434 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



temperament, a genial disposition, and was possessed of a 

 vast amount of energy. 



His forte was to make others see things as he saw them. 



We cannot give a better idea of the estimation in which 

 he was held at the time of his death than by subjoining the 

 following extracts : 



(From thfe Wyandotte Gazette of July 30, 1864.) 



" We regard the death of Samuel Hallett as an irrepar- 

 able loss to Kansas and to the United States. As the leading 

 spirit in the great Pacific Railroad enterprise, the man does 

 not live who can make his place good. . . . Let the millions 

 who shall pass and repass from the Atlantic to the Pacific 

 remember that to Samuel Hallett, more than to any ten 

 men, they are indebted for the early completion of this great 

 artery of travel. ..." 



(From the New York Tnhime, Aug. 10, 1864.) 



" The electric spark that flashed over the wires the an- 

 nouncement that Samuel Hallett had met a sudden death, 



at the hands of a discharged engineer of the Union Pacific 

 Railway, faintly resembled the wonderful intellect which 

 that rash act quenched in the meridian of its brightness. 

 . . . If any man was entitled to the reputation of genius, 

 that man was Samuel Hallett. Rising suddenly from 

 poverty, . . . he had attained a position which gave him 

 control of some of the most gigantic financial enterprises of 

 the age. . . . His influence on the railway enterprises of 

 the period was remarkable. Though not yet forty years of 

 age, he had been instrumental in expediting, if not in saving 

 from destruction, two of the chief roads of the country, viz;, 

 the Atlantic and Great Western and the Pacific. Both of 

 these owe their present success, at least, to his sagacity and 

 persistency, in the early days when the conservatism of 

 capital shrank from the risks of what seemed doubtful ad- 

 venture. It does not matter that other men will have con- 

 ducted these enterprises to final success ; to Samuel Hallett 

 belongs the credit of having saved them when brains and 

 courage were needed to accomplish what mere money could 

 not." 



WEST U NX O N. 



4 9^ • 



ERECTION OF THE TOWN. 



In the petition which was circulated for the formation of 

 this town the name was Green, but it was referred back to 

 the petitioners as conflicting with another town of the same 

 name, when they changed it to Union. This also conflict- 

 ing with another Union in the eastern part of the State 

 the word West was prefixed, and the bill was passed April 

 25, 1845, erecting the town of West Union. The town, 

 though not thickly settled at that time, was erected for 

 political reasons, the ruling power having gravitated towards 

 the north end of the old town of Greenwood, to the exclu- 

 sion of the more remote southern part. 



EARLY settlement. 



Jonathan and John Mattason and David Davis came from 

 the Cowanesque Valley, entering the town from the south, 

 and settled on the Ed. Plaistead place, about a quarter of a 

 mile west of the present Troupsburgh line, on land which 

 overlooks the towns of Troupsburgh, Woodhull, and Tusca- 

 rora, and both the Cowanesque and Tioga Valleys. The 

 tax-roll shows them to have been there as early as 1821. 

 Abram V. Olmstead, a native of Delaware County, opened 

 the first clearing in the valley, on land now occupied by a 

 part of the village of Rexville, in 1822. The first child 

 born in the town vfas his son, Walter B. Olmstead, who 

 was born Nov. 4, 1823, and afterwards, when a young man, 

 opened the first store in the town. Abram V. Olmstead 

 opened the first tavern, in the log house which stood for 

 years after on the site of McCormick's hotel, one side 

 propped up to keep it from falling into the road. 



William Burger, also from Delaware County, an uncle of 

 Mr. Olmstead, who came the next year, settled on the place 

 in the south part of the town, where John Hauber now 

 lives, and lived with old Mr. Bray, he having no family. 



Frederick Hauber, father of John Hauber, came over 

 the hills from Lawrenceville, Pa., opening his road as he 

 traveled, and located in the valley between the others. His 

 log house, then the finest building in the valley, still stands 

 beside the road. It was made of hewn logs, and was nearly 

 two years in construction. At that time there was only a 

 footpath down the creek. Besides the Mattasons there 

 were no neighbors to these venturous pioneers. The whole 

 country was a maze of woods and hills, filled jvith dark gorges 

 in which it was easy to get lost. The timber was harder 

 than that of the country farther east, consisting of maple^ 

 beech, birch, cherry, elm, and basswood, while upon the 

 bluflB were skirts of hemlock, and back south and west were 

 high ridges of land almost impassable. Pine was plenty a 

 few miles southwest, but so far from market that it had no 

 value for a number of years. The hard-timbered lands 

 were chosen as being more quickly cleared from stumps, 

 and the surrounding forests furnishing the maple-sugar, 

 whose manufacture was a remunerative employment for 

 weeks during the spring months. With the general clear- 

 ing of land, the change of climate has also changed the 

 sugar-making, causing the flow of sap to be less regular and 

 of shorter duration,, so that the present improved pans and 

 buckets, in place of the old-fashioned kettles and troughs, 

 split and hollowed out with an axe, do not compensate for 

 the change. 



