TOWN OF TUSCAROEA. 



403 



others located in that neighborhood. Up Mind Creek 

 Daniel Burdick and Andrew Crowl were among the earliest 

 settlers in the east part of the town. Rev. David Short, 

 a Close-Communion Baptist preacher, grandfather of Robert 

 Short, the well-known and popular Addison blacksmith, 

 located on the Hollis place, joining the Pennsylvania line, 

 southeast of Strait, in 1823, preaching throughout the 

 surrounding country, and industriously working upon his 

 farm. 



Warren and Benedict Northrup settled in the Northrup 

 Settlement in 1825. 



After Mr. Gile had made a small clearing, and John 

 Webster had settled between him and Rowley's, Rev. Aaron 

 Baxter with his family, Alfred Nicliols his son-in-law, and 

 Simeon Freeman, a boy in his employ, settled near the 

 Pennsylvania line, a mile farther west than Strait. Mr. 

 Nichols had a pair of horses and $25 in money. With no 

 experience to guide him, but with a resolute will to suc- 

 ceed, he built him a house 14 feet square, and barely high 

 enough to walk into without stooping, and began to cut 

 down the trees about his cabin. Meanwhile, Elder Baxter 

 visited the land-office at Bath, and made an arrangement 

 by which he should receive half a dollar an acre on all lands 

 he might sell; the balance of $1.50 an acre to be paid at 

 the land-office. Through his exertions that part of the 

 town began to settle so rapidly, that in 1830 he had gath- 

 ered 46 of his neighbors together into a church. His col- 

 ony came from Chenango County, and included the families 

 of James Sprague, Migeman Taft, David Hart, Samuel and 

 Enoch Mack, Eliba Albee, Orrin Swan, and Samuel Smith. 



In 1827, Elder Baxter cleared 30 acres of land and 

 planted it to wheat, obtaining a large yield, which found a 

 ready sale in the Tioga Valley. In 1826 a single house 

 could be seen in a small opening among the thick, blue 

 hemlock-trees, on the hill to the east of the Tuscarora Val- 

 ley, a mile above the mouth of Mind Creek, exactly in the 

 centre of the town. This was the home of Justus Wright, 

 who came there when his son Isaac Wright, who still lives 

 on the old homestead, was but six months old. Of all the 

 dense forest of that time, there is but an occasional strip 

 of brushwood left. The sloping hill-sides are covered with 

 grass-lands and cultivated fields, sloping to the stream below, 

 and dotted with the farm-houses of a people who have 

 abandoned the woodsman's axe and rifle for the plow and 

 reaper. A mile up the valley shines the spire of the church 

 of South Addison. Baxter's Hill, which shorn of its woods 

 overlooks the valley of the Cowanesque, has passed into the 

 hands of his grandchildren. Just at the foot of the hill, 

 below Wright's, is Parsels' mill and settlement. Ascend- 

 ing the east hill past Mr. Wright's to the south, the trav- 

 eler finds himself overlooking a little valley upon the 

 hill-top, open towards the southwest. Half a mile distant 

 stands the Free Baptist church ; on the hill beyond is the 

 Nichols House, a wayside tavern years ago. Just below, 

 in the quiet nest at your feet, is the farm-house of George 

 H. Freeman, the present supervisor, and one of the leading 

 citizens of the town. There is no more pleasing location 

 in the old settlement. When his father, Simeon Freeman, 

 left the employ of Elder Baxter in 1830, he purchased the 

 woodland from which he reclaimed these fruitful acres, and 



here he passed his life. The first deacon of the first church 

 in the town, his life honored his position. From this point 

 the eye can trace the valleys of the Canisteo, the Tioga, and 

 the Cowanesque Rivers; and away to the west, beyond 

 Woodhull, the blue hills of Jasper still covered with the 

 primeval forest. Capt. Joseph Manley, whose place is oc- 

 cupied by his descendants, M. M. and 0. C. Manley, was 

 one of the earlier settlers. Zelos Toles, father of Martin 

 Toles and Mrs. Aaron Orr, came shortly after Baxter, and 

 settled in the northeast part of the town, being, with the 

 Orrs, the first in that direction. 



Many of the early settlers came from Chenango County, 

 making a successful journey if they came through with 

 their teams — usually oxen — in a week, and then, perhaps, 

 having to wait a few days for the river to fall before a 

 crossing could be eifected at Addison. Another day of 

 driving, lifting, loading, and unloading would be consumed 

 in getting back upon the hill, where the tired travelers 

 found rest in the half-finished cabin, over which the tall 

 pines and hemlocks closed, nearly shutting out the sunlight. 

 The teams were turned loose to shift for themselves. 



First after the arrival came the work of building the 

 huge open fireplace, boring holes in the logs for pins upon 

 which were placed shelves, chinking between the logs with 

 blocks left from the shingles of the roof, and " daubing" 

 with mud, tracking and spattering over house and goods, 

 but making the whole warm and comfortable for winter. 

 When things were put to rights the door had to be hung 

 upon its long wooden hinges and the flaxen latch-string 

 poked through a gimlet-hole to the outside. It was not 

 uncommon for these labors to be interrupted by the child- 

 ren discovering a deer at the spring near by, when the rifle 

 would be taken from its place over the fireplace, and soon 

 after the monarch of the forest would be hanging from a 

 rafter in the farther end of the cabin, his huge antlers the 

 wonder of the children, who a few years after were skilled 

 in the arts of woodcraft, bringing down the squirrel with 



unerrmg aim. 



The whole of the timber is gone except a few straggling 

 hemlocks, only the Parsels mill remaining in the town, 

 working upon the down timber and hemlocks which would 

 have been scorned by the lumbermen of ten years ago. 

 The open flat between the Tuscarora and the mouth of 

 Mind Creek is occupied by a large steam-tannery. 



The woolen-factory — still patronized by those who spin 

 their own yarns — is located a short distance above the old 

 Wombough homestead, in the Tuscarora Valley. This 

 factory was built by William Wombough, Jr., — the present 

 owner and occupant of the old place, — in 1844, at an ex- 

 pense of $14,000, and worked 250 spindles. This factory 

 furnished employment for upwards of 30 operatives for 

 twenty years, and was an important industry in its best 

 days, — people coming from Corning, Campbell, Caton, and 

 the surrounding towns south and west, and from Northern 

 Pennsylvania, to get carding and cloth-dressing done, as 

 well as to dispose of their wool for " full-cloth" with which 

 to make their winter's clothing. This factory is still doing 

 a large amount of work, being extensively patronized by 

 the surrounding wool-growers; but with the clearing of 

 the land up the creek, the country became more generally 



