Rose neightborhood sketches, Wayne County, New York; with glimpses of the adjacent towns: Butler, Wolcott, Huron, Sodus, Lyons and Savannah
Roe, Alfred S. (Alfred Seelye), 1844-1917
wnw^wV.sS^^^' 'W^ V'^i'i |sk t.l^ill, \ I 1 iW t 'I r-F. irm <yi''''' 1 ( ) ,,i -^J J;<| CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE F 129R85''r|9 ""'"""" """"' ''°*»iiiV™fliiimiiii^»?i'' sl^^'ches, Wayne Count olln 3 1924 028 825 573 Overs Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028825573 o M o s ;? & o 1-1 « M w w o o P5 o !2i H ►J o p o ffl -A '^ H iJ O O H CO ROSE I f './ (lY Neighborhood Sketches, WAYNE COUNTY, NEW YORK; WITH GLIMPSES OF THE ADJACENT TOWNS: BUTLER, WOLCOTT, HURON, SODUS, LYONS AND SAVANNAH. BY ALFRED S. ROE, A Native of Rose. ' What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." Published by the Authqr, worcester, mass. 1893. Copyright, 1893, By Alfred S. Rob. PREFACE. This volume represents summer vacation work f o ancestors who were among the very first to redef wilderness, I cannot remember the time when the st and hardship was not heard. Grandparents and g] my childish ears with anecdote and incident, so thai on, it seemed fitting to give the narrative a more pei of mere legend and tradition. This was the promf Clyde Times, in 1886, the first of the series, taking 7. When that was ended, friends and relatives in a "You must tell the story of Nos. 5 and 6 also." lowed in successive issues of the Times. In this a made. When they were finished, the idea of going began to take shape, and the eventual visitation of e the result. Having gone through the more or less newspaper ^erial, and having been read by many, t of country, I was told that the matter deserved the '. Obedient to such advice, the book was projected, an ing data for these pages, I have walked and ridden at in and about the town. Were I to include the distf ing Eose, from my Massachusetts home, and in visi IV ROSE NEIGHBOEHOOD SKETCHES. county, been the unit of political organization in this state, the people throughout Eose had been better acquainted with each other. The youth reared in District No. 7 was wont to have in mind, as terrw incognitm, such sections as " Over East in Butler," meaning the land beyond the Loveless range of hills ; " North of "Wolcott " was to him as remote as was Gaul to the ancient Eomans ; " "West of the Valley," for all reachable pur- poses, might as well have been west of the Eocky Mountains ; while ' ' South of Clyde ' ' meant a region as unknown as is the Antarctic continent to the navigator. Fortunately, common church relations brought the most of the people together, as a rule, once a week, though every one of the neighboring towns has claimed, from the very beginning, some Eose citi- zens as church members. Then, too, the acquaintance of residents on the borders of school districts has prevented absolute crystallization and com- plete non-intercourse. Spelling schools, husking and paring bees, brought the young people of a wider area than one school district into intimate acquaintance, an intimacy that frequently ripened into matrimony. In fact, intermarriage in Eose has been so extensive, that were every family, resident in town for thirty-five years, to be represented by a ring, while the ring on the eastern side would not be very near that over on the Lyons border, yet were these to be interlocked in marriage, the taking up of one would involve the whole number. The truth of this statement can be easily ascertained by any one who chooses to follow out the marriages given in this book. As the school district, in its political and social relations, comes nearer than the N. Y. town to the principle of self-government and to intimate acquaint- ance, I have made that the unit in my story. The dates at the head of each chapter tell when the matter appeared in the Clyde Times. To com- prehend fully the time involved, the reader must have the sliding temporal scale in mind. All changes, since the first writing, are indicated by paren- theses. In making the book I have had to leave out much. It has been a choice of materials. Anecdote and incident that would add a fourth to the volume, have been elided. The genealogical data have been given in passing rather than in separate chapters. I have aimed to make the narrative one of to-day, a series of events now passing, rather than one of yesterday, all in the buried past. The story is told with the heartiest good-will towards everybody. Hav- ing no axes to grind, nor grudge to pay, I have made the book, possibly unduly Tiloseate, but this is a matter for each reader to settle with himself. If some families are given more in detail than others, it is because said data were more easily forthcoming. When facts were given, I have aimed to use them. In embellishing the volume with illustrations, I have, as a rule, abstained from the use of pictures of people now living, save in the case of my own family and in that of town oflicers. The most of the pic- KOSE NBIGHBOEHOOD SKETCHES. V tures of individuals, have been secured with great difficulty, and many- have had to be copied before going to the engraver. Obviously, the re- sults are not the best pictures in the world, but they do