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HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



inent citizen, settled on the South branch, about a mile west 

 of the present village of Woodhull.* Mr. Johnson was the 

 first permanent settler within the bounds of the present 

 town, and was supervisor of the old town of Troupsburgh, 

 which then included a portion of WoodhuU until 1812. 



Spears and Merlin entered four hundred acres of 



land each, on the left bank of the Tuscarora, and Mr. Merlin 

 did some chopping on the west end of Col. Jeffrey Smith's 

 farm, in the north part of the village, but abandoned it with- 

 out making any settlement. In the spring of 1805, Bethuel 

 Tubbs, father of Joel and Zebulon Tubbs, came up the 

 frozen creek, upon the ice, and located upon the North 

 branch, a short distance above the point. During the same 

 year. Squire Wilkes located on the hill near the point, 

 Caleb Colvin coming about the same time and locating near 

 him, and Josiah Styles settling on the Cook place. Stephen 

 Dolson, Breakhill Patrick, Wm. Martin, and Bethuel Tubbs 

 settled back, on the west of the point. These settlers did 

 little more than to build themselves cabins and open com- 

 munications with the outer world by way of the creek. In 

 March, 1806, Caleb Smith, a native of Orange County, 

 who had recently settled at Southport, Chemung Co., sold 

 his improvement at that place, and with the proceeds 

 ($1300) ascended the Tuscarora with his family of nine 

 children, for the purpose of establishing a mill at the new 

 settlement. He purchased ten acres of land immediately, 

 as a freehold, and commenced work upon his mills. A 

 dam was built across the narrow outlet of the creek, at the 

 lower end of the valley, and two separate mills were erected, 

 a saw- and a grist-mill. The grist-mill was built of logs, 

 and the stones were taken from the bed of the stream near 

 by. During this year the settlement increased, Joshua 

 Green, Asel Styles, and Henry Martin locating half a mile 

 north of the creek, towards Jasper. Lekins Clark, Daniel 

 Cortright, a Mr. Mynear, and Mr. Laton settled up the 

 South branch in the order named. Several of the South 

 branch families only remained while game was plenty, mak- 

 ing but little improvement. 



Samuel Smith, whose place was on the point occupied by 

 the academy, came in 1807. The grist-mill was burned 

 the year after it was built, and the next year the dam and 

 saw-mill was carried away by high -water. These were the 

 first mills in the town. The first birth recorded is that of 

 Polly, daughter of Samuel Smith. Levi Rice and Cynthia 

 Tubbs, Zebulon Tubbs and Sally Rice, and Abner Thomas, 

 who taught the first school, and Esther Tubbs were the first 

 couples married in the town. The first death was that of 

 a daughter of Stephen Dobson, in 1808. The first meetings 

 were held at the house of Daniel Johnson, a Rev. Mr. Jones, 

 of Elmira, preaching. During the same year a school-house 

 was built of hewn logs, two miles up the creek, towards an- 

 other settlement, Abner Thomas teaching the first school. 

 The first settlers who came were poor, and subsisted mainly 

 by hunting and fishing. What clearing was done they did 

 in the easiest way, cutting out the scattering underbrush 

 and smaller timber, and girdling the hemlocks. The more 

 energetic, but less experienced, cut a ring around the hem- 



* At Woodhull, on the South Branch of the Tuscarora, the two 

 streams above are known as the North and South branches; the North 

 branch being the main stream. 



locks to the depth of three or four inches, to make sure 

 their death. If large trees stood where a fence was wanted, 

 they were felled, and brush was freely used to piece out the 

 distance between them. Limbs and dead trees were con- 

 stantly falling upon the growing crops, and the shade of the 

 surrounding forest caused wheat to smut badly. Rye was 

 a surer crop, and was the staff of life for many years. Work 

 was to be had on the river, payable in grain, and if the 

 harvest was too far off to suit the family appetite, wheat and 

 corn could be had of the river farmers, payable after har- 

 vest, with a peck on each bushel for interest. Interest 

 may have been high, but the unfortunates were rarely 

 brought before the power of the law. 



The boys had their annual trip to the river in the fall to 

 get butternut bark for coloring their winter clothing. Buck- 

 skin was worn, some of the girls even appearing at school 

 with buckskin waist and coarse woolen skirt. Home-made 

 shoes, made from leather tanned on shares away down the 

 river, and called " leggins,'' were common. An old settler, now 

 a man of wealth and influence, tells of the pride with which 

 he donned his first cotton shirt, made of coarse, dark, three- 

 quarter cloth at a cost of 50 cents a yard. Many of the 

 early settlers becoming discontented, abandoned their lands, 

 which, growing up to grass, made pasture for the cattle of 

 those who remained. In 1812, the death of Mr. Johnson 

 and five of his family from a fever which appeared general, 

 scared off some of the settlers who thought the locality to 

 be unhealthy. 



George Martin built the second mill during this year, 

 farther down the creek. There was a little further settle- 

 ment before 1821, when Seth Peirce opened the road which 

 still bears his name. This road, commencing on the Can- 

 isteo River, was cut through the heavy timber south in as 

 direct a course as possible, passing through an unbroken 

 forest to the valley where now is Woodhull village, continu- 

 ing south to near the Pennsylvania line. The object of 

 this road appears to have been to induce settlement, and 

 was in a slight degree successful. . Mr. Peirce received from 

 the Pulteney ofiice some lands near the south end of the 

 road, laid out a four corners, and built three or four log 

 houses. He also chopped over 30 or 40 acres of land, but 

 never moved there. Peter Smith, who helped make the 

 road, his wife cooking for the hands, was induced to remain 

 for a while at the opening, but it was finally abandoned. 

 Wm. Wildrich and William H. Sly now own the fine farms 

 upon which this first effort at settlement proved a failure. 



Micajah Sherwood, father of the late Hon. Henry Sher- 

 wood, of Corning, Hiram Sherwood, of Jasper, and Wm. 

 M. Sherwood, of Woodhull, made the first opening on 

 this road south of Woodhull, a mile and a half from the 

 village, in 1821, building his first house upon a large hem- 

 lock which he felled across the hill. His second or per- 

 manent house still stands above the road near the watering- 

 trough, its heavy door and little old-fashioned windows 

 looking forth from beneath the broad, old-fashioned open 

 "stoop," over which projects at least a third of the roof of 

 the house. Here the old pioneer died, in 1843. John 

 Stone and Hugh Boyd opened farms adjoining, south, in 

 1822, and soon after, others, from Pulteney, settling south 

 and southeast, gave the locality the name of Pulteney Hill. 



