The pioneers of Unadilla village, 1784-1840

by Francis W. Halsey; Gaius Leonard Halsey

FOOTNOTES

[1] The date of Mr. Sands’s birth is incorrectly given on page 126. It should be Feb. 19, 1813—not 1812.

[2] Of events in this valley before and during the Revolution, the author has written in detail in the volume entitled “The Old New York Frontier: Its Wars with Indians and Tories, its Missionary Schools, Pioneers and Land Titles, 1616-1800,” published in the spring of 1901 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Many authorities for the information contained in the present volume will be found in the Bibliography appended to “The Old New York Frontier.” Others are indicated here in the text.

It is proper to explain that the contents of this volume originally formed a part of the manuscript of “The Old New York Frontier.” In seeking a publisher for that work, with a view to its general sale through the book trade, the author decided to reserve these village chapters for publication in their present form, their interest being local rather than general.

[3] The information on which this is based was supplied in 1892 by Mr. Lee B. Cruttenden, County Clerk of Otsego, who took much trouble in making the investigations that were necessary.

[4] The original articles of agreement are still in the possession of descendants of Mr. Hayes.

[5] The third of these houses occupied the site of the Owens, or Salmon G. Cone residence, destroyed by fire some twenty years ago.

[6] A third paper called the Unadilla Herald was started a few years later with William H. Hawley as editor. It lived about a year. Nearly ten years afterwards, or in 1855, the Unadilla Times made its appearance with a Scotchman from Schoharie for its editor. He was succeeded by E. S. Watson, and Mr. Watson, in 1857, by George B. Fellows, who made a longer stay, conducting the paper until the close of the Civil War, when followed in their turn George E. Beadle, Gilbert A. Dodge, A. J. Barlow, William H. Parsons, E. S. Little, Robert F. Sullivan, Benjamin P. Ripley and George D. Raitt.

[7] Another town named after Unadilla lies in Otoe County, Nebraska. It was laid out by men who formerly lived in the older town, the first house being erected there in 1872.

[8] Originally called Milfordville and changed to Oneonta in 1830. Early land papers spell the word Onahrichton. Richard Smith wrote it Onoyarenton.

[9] General Benjamin Hovey who settled in Oxford in 1790 and named the place after his native town in Massachusetts.

[10] As to the identity of this bacchanalian stream, it may be said that Solomon Martin and Dr. Huntington before 1800 had had licenses to sell liquor near Martin Brook, while Daniel Bissell’s hotel, the first in Unadilla, stood close to the creek that crosses Main Street near S. D. Bacon’s home. It seems probable that the latter stream is the one referred to.

[11] Of this famous highway the author has written in greater detail in “The Old New York Frontier.”

[12] The family to which Major Fellows belonged had interesting connection with the Revolution. A great uncle of his, John Fellows, served in the French and Indian war, was a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in 1775, and when news of the battle of Lexington reached his home in Sheffield commanded a regiment which departed the next morning for the scene of conflict. In 1773 he was one of the Berkshire committee appointed to take into consideration the grievances of America against England. The report they drew up declared that Americans were “entitled to all the privileges and liberties of native-born British subjects, including the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, liberty and property.” This interesting declaration is more than two years older than the one drawn up at the Mecklenburgh, North Carolina, which in turn is older than the immortal one drawn up by Thomas Jefferson in 1776.

[13] This word is of German origin. Binnen, meaning inner, has often been combined with gewasser, zee and other aqueous terms, as in the case of the Ulster County Binnewater and Great Binnewater. Binekill, or more properly Binnekill, means therefore an inner creek. The word could hardly have come from Connecticut. Perhaps it is ante-Revolutionary and was bestowed by some of the German settlers in the valley, who on Brant’s arrival fled to German Flatts and Æsopus. Daniel Bissell, however, who had interests at German Flatts, may have found the term applied to such a stream at that place and then adopted it himself.