serve to show us how the first settlers looked. Eose abounds in scenery worthy the painter's brush, and my camera was used in many places that are not shown in these pages, simply because the sun and the plates did not respond to my efforts. In other words, the negatives were not good. This book should not go forth without rendering thanks to all those wha have aided in its preparation. As every one who has written a letter or answered a question has thus contributed, I hereby thank each and all, not only for helping me, but for their zeal and affection for the township, which is or has been home. As these pages are read, I hope the thought will be constantly in mind that the silent sleepers in our ceme- teries fought a good fight, that we of to-day might enjoy what they suf- fered for. Let us not forget the first settlers who, .in house and field, toiled unceasingly that the comforts of civilization might follow. Hoping that the story of Eose, thus told, may bind iis yet more closely to the scenes of our childhood, and that our common regard for each other may hereby be intensified, this volume is submitted to any and all who care for the town in which they reside, or which was formerly their home. ALPEED S. EOB. WOECBSTEK, Mass., Nov. 20, 1893. CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. Page 21. Wm. Sherman died in Butler, and his son, Henry, was in tlie 111th Inf. Page 28. The Maxtin Saxton place is now owned and occupied by Robert Weeks. Page 47. Wm. Hallett was married Sept. 13, 1893, to Miss Ida Bovee, of Wolcott. Page 52. For Sally Bump, read Bundy. Page 57. Mrs. Ida (McKoon) Wickwire died Sept. 22, 1893. Ernest O. Seelye and family have returned from Dakota to the home fM-m. Page 62. For Mary Champion, read Champney. Page 67. Add to Oaks family, Charles O. Oaks, Jr., of North Rose. Page 113. John W. Vanderburgh is living in Des Moines, Iowa. Page 115. The farm house of Geo. Catchpole was burned Oct 19, 1893. Page 185. Mr. Jeffers Dodds sold his farm in October, '93, to Mr. Loren Lane^, formerly of Rose. Page 195. For Alonzo, read Lorenzo Snow. Page 203. Mr. Geo. H. Green died Sept. 26, 1893. Page 311. For Mrs. John, read Mrs. Joseph Phillips. Page 391. Add John Sherman, Feb. 6, 1864; H, 111th Inf.; Sept. 10, 1864. THE TOWN OF ROSE. LooATiON.-jThis town is about three miles north of the village of Clyde, a station on the N. Y. Central E. E., midway between Syracuse and Eochester. It is about eight mile's south of Lake Ontario, and is east of the middle line of Wayne Co. Geology and Topogeaphy. — In this town are extensive ledges of lime- stone that have been worked both for building and burning purposes. At Glenmark, the ledge outcropping produces a very interesting waterfall, shown in the illustrations. Here, too, may be found fossils peculiar to the Clinton group of the Niagara period, to which group and period the town geologically belongs. Among the cobble stones, or hard head rocks, with which a large part of the surface is covered, may be found many conglom- erate shell petrifactions. They are water worn, but, as a rule, show their composition excellently. Obviously they came here by the same agency which produced our many ranges of hills, viz., the ice marcher movement. The late George S. Seelye found several specimens of orthoceratidce, which showed admirably both the fossil and the cast. Farmers' boys have turned up these specimens for years, exciting usually no further ^remarks than " I wonder what they are." There is not a stone wall in the town which has not some of these fossils, remnants of a Paleozoic age, doing the ignominious service of field defending instead of gracing a college cabinet. The hills of Wayne have formed the theme of poet and of scientist. The late Dr. Lawrence Johnson, of New York City, himself a native of Sa- vannah, found in them a never ceasing source of interest and enjoyment. Upon them he prepared a valuable monograph, " The Parallel Drift Hills of Western New York," read before the New York Academy of Science, Jan. 9, 1882. In this, he shows that our long ranges were formed under the immense glaciers that once overspread this section, naturally taking the direction of the ice stream. When the ice disappeared the hills were saved from denudation by the resulting water, which formed a vastly greater Ontario. He says, " This lake undoubtedly discharged its waters southward through the valleys in which lie the small lakes of the moun- tain ridge. During this period the parallel drift hills were in deep water, and hence beyond the reach of denuding agencies, though they doubtless received the debris of melting icebergs, particularly the large boulders of crystalline rocks which here and there dot the surface, but are not now present in the boulder clay." The traveler along the line of the N. Y. Central E. R. cannot help noticing these elevations, pronounced and of a ROSE NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES. VU singular regularity. If at all given to surface observation, he cannot readily forget the impression. Wayne, and to some extent Cayuga county, are noteworthy for their ridges. They are nowhere mountainous nor ex- actly precipitous, save, possibly, their northern