of the Third Assembly Dis- 

 trict of Steuben County, and took the census of that year. 

 He was one of the members of the Presbyterian Church of 

 Hornellsville at its organization in 1831, and by his zeal 

 and liberality aided largely in the erection of the first church 

 edifice in the village. He was a devoted Christian and an 

 earnest advocate of temperance. 



Deacon Thacher has resided in the house where he now 

 lives over fifty years. He was born in Gloucester, R. I., 

 June 15, 1802, and came with his parents to this town in 

 1810. The house in which he resides was built in 1819, 

 by his father, Nathaniel Thacher, for his son-in-law, George 

 Hornell, a son of Judge Hornell. It is the oldest house 

 now in town. Most of the old Hornell homestead, which 

 was purchased by the Thachers in 1831, is now embraced 

 in the First Ward of the village, and a large part of it 

 covered with buildings. The first settlers on the site of 

 the village were Judge Hornell, Benjamin Crosby, Elias 

 Stephens, Elijah Stephens, and Oliver Harding. The 

 Stephens' were brothers-in-law to Judge Hornell, and settled 

 here soon after. 

 41 



EARLY HISTORY OF ARKPORT. 



In the spring of 1797, Judge Hurlbut and his eldest 

 son, John, then a boy twelve years of age, came from Wy- 

 oming, Pa., to Arkport, and made a small clearing, planted 

 a piece of corn, and built a small log house where James 

 Hurlbut's saw-mill now stands. Judge Hurlbut had pre- 

 viously purchased over 900 acres of land in the valley of a 

 land speculator, at $4.50 per acre, and afterwards had to 

 pay for the same land the second time at the land-ofiice. 

 After putting up the house they returned to Wyoming 

 Valley, and in the fall of the same year returned to Ark- 

 port, bringing the family, — John Hurlbut, who died in 

 1831; James Hurlbut, of Geneva; Christopher Hurlbut, 

 of Arkport, then three years old ; Abigail and Mrs. Tag- 

 gart, both of whom have since died; Mrs. Joshua Shepard, 

 of Dansville ; and Mrs. Hoyt, of Kingston, Pa. 

 ' Mr. Nathan Cory, father of Jonathan Cory, accompanied 

 the family to assist in the arduous task of moving. They 

 came up the river in flat-boats to the point where the 

 bridge crosses the Canisteo, a mile below Arkport. Here 

 the process of debarkation commenced, and they made their 

 way through the dense forest of weeping elms that thickly 

 covered the beautiful valley to their lonely cabin, surrounded 

 by savage beasts and the scarcely less savage and much more 

 wily red man. But soon a cheerful maple-wood fire was 

 burning on the capacious stone hearth, and the good house- 

 wife had the evening meal prepared from a well-selected 

 stock of comforts and luxuries laid in before leaving the 

 beautiful and far-famed Valley of Wyoming. 



Judge Hurlbut was a native of Groton, Conn., and moved 

 to Wyoming Valley the same year the battle was fought, 

 and was within forty miles of Wilkesbarre the day of the 

 horrible massacre. For several years he was employed by 

 the Connecticut Legislature in making surveys of the sev- 

 eral townships in the valley. He was the first surveyor in 

 the town of Hornellsville, — for a long time the only one, — 

 and was employed almost constantly by the land-office in 

 making surveys in Steuben, Livingston, and Allegany 

 Counties. The year after his arrival he built a large two- 

 story double log house, and commenced keeping tavern, 

 and in 1806 (the same year in which Judge Hornell built 

 his red tavern) he built his residence, then, if not now, the 

 largest dwelling in town. In 1800 he built and launched 

 the first ark ever run on the Canisteo, and took it to Balti- 

 more, loaded with wheat, which he purchased of the far- 

 mers in Dansville and Geneseo. He was successful in this, 

 his first experiment, and a market was opened at once for 

 the surplus grain, pork, and beef of the Genesee country. 



The same year he built a saw-mill and erected a large 

 storehouse on the east bank of the Canisteo, to which in 

 winter the farmers of the Genesee Valley would bring their 

 wheat and corn, butter and cheese, and other marketable 

 products, and store them, waiting only for the " moving of 

 the waters" to step in and ride to Baltimore and a market. 

 Thousands of bushels of grain were sent annually from this 

 port, and some seasons as many as eleven arks were loaded 

 with wheat, corn, etc., and sent down the Susquehanna. 



As early as 1804, Gen. William Wadsworth, of Geneseo, 

 started from Arkport, with two boat-loads of very large stall- 

 fed oxen, and reached Baltimore in safety. 