[14] During the War of 1812, while going down the river with a raft of lumber with a man named Cooper, a Mason from Bainbridge, then called Jericho, George Crooker and Mr. Cooper were captured by the British and taken before Admiral Sir George Cockburn. Cooper ventured to give Cockburn the Masonic sign, hoping to secure release. Both men were discharged and returned home, attributing their good fortune to Mr. Cooper’s membership in the Masonic Order. In the following year Cockburn returned to England. Napoleon had just been overthrown at Waterloo and to Cockburn was assigned the duty of conveying the fallen Emperor into exile at St. Helena. He remained in St. Helena in charge of Napoleon as Governor of the island until the following summer. It seems proper to remark that Mr. Crocker’s friend in Jericho might have gone to St. Helena with his Masonic sign and helped Napoleon out of his difficulties.

[15] Printed in the Unadilla Times in August 1900.

[16] This was the tavern which Dr. Cone had erected on the present site of the Unadilla House.

[17] Robert Scott Musson in the Unadilla Times in November, 1892.

[18] Letter to the Unadilla Times in June, 1891.

[19] Perry P. Rogers, from whom much information regarding this neighborhood was obtained by the author many years ago.

[20] Mr. Birch died at his home north of the village in January. 1892. He was a stone mason and for several years was employed on the old Croton Aqueduct in New York city and on the Chenango Canal. He was one of the last survivors in this valley of those who had followed the river in the old rafting days.

[21] The name in England was originally written Sandys and is supposed to have been derived from a place in the Isle of Wight called Sande. Leaving Plymouth, Capt. Sands lived for a time in Taunton and then joined sixteen other persons in purchasing land on Block Island, where he lived until he died. During King Philips’s War he built a stone house of which use was made as a defense against the Indians. The place was twice plundered by the enemy. Three of his sons removed to the north shore of Long Island, purchasing a tract of land at the place now called Sands Point.

[22] The name Jericho came from the Vermont town of that name twelve miles east of Burlington and was bestowed upon the place by Vermont settlers.

[23] In 1863, Governor Seymour appointed Colonel North to represent the State in Washington in matters affecting soldiers who were sick and wounded in hospitals. While holding this place in 1864, during an exciting Presidential campaign, he was accused of defrauding soldiers of their votes. At the trial he was completely vindicated. Horace Greeley in the Tribune declared that this was “positive and unconditional.” On his return home, a reception and dinner were given to him by citizens of the village and in Albany similar honors were bestowed upon him by Judge Amasa J. Parker. His name was prominently mentioned by Democratic leaders as the candidate for Governor at the next election and he was much urged to accept it, but he positively declined to do so, and when offered the Comptrollership declined that also.

Colonel North was long in association with the leaders of the Democratic party in this state, being at one time Chairman of the Executive Committee. He came into close relations with Erastus Corning, Dean Richmond, Horatio Seymour, Sanford E. Church, Allen C. Beach, and John T. Hoffman. The party leaders often visited Unadilla to consult him, and on one memorable occasion Governor Seymour delivered a speech here which attracted several thousand people. His last official place was that of Canal Appraiser to which Governor Hoffman appointed him in 1870. He became president of the Board.

For nearly twenty years Colonel North was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Unadilla Academy and secured for it the endowment fund of $10,000. He built a reservoir on Kilkenny Hill and laid pipe down Clifton to Main Street where he set three hydrants giving fire protection to property within reach. The extensive system of village water works now existing was afterwards planned and built by his son Samuel S. North. For several years he was a director of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad and through his efforts the bill making a State appropriation which finally secured the road was signed by Governor Seymour. Under his influence a law was passed by which nearly all the stone sidewalks in the village were laid by residents who secured credit for the same on their highway taxes. Personally Colonel North was a man of marked distinction, with appearance and address such as would have gained attention in any society.

[24] Printed in the Unadilla Times in May, 1891.

[25] Earlier in the century the production of pot and pearl ashes had been a large industry. One acre of timber land would produce about two tons of potash.

[26] Mr. Beardsley’s home was in Cherry Valley. He served several terms as Member of Assembly and State Senator, and at one time presided over the Senate. He published his book in 1852, and the charm of its style, no less than its contents, is delightful.

[27] This interesting prehistoric relic stood close to the river road leading to Sidney on the north side of the Susquehanna. The land was I believe part of the so-called “Church farm” that gift of Gouldsborough Banyar to St. Matthew’s already referred to, I well remember the pile of stones, but all trace of them has, I think, disappeared. The late William Frey of Sidney told me that when he was a boy living on the Hough farm an Indian one day arrived at the monument and added some stones to the pile—a pile of common field stones this “monument” was, but it might more properly be called a cairn. Asked why he did this, the Indian answered that if the act were not regularly done by one of his tribe, the Great Spirit would render the tribe extinct. Cairns like this were common among the Iroquois and are believed to have been closely associated with their firm faith in a future life.