terminations, which are steeper than elsewhere. All of them are cultivated, but it would doubt- less be much better were the western sides allowed to grow up to woods. The eastern slopes invite the early sun and fairly laugh in wonderful fertility. To the farmer no finer sight can be had than the fields along these morning sides, for instance, those of William S. Hunt, lately Colonel Briggs', orthoseof the JohnB. Eoe and Roswell Matsh farms. Of these hills, Eose has twelve well defined illustrations, viz., south from the Delos Seelye farm ; that extending into Galen from the southeast part of the town and the one immediately west ; then there are two ranges, including much of the old Finch and Benjamin farms ; leading north, from a point back of William H. Griswold's farm, is a ridge which, to some extent, shuts off the view of that forming the western boundary of the Town district ; still further to the north is the high hill, the highest in town, one hundred and forty feet, back of the Eoseview or Sherman Brothers' farm ; immediately to the westward is the long range leading down to the Valley ; southwest of the village is found, first, the hill on which once dwelt the Drowns, how owned largely by George Milem ; west of the Valley, on the Jeffers road, is the hill on whose summit lived the Dodds and Glen families, while last of all, looking off towards Lyons, is the range long held by the Ways, Worden and Weeks people. In the southeast the drainage is in that direction, reaching finally the Montezuma marshes and Seneca river. In the southwest, water flows toward Clyde river ; in the northwest, through Mudge's creek, the flow is into East bay, while west of the Mirick or Closs hills, the water finds its way into Great Sodus bay. The surface, for many square miles north- ward from Clyde, is as level as a tennis court, and until the Sodus canal was undertaken, there seemed to be very little inducement for water to flow in any direction. Soil and Products. — Men who have wandered far have returned to Wayne county with the reflection that no part of the country can produce, in abundance, a greater variety of objects which contribute to the good of mankind than Wayne. Fruits, vegetables and grain in almost limitless kinds and quantities are here produced from tree, bush and soil. The latter is a gravelly loam, mingled with clay in places, and in the swamps the blackest of mud abounds. At any rate, this is true of Eose, for in the county no township more thoroughly merits the application of the intro- ductory remark than this. The early settlers found immense trees — beach, maple and hemlock, with ash, cedar and tamarack in the swamps. The legend still lingers of a buttonwood or sycamore, near Wayne Centre, so large that a section of it was used as a dwelling house after it had fallen T^m ROSE NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES. down and proven to be hollow. In fact, one of the interesting stories of ithe late Simeon I. Barrett was that of putting up at the Buttonwood tavern •early in the century. The late Hiram Church of Wolcott said that in 1808 three families, numbering fourteen people, young and old, put up at this same inn for the night and were well entertained. Osgood Church, his father, was one of the guests. He also says this was on one of the Jeffere iarms. Maple trees furnished a large part of the sugar used by the first settlers ; beach, hewed and mortised, formed framework for buildings that ■yield to no destroyer save fire, while hemlock afforded material for tan- ning, and siding for house and barn. The swamps were dark, luxuriant and almost impassable. In fact, as late as the forties my father once wan- dered several hours in the tamarack swamp, now the Osgood onion fields, thinking to make a short cut to the Valley, only to emerge, at last, near the point of entrance, viz., near where Stephen Chapin now resides. When the late Linus Osgood discovered the onion-raising qualities of this black, "vegetable mold, he added scores of dollars per acre to its valuation. Some- thing in soil and atmosphere has made this county the peculiar home of peppermint. Rose dwellers remember how rank it grew by the springs in •early days, and how it was gathered and hung up for winter's use. Early in the century, says Anson Titus, Phelps' historian, a certain Andrew Burnett of Deerfield, Mass., who had gathered mint along the streams of his native state, came west in the effort to dispose of his distilled product. He found the plant in greater abundance here than elsewhere, and so set- tled, following his vocation. The farmers, quick to discern a good thing, began to cultivate, and from Lyons the growing eventually worked into Eose. Latterly, the raising and evaporating of blackcap raspberries has proved a paying industry, experience having taught Eose farmers that they cannot compete with the western wheat growers. After all, probably, the crop that promises most to the careful husbandman in Eose is that which comes from his apple orchard. Barreled green or in a dried condition, this fruit is as necessary as wheat, and the world must have it. No part of the country raises more to the tree or better in quality. Each year will see additional orchards planted, till, in a sense, the town will return to woodland. The census data in this volume show what have been raised • already '' Bound about them orchards sweep Apple and peach tree, fruited deep." Indians and Eelios.