TOWN OF PEATTSBURGH. 



355 



Robinson, James (sub.), private, 50th Pa. Inf., Co. K ; enl. March 7, 1865, one 



year; disch. July 30, 1865. 

 Robinson, Wm. (sub.), private, 50th Pa. Inf., Co. K ; enl. March 7, 1865, one 



year ; disch. July 30, 1865. 

 Cook, Arthur, Jr., private, 13th II. Art., Bat. C; disch. June 21, 1865. 

 Demenstoy, Walton, private, 50th Eng. 

 Carey, Thomas, private, 2d Harris L, Cav., Co. K ; enl. Sept. 7, 1864, one year; 



disch. June 5, 1865. 

 Lindsley, Henry, private, 179th Inf., Co. B; enl, March 25, 1864, three years; 



disch. June 8, 1865. 



Lindsley, Joseph, private, 3d L. Art., Bat. K ; enl. Sept. 5, 1864, three years ; 



disch. July 15, 1865. 

 Reed, Myron H., enl. 1861, three months ; re-enl. in 14th Inf., Jan. 1862, three 



years; served full term and disch. with regiment. 

 Cowles, A. Demetrius, private, 50th Eng. ; enl. three years. 

 Cowles, Henry, 50th Eng.; enl. three years. 

 Cowles, James, private, 50th Eng. ; enl. three years. 

 Cook, A. Justice, private, 107th Inf.; enl. Feb. 28, 1864, three years; disch. 



Aug. 1865. 

 Sawyer, Addison, private, 86th Inf., Co. F; enl. Sept. 21, 1861, three years. 



PRATTSBURQH 



GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION. 



The town of Prattsburgli is centrally situated upon the 

 northern border of the county. It is bounded north by 

 Italy and Naples, in Ontario County, east by Pulteney, 

 south by Wheeler and Urbana, and west by Cohocton. 



PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



The eastern part of the town forms the highlands be- 

 tween Keuka Lake and Five-Mile Creek ; the central, the 

 elevation between Five- and Ten-Mile Creeks; and the 

 extreme western border is Lent Hill, west of Twelve-Mile 

 Creek. The hills and valleys range generally from north- 

 east to southwest. The hills rise from 300 to 400 feet 

 above the valleys. The valley of Five-Mile Creek is 1400 

 feet above tide-water. From the hills, which gradually 

 rise from this and other valleys of the town, the prospect 

 is that of a beautifully-undulating table-land extending in 

 all directions, covered originally with hard timber — hem- 

 lock and white pine — but at present presenting a fine rural 

 landscape of wooded slopes and cultivated farms. The 

 farm-buildings indicate the thrift and prosperity of the 

 enterprising agriculturists of this section. The soil is of 

 gravelly and clay loam, adapted to pasturage and to the 

 growth of cereals, fruit, and vegetables. The town con- 

 tains 35,638 acres, of which 27,410 are improved lands, 

 and 7578 acres are timbered lands. The value of farm- 

 buildings ranks next to that of Bath, being $209,610, 

 exclusive of dwellings, to the latter $338,775. (See gen- 

 eral tables of statistics.) 



EARLY SETTLEMENT. 



[Mrs. Anna Pratt Rice, the only daughter of Capt. Joel Pratt, and 

 who was at the time of her death, in 1876, the oldest person and resi- 

 dent in Prattsburgh, communicated, a short time before her decease, 

 to William B. Pratt, Esq., the following facts concerning the early 

 settlement of the town.] 



" Her father, Capt. Joel Pratt, was from Colchester, and 

 her mother, Mary Beach Fowler, from Hebron, Conn. The 

 children, in the order of age, were Joel, Ira, Harvey, x\nna, 

 Dan, and Elisha. Capt. Pratt and his son Harvey, with 

 four ox-teams, six men, and one hired girl, and needful tools 

 and provisions, came to this region in the year 1800, in the 



month of February, and settled on Hemlock Hill, four miles 

 west of Pleasant Valley, and cleared 110 acres of heavy 

 forest, and sowed the same with wheat in the fall. They 

 got there in the night and found the sleepers of a rude cabin 

 torn up by the Indians, and were obliged to cut hemlock 

 boughs and place them for a temporary floor. The build- 

 ing of the cabin had been provided for the year before by 

 Capt. Pratt when he visited the country on horsebask. 

 After the wheat was sown, Capt. Pratt and son returned 

 to Columbia County, and the men of the company scattered 

 in different directions. In February, 1801, Capt. Pratt 

 and Harvey returned, and Joel also came on in time for the 

 harvest, which was a prolific one. At this time there had 

 not been a single tree felled in what is now the town of 

 Prattsburgh. The grain was cut with sickles by men ob- 

 tained from Bath and Pleasant Valley, then the only near 

 settlements, and stored in a barn built the same season, with 

 lumber hauled up the long hard hill from Pleasant Valley. 

 It was thrashed the succeeding winter with flails, hauled to 

 Bath with ox-teams, a part of it floured, and all of it stored, 

 and the whole product floated to Baltimore in the spring of 

 1802, on arks, and sold for twenty shillings and fourpence 

 a bushel.* 



" In the year 1800, Uriel Chapin came also from Spencer- 

 town with his family, settling on lands now occupied by 

 Julius Stickney, in Wheeler. Mr. Jared Pratt also came 

 the same year with his family, and was the first actual white 

 settler in Prattsburgh. Both Chapin and Pratt had been 

 on the year before alone, the latter making the first clearing 

 in the town. There were four acres of it lying a little south 

 of Mud Lake, on w^hat was long known as the Beach farm. 

 In October, 1802, Capt. Joel Pratt removed his family, 

 coming with both horse and ox-teams, and was eighteen 

 days in making the trip.-j- There was then no open road 

 on the route they came. After getting a few miles this side 

 of Brown's, in what is now the town of Jerusalem, the com- 

 pany followed blazed trees a number of miles on the last 



* Capt. Pratt sold his wheat for something over $2.50 a bushel 

 and came back from Baltimore on foot with nearly $8000 in his 

 pocket. 



f From Spencertown, Columbia Co., to his new house. 