[28] No longer an eddy, the railroad embankment having cut it off from the main channel of the river, and thus obliterated it. It was named from a negro called Pompey who formerly had lived there.

[29] This name was well known in Sidney as late as thirty years ago.

[30] The orator was the father of the late Dr. Gaius L. Halsey of Unadilla—Dr. Gaius Halsey who then practiced medicine in Kortright. These extracts are taken from the oration as printed in the Delaware Gazette of Delhi on July 12th, 1826. In the same paper was printed the news of the death of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams which had occurred simultaneously on the very day when this Jubilee was celebrated.

[31] The celebrated and picturesque John Randolph.

[32] William Darby, who came from Liberty, Sullivan Co., in about the year 1822, had endeavored to establish a paper in Unadilla with an office in the building where Dr. Huntington had had his store; but it lived only a short time.

[33] An early colloquial term for Oneonta.

[34] Now the mills at East Sidney.

[35] One of several railroad projects started at that period to rescue the upper Susquehanna from the injury done it by the Erie Canal. None ever got beyond the charter stage.

[36] Charles C. Noble, afterwards County Judge. It was in Owego that he met Miss Abigail Camp who became his wife and long survived him in Unadilla.

[37] The Mohawk and Hudson railroad here referred to was the first steam railroad built on this continent for public uses,—that is, for a highway. It was begun in August, 1830, and by October, 1831, when these young men saw it, was carrying 387 passengers a day.

[38] Mr. Scott was now keeping Bragg’s Hotel.

[39] This paragraph is in the handwriting of George H. Noble.

[40] After this was written, he was naturally pleased to be told that besides Queen Victoria, there were born in that year several men who rose to great distinction—John Ruskin, James Russell Lowell, Cyrus W. Field, Walt Whitman and Charles Kingsley.

[41] Laurence Kortright, after whom this town was named, had obtained a large patent in that region late in the eighteenth century. He was a son of an old New York merchant and was himself a merchant in New York for many years. In a house which stands on land formerly part of the Kortright Farm in Harlem, New York city, the previous chapters in this volume and all those in “The Old New York Frontier” were written.

[42] Thomas’s line in England ran back from his father Robert to John (1529). The family were of the Golden Parsonage of Great Gaddesden (near Hemel Hempstead) in Hertfordshire, where Thomas Halsey was born and baptized. To his great grandfather the parsonage had been granted by Henry VIII in 1545. It is now the home of Thomas Frederick Halsey, a member of the British Parliament. The Hertfordshire family, it is conjectured, came originally from the manor of Lanesley in Cornwall, near Penzance, where the line has been carried back to 1189.

[43] Dr. Joseph White was a native of Chatham, Connecticut, had served in the Navy during the Revolution and settled in Cherry Valley in 1787. His practice was so extensive that he was called to Albany and even to Buffalo. In 1817 he became president of the Fairfield Medical College.

[44] He went to Kortright in 1817 from Bainbridge where he had married Mary Church, a daughter of Richard Billings Church and granddaughter of Colonel Timothy Church, the pioneer who came from Vermont. He died on December 18th, 1835.

[45] The Rev. William McAuley who had become pastor of the Kortright Presbyterian church in 1795 and died in 1851.

[46] The beginnings of Hartwick Seminary date from 1754 when the Rev. John C. Hartwick, the German Lutheran, born in Thuringia purchased for a hundred pounds his tract of land embracing the present town of Hartwick. By his will all his property was devoted to religious and educational purposes. In 1812 a building for the school was erected, and in 1815 it was opened with Dr. Ernest L. Hazelius as principal. In 1830, Dr. George B. Miller succeeded him as principal and remained until 1839.