— It is probable that the territory included in our town once formed a part of the Cayugas' possessions. StiU it was on the border of the Senecas' lands, and may have been an almost neutral section, thus accounting for the limited finds of relics. While in some parts of the country arrow-heads and hatchets are found in abundance, any such memento is rare in Eose. Eelics in the possession of George W. Aldrich in North Eose, and of Abner Osborn, in the Valley, are noteworthy examples. ROSE NBIGHBOEHOOD SKETCHES. IX Mr. L. H. Clark in his Military History narrates the finding of a piece of a cannon on the old Collins farm, in the Valley, about fifty years since. Chauncey B. Collins, now living in Clyde, was his informant, and he describes the relic as eighteen or twenty inches in length, having a bore of about two inches. The place of finding was north of Wolcott street. Unfortunately the item was lost, else what an interesting beginning it would make for a Rose museum. A little further north, on what is now Fisher land, then that of Thaddeus Collins, Jr., was found an old axe, of shape and make indicating French origin ; near by also was found a bit of ancient pottery. Arrow-heads have been found along the ridge where now lies the road north from the Valley. These facts to Mr. Clark suggest the existence, years since, of a line of forts or fur trading posts follow- ing the old Indian trail which led from Crusoe lake along Marsh creek into the plain west of the Valley and so to Sodus bay. Pertinent to the foregoing is the finding in 1889 by Dwight Flint, just over the Eose line, at the head of Sodus bay, of a large quantity of lead and bullets. Though Mr. L. H. Clark, H. H. Wheeler of Butler and Mr. D. M. De Long of Eose all took part in discussing the how and when the material came where it was found, it does not seem that the supposition is disproven that the bul- lets may have had to do with early times. In 1891, July 5, Mr. Stephen B. Kellogg found in his corn field, on the old Aaron Shepard farm, an exceedingly well-preserved silver coin of the value of an old shilling piece, having this inscription: "Ferdinandus VI., U. G. Hispaniarum Eex. 1751." Older far than the settlement, it may have been lost by some early explorer, French or English, passing through these parts from one post to another. Of course it is barely possible that a settler may have possessed and lost. At any rate, the coin remains. Original Ownership. — The early charters of Massachusetts and Con- necticut included all the land between certain parallels from the Atlantic to the Pacific. At the same time. New York, through her charter, held all now included within her borders. Accordingly, New York possessed what two other states claimed. This was especially true as to Massachu- setts. Before the Eevolution it is supposed that the Bay State agreed to New York holding sway over all that territory between the boundary of the two states and the extreme western line of settlements made before the War. After the War the dispute was reopened, both states claiming juris- diction over western New York. Instead, however, of appealing to arms, as the Michigan and Ohio people did in the thirties, these parties, with whom the memory of battles against a common foe was still fresh, left their <3ase in the hands of commissioners, who met in Hartford, Conn., Dec. 16, 1786. These officers were Oliver Wolcott, Eichard Butler and Arthur Lee, all being men revered in American history. They confirmed the sovereignty of New York over all the territory in dispute, but to Massachusetts was conceded the preemption right of the soil from the native Indians of all X EOSB NEIGHBORHOOD SKBTOHEB. land lying in the state west of a line drawn due north to Lake Ontario, from a point in the north Pennsylvania line eighty-two miles west of the northeast corner of that state, excepting a territory, one mile in ^idth, the whole length of the Niagara river. Also, they ceded to Massachusetts a tract equal to ten townships, each six miles square, between the Owego and Chenango rivers. In 1800 an amicable agreement was effected with Connecticut, whereby the latter state received from the general government lands west of New York, and thereupon relinquished all claims upon the future Empire State. Massachusetts, then, had to secure a title from the Six Nations, whose hunting grounds and homes she had acquired from New York. There were sharpers in those days as well as later, and efforts to negotiate with the natives were frequently frustrated by the nefarious advice of these com- panies of men, who had united to rob the Indian and to cheat the white man. In 1787 Massachusetts contracted all her claims to the land west of the Pennsylvania line, about 6,000,000 acres in all, to Messrs. Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham for $100,000, to be paid in three installments. Here is the origin of the famous Phelps and Gorham purchase. Canan- daigua was the headquarters of the new project, and here in July, 1788, was effected a treaty with the Indians, prominent among whom was the noted Red Jacket. After opening this great tract to settlers, the purchasers in 1790 sold all remaining lands to Mr. Eobert Morris, a man of great wealth, a resident of Philadelphia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He it was who loaned to the government, in its distress, more than a million dollars, yet late in life he lost his fortune and spent some time in a debtor's cell. The price paid by Mr. Morris was about eight pence per acre, but he soon turned his contract over to a syndicate of English gentle- men, viz., Sir William Pulteney, who held nine-twelfths ; John Hornby, two-twelfths, and Patrick Colquhoun, the remainder. The chief capitalist was the first named. Hornby was a retired East Indiaman, having been governor of Bombay. He also was a capitalist. Colquhoun was a states- man and philanthropist. The London agent effecting this sale was William Temple Franklin, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin. They paid £75,000 for the lands, and passed their management over into the hands of Captain Charles Williamson, who had been a British officer during the War, but who became thoroughly imbued with the American spirit, and managed the business of his principals with great success. At that time foreigners could not hold landed interests in this country, hence the vesting of titles in Williamson, who took the oath of allegiance in 1792. He was a native of Balgray, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and to that country he retired when through with his labors in America. The property was known as the Pulteney estate, with land offices in Geneva and Bath. However, the territory included in Bose did not fall into this allotment. Its connection therewith came about thus : When the preemption line Hon. Robert S. Rose. ROSE NEIGHBOEHOOD SKETCHES. xi was run out it touched Lake Ontario some distance further west than was expected, but no complaint was made, till some years later it was discov- ered that an apparently intended deflection had been made to the west, far south of Geneva. To obviate this fault a new line was run, that known to-day reaching the bay at Briscoe's cove instead of three miles west, as run at first. Again, to compensate Eevolutionary soldiers for their serv- ices, New York had promised a large tract of land along her western border, or near the preempted Phelps and Gorham purchase. The northwest township in this allotment contained more land than some later counties. Through Eomulus, Washington, Junius and Wolcott, we come finally to Bose; but in the early assignments it was found that the state had disposed of land included in the Gore that triangular strip having its acute angle near the Chemung river, its base Lake Ontario and its sides the old and the new preemption lines. To compensate, there was made over to the Pulteney estate all the land now embraced in the town of Huron ; in Wol- cott a strip on the west side, about two miles in width, the same boundary line extending through Butler, touching Savannah near the residence of H. H. Wheeler, Esq., and all of Rose save three lines of lots extending across the town and into Butler to the above-named line, said lots being known as Annin's gore, though they really make a rectangle. In other words, these compensating lands extended from Annin's gore northward, taking certain portions of Eose, Butler, Wolcott and all of Huron. This was known as Williamson's patent; Early in the century an extensive purchase was made by Messrs. Eose and Nicholas of Geneva. This land, 4,000 acres in extent, lay on both sides of the Clyde and Valley road from Annin's gore, or near the farm house of William H. Griswold, to within three-quarters of a mile of the north line of the town, or to the northern boundaries of the Lyman and Co veil districts. There was a western ell included between a line drawn from a point just north of Isaac Campbell's house and the northern line, a little beyond the home of Mrs. Charity Stearns, and both running to within less than a mile of the western limits of Eose, or a trifle west of where the widow Messenger now resides. The Eose and Nicholas purchase suggests certain names that should have mention here. Eobert S. Eose and John Nicholas were Virginians by birth, and through marriage, brothers-in-law. Nicholas came of an old Virginian family, born Jan. 19, 1764, in Williamsburg, Westmoreland county, and was elected to the 3d, 4th, 5th and 6th Congresses from that state. After settling in Geneva, in 1802, he became prominent in all local matters, devoting himself largely to agriculture. In 1806-7-8-9 he was a member of the State Senate. He was presiding judge of the Ontario county court. He died Dec. 31, 1819. Eobert Selden Eose was born in Henrico county in 1772. In coming to Geneva he made very extensive investments on the east side of Seneca XH EOSE NEIGHBOEHOOD SKETCHES. lake. Both families brought slaves with them from the Old Dominion. Mr. Boss's wife was a Lawson. He was a member of the New York Assembly in 1811, '20, '21, and was in Congress during the sessions of the 18th, 19th and 21st Congresses. He died suddenly, while about to get into a sleigh, in the village of Waterloo, Nov. 24, 1835. He had long been apprehensive of a sudden death and had kept his affairs arranged for such an end. As his picture amply shows, he was a man to be revered and honored. Said a little girl, when looking at it, " How much he looks like George Washington. ' ' His extensive possessions, in the very heart of Eose, secured for the township his family name. Descendants of both of these gentlemen are prominent citizens of Geneva. Titles and Agents. — Titles to farips in Eose ran from the Williamson patent through the Geneva agents to those purchasing. It was in 1790 that Morris sold to the syndicate. Captain Williamson managed the affairs of the estate till 1801, when, worn out with his arduous duties, he surrendered his position to Eobert Troup, then of New York City. He visiteA the section repeatedly till 1814, when he became a resident of Gen- eva. He died in 1832 at the age of 74 years. Troupsburg, in Steuben county, was named for him, and an old map, 1838, gives Sodus Point as Troup- ville. He was a distinguished soldier during the Eevolution. Williamson returned to Britain and there died in 1808. As sub-agents were John Johnston, John Heslop and Eobert Scott, till we come to Joseph Fellows, who was by far the most important factor in these early sales. Many local agents were employed, and the first settlers in those parts transacted their business with Osgood Church of Wolcott. Associated with Mr. Fellows for some years was an active little Scotchman by the name of Andrew McNab, and he was accustomed to go about the towns looking after pay- ments, etc. "You won't drive me off," said a delinquent to him on one of these visits. " Oh, no," was the ready answer; " the weeds and briers will do that soon enough." He frequently remained in Wolcott a week or two, keeping in sight the interests of those whom he served. By the side of an old church in Geneva I find this inscription, which tells about all that is now to be had about him : "Andrew McNab, a native of Scotland, died at Geneva, Oct. 26, 1829, aged 46 years." In 1862 Mr. Fellows asso- ciated with himself Mr. Edward Kingsland of Geneva, and in 1871 Mr. F. retired, leaving the latter in care of what is left of the former great interests. From a grand-nephew of Mr. Fellows, H. C. Heermans, I am enabled to present the following facts: "Joseph Fellows was born at Eedditch, Worcestershire, England, July 2, 1782. In September, 1795, his father and family, then consisting of his wife and seven children, of whom Joseph was the oldest, emigrated to America. After a brief stop in New York he pushed on to Luzerne county, Pa., where Scranton is now, leaving Joseph in New York to study law with Isaac L. Kip, the indenture being made June 24, 1796. He served his time faithfully and received his cer- Joseph Fellows, Esq. KOBE NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES. XIU tificate July 2, 1803. In his work for Mr. Kip he came in contact with Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and other distinguished lawyers ol the day. Here he met Colonel Robert Troup, and at the age of twenty-one was offered a situation at the salary of $600 per year, which he accepted instead of entering his profession. Subsequently, as stated, he became in 1832 principal in the management of the vast property of the Pulteney estate. When 89 years old he gave up the trust. In 1873, April 29th, he died in Corning, Steuben county, N. Y. In his own affairs, he began by saving a portion of his scanty earnings, even in his apprenticeship days. In his agency work his salary was increased from time to time, till on succeeding to the full direction he received $5,500 per year. This income during a long life, with his habits of economy, afforded a continued surplus, which, being invested in lands and otherwise, made him a millionaire. In his agency his strong point was his strict, unswerving honesty. With millions of money passing through his hands, there was no effort on his part to make money at the expense of his employers. While not a member, Mr. Fellows was a liberal supporter of the Episcopal Church." Stjeveys. — Colonel Hugh Maxwell, who has been called the "hero of Bunker Hill," superintended the first survey of the Phelps and Gorham purchase, beginning in July, 1788, and completing the same in the next year. To accommodate certain parties who had settled at Geneva, the subordinates of Maxwell deflected their north and south line so far to the west that Geneva was left out. In 1791-92 Adam Hoops directed another survey, which relocated the preemption line, leaving it as it is today. The land included between the two lines amounted to about 84,000 acres. Still, all of this was west of the Williamson patent, in which Eose was included. These lands were not opened for actual sale till (Hiram Church says) June 16, 1808. As to the surveys of this tract, I am indebt- ed for the following data to John C. Bishop, of Lyons, though a native of Bose. Valentine Brothers began his surveys from the vicinity of Sodus bay, where, at Port Glasgow, the Helms had located, being the first settlers in those parts, they coming a little before the close of the last century. He made his surveys to suit the settlers who were already on the grounds, thus laying out 17 lots, and the beginning of the numbering at this point is thus accounted for. Mr. Bishop says, " Then proceeding easterly he laid out lots 18, etc., following the old ' Sloop Landing ' road and numbering on each side till he put in the large lot. No. 50, in the east bound of the district (where is now the village of Wolcott) ; thence south along the east line of the tract till he reached the southeast corner, having by this time scored 63 lots, with very little regularity as to sizes, shapes or positions. So anxious were the parties to seU they would lay out a lot anywhere, of any size or shape wanted, and the numbering was continued in the order of date. I think more than thirty years elapsed between the beginning and end. This work was done by Valentine Brothers, George XIV KOBE NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES. Matthewson, John M. Gillespie, Blias E. Cook and others." The Eose and Nicholas purchase, of 4,000 acres, was sub-divided by the owners to suit circumstances. As to Annin's gore, the strip in the south part of the town, Mr. Bishop says: " The surveyor general, Geddes^ in an attempt- ed 'smart trick,' caused a map to be made, allotting the original town of Galen. It was submitted to the Legislature and approved, and an appro- priation made to pay for the labor, the representation before the Legis- lature being that the work had already been performed, while the fact was, only a few base lines had been surveyed. The next summer Joseph Annin and others were sent to survey the tract according to the map. They found the territory larger than the map, both ways. As they could not (very well) move Seneca river, they changed the numbers and filled out the Gore on the west, making a very long lot for No. 1, between the map as constructed and the new preemption line as it really existed. On the north, the overplus strip was known as Annin's gore. The next year Annin surveyed it into lots as laid down in the map. Joseph Annin, together with Humphrey Howland and others, were in the employ of the state, under the direction of the surveyor general, for several years. They laid out a large part of the military tract, and, so far as I know, the whole of it." This Joseph Annin was a conspicuous figure in Cayuga county ; from 1803 to 1806 he was a state senator, and in 1799 and 1800 was sheriff, in fact the first one in the county. His home was in Genoa. The account- ing for the peculiar western boundary of Galen and the queer parallelogram in the south part of Eose is exceedingly interesting. Eron N. Thomas, in his Eose sketch furnished to Everts' " History of Wayne County," makes the exact dimensions of the town to be six and one-half miles east and west by five and one-quarter miles north and south, and the area to be 21,849f acres. It should be stated that Mr. Hiram Church, in his valuable articles on the old town of Wolcott, contributed to the Lake Shore News, several years since, said that the surveys and allotments were made in 1805-6 by John Smith, to whose maps early deeds make frequent reference. Settlements. — Exactly when the first settler came, or who he was, will never be clearly known. No record, however, is had of any dwellers before Alpheus Harmon and Lot Stewart, who came in 1805. Very likely Caleb Melvin came at very nearly the same time, to a point south of the Valley. In those days the spirit of unrest was, if possible, more rife than it is to-day. Besides, for several years it was difficult to secure perfect land titles. Hence the migrant halted for a brief time, and if a breath of trouble arose, hastened toward the ever inviting west. Inevitably the first comers were squatters. They built wherever they found a good loca- tion, naturally selecting a spot by the side of a spring. When surveys were made, some early comers bought, others moved on. The very earliest data at hand are those furnished by the late Hiram Church, from his EOSE NEIGHBOEHOOD SKETCHES. XV father's book. Osgood Church's record gives 117 contracts. Of these, those falling within our bounds were as follows : AlpheusHaxmon lot 169, 113 A acres, at $3.60, June 21, 1808; now the Chester Mlmwood farm. Also, same date, lot 170, 114^ acres, at $3.50; now the George Steward or Jones place. - ^ Pendar Marsh, lot 205, 50 acres, at $4.00, Jan. 11, 1811; the John B. Roe farm. Epaphras Wolcott, lot 160, lOOft acres, at $4.00, Jan. 30, 1811; the Brockway and Seth Shepard. lot 187, 40 acres, at $4.00, April 1, 1811; now Hopping and Collins. Daniel Lounsberry, lot 206, 106A acres, at $4.00, April 3, 1811; now Chatterson. McKoon and Lockwood. > jt , , , Jonathan Wilson, lot 140 (south half), 50 acres, at $4.00, April 3, 1811; Eustace Henderson place. ^ r , , John Wade, lot 185, 107| acres, at $4.00, April 16, 1811; now Joel Lee. Asa and Silas Town, lots 212 and 213, 160 acres, at $4.00, Nov. 11, 1811; now Desmond and Town. < > i i John Bums, lot 153, 108 A acres, at $4.25, April 8, 1812; the Jonathan Briggs farm, in part. ^^ Abram Palmer, lot 140, 102 acres, at $4.00, April 22, 1812; now Lovejoy and Henderson. Thomas Avery, lot 154, 103 acres, at $4.25, May 4, 1812; in part the farm of Charles Harper. Demarkus Holmes, lot 187, 101^ acres, at $4.32, June 25, 1812; long the Joseph Seelye farm. 7 , ^ i- Nodadiah Gillett, lot 132, 101 acres, at $4.00, Oct. 2, 1812; now Barrick and York farms. EU Wheeler, lot 188, 99,i„ acres, at $4.00, Nov. 13, 1812; now Hopping and Hendricks. Jacob Ward, lot 140 (in part), 60 acres, at $4.25, Nov. 12, 1812; possibly Buchanan farm, in part. Elijah How, lot 167 (east side), 50 acres, at $4.00, Nov. 18, 1812; the Samuel Osborn place. Jonathan Wilson, lot 161 (south end), 31 acres, at $4.25, Dec. 29, 1812; Lawson Munsell farm. Asahel Gillett, lot 155, 50 acres, at $4.26, Mar. 10, 1813; Avery H. Gillett farm. ThaddeuB Collins, 1st, lot 141, 99 acres, at $3.50, Oct. 23, 1809; farms of J. S. Salisbury and E. Jones, in Butler. After 1813 the work of sub-agents ceased, and thereafter all business was done with the main oflBce in Geneva, which became the Jerusalem up to which the early settler had to make his yearly pilgrimages ; frequently the road was a via dolorosa. The books of the Geneva business are not at present in accessible form, so that a continuation of facts like the fore- going is impossible. Much of the land was bought on speculation, and for longer or shorter periods was held by men who never came to these parts. EoADS, Etc. — It was not until 1810 that regular surveys were made. Till that time roads ran anywhere, at least they found the settler, or he made them in going from his home to that of his neighbor. In time it be- came desirable to straighten these paths and to make them passable at all seasons of the year, hence their official location. Osgood Church's old record book gives the first Eose road as that leading east from Stewart's corners, and the date is May 10, 1810 ; next is that north from Clyde to the Valley and Stewart's, June 29, 1810 ; from Port Glasgow to the Valley, March 20, 1811 ; north from the corners, at George Eodwell's, to Stewart's, May 11, 1811 ; east from Shear's corners, Dec. 26, 1812 ; XVI ROSE NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES. from Glenmark to North Eose, April 1, 1814. Mr. Church was himself the surveyor. This ends Mr. Church's record, and the burning of Wolcott's first data precludes further early facts in this direction. To-day the roads are as good as the average in western New York. Perhaps that from the Valley to Clyde is much better, succeeding the plank road, whose tolls necessitated considerable care on the part of the stockholders. It had a good beginning and the dwellers upon it have kept it very well. The ma- terial for making the roads of Eose well-nigh perfect is yet lying, more or less a nuisance, in the fields of the town, in the shape of cobble stones, so annoying to tillage ; but when the stone crusher has been purchased, and the principles of McAdam are better understood, Eose may have thorough- fares that will be a pride and a delight. Our town is among the "might-have-beens" in some respects. As early as 1841, General William H. Adams, of Clyde, secured a charter for a canal to extend from that village to Sodus bay, and its location was to be very near the Valley. Everybody knows "Adams' ditch," and it is fre- quently referred to in the following pages. In 1827 a preliminary survey was made, but Oswego was clamoring for connection with Syracuse and, through superior wealth, won. General Adams' devotion to this dream of his lifetime was touching. What he wrote upon the subject would fill volumes. His letters are clear, earnest and pointed. Possibly, some day, the wheels of time will develop the fact that he was not altogether a dreamer. Joseph Fellows was one of the promoters of his scheme. Then there was the project for a Pennsylvania and Sodus bay E. E. The charter was granted in 1850, and there were numerous share takers in Eose, the matter reaching its climax in 1870. In 1853 was printed the engineer's report, and from it the following words are taken: "Starting from Port Glasgow the railroad was to foUow the margin of the bay, or nearly so, till it came near the town line. Thence it was to pursue a little more westerly course, till it neared the Valley, which it was to pass, only 800 feet west of the main street. Its course southward is nearly direct, crossing the Clyde and Lyons highway, the Erie canal and then turns and runs parallel with the Central E. E. to Glasgow street." Eron N. Thomas was treasurer and a Eose director. The others from this town were Henry Graham and Chauncey B. Collins. William H. Lyon, of New York, was also a director. There is extant a letter from Joseph Fellows, in which he pleads the infirmities of age for not embarking in the enterprise. However, what water and steam have failed to do, there is little doubt that electricity will yet accomplish. His reputation as a prophet would not be greatly imperiled who should predict that the year 1900 will see a line of electric roads connecting Clyde and the Valley ; thence diverging, one part will extend to Wolcott and beyond, while the other will pass through North Eose, Port Glasgow, and will terminate at the Lake. ROSE NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES. SCHOOL DISTEICT NO. 7. Oct. 21— Dec. 2, 1886. 