[47] Erastus Root, a native of Hebron, Connecticut, was a graduate of Dartmouth and settled in Delhi in 1796. He sat in the Legislature from 1798 to 1802 and was then four times elected to Congress, and later was several times sent again to the Assembly. From 1820 to 1822 he was Lieutenant-Governor of the state, in 1821 a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, in 1824 a member of the commission which codified and modified the laws of the state; was three times Speaker of the Assembly; again was State Senator in 1840-44, and for many years was Major-General of the State Militia. The latter office he held when these two boys from Kortright presented their letters of introduction. He was an ardent Democrat of the George Clinton type. The poet Halleck made reference to him in one of his works. General Root died in New York in 1846.

[48] The Fairfield College was officially known as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of New York. It had been established in 1809, and enjoyed a wide reputation for thirty or forty years. It was one of the first medical schools established in the United States—in fact it has been said to be the first. Its decline followed the establishment of rival schools at Geneva and Albany, and in 1844 its union with the Albany school took place.

[49] In 1891 the place had a population of 83,400.

[50] Daniel Beach was a descendant of Timothy Beach, the Ouleout Pioneer of 1784.

[51] Tyrus Nichols was the full name. The visit occurred on August 23, 1842, as Dr. Halsey’s day book shows.

[52] Amos Priest came to Unadilla as early as 1828 and probably before that time. He was, I believe from Catskill. His wife’s maiden name was Olmstead. She was from Sidney and long survived him.

[53] The Howard house had been built in 1812 by a Mr. Warren for his brother-in-law Hiram Benedict, Hiel E. Benedict’s father who died there. In 1831 the house was rented for a year by Commodore M. T. Woolsey who served in the Tripolitan war; commanded the war vessel Oneida on Lake Ontario in 1812; chased a British squadron for six days in 1813, and captured four vessels; commanded the frigate Constellation in the West Indies in 1824 to 1827; was in charge of the Pensacola Navy Yard in 1827-31; commanded the Brazillian station in 1832-34; had charge of the survey of Chesapeake Bay in 1836-37, and died in Utica in 1838. He has been described to me as “a bluff, sturdy sort of gentleman with a very pretty wife much younger than himself.” Fenimore Cooper, who served under him on Lake Ontario, wrote a sketch of his life. He has already been referred to by Henry C. Noble as presiding at the Fourth of July celebration in 1831.

[54] Built originally for Daniel Castle who was living in the house in 1824. It had then been standing several years.

[55] The house of Judge Noble belongs to a later date. It was built in 1846 or 1848.

[56] Mr. Thompson made his first visit to Unadilla in 1814. He was here again in 1817 and in 1824 came here to live. He died in 1895.

[57] The house was built for Mr. Adams, by William J. Thompson. Until thirty or forty years ago the grounds embraced the entire space now bounded by Main, Martin Brook and Adams Streets and by the lane that passes the Dr. Joseph Sweet residence. They were attractively fenced in, had a well kept lawn, arbors, etc. Here Sunday school picnics were held and a delightful place it was. Within the house the Sunday school Christmas tree was often set up. Many happy childhood hours have I spent within that house and those grounds—waiting for Christmas presents, eating picnic luxuries and chasing fire-flies.

[58] The mason work on those houses was done by Edward Marble and Wheeler Warrener, with help from “Elder” Place. W. J. Thompson did some of the wood work. When Mr. Sands some years later purchased the Noble house, Mr. Thompson added for him the eastern part of wood and the veranda, etc., of the stone part.

[59] Built for Horace Griswold in 1828. Col. Cone bought it in 1834.

[60] It dates at least as far back as 1816, when Horace and Sheldon Griswold were occupying it. For them it was probably built.

[61] Built about 1828 for Smith Lane.

[62] Dr. Hine’s father came to Franklin from New Milford, Conn., about 1806. Mr. Crane died March 29, 1891.

[63] Probably the original chimney was a rude affair of stone and mortar.

[64] On this site a house for Johnson Wright had been erected previous to 1816. Mr. Van Cott died in April, 1891.

[65] The rear portion of the dwelling is older than 1824. The front was added after 1828 by Edwin J. Smith, partner of L. B. Woodruff, and a brother-in-law of Sheldon Griswold. Colonel Griswold subsequently purchased the property.

[66] On this site, in another house, before Dr. Edson’s time, had lived a physician named Mann.

[67] Among the proprietors of this house have been Dr. Cone, a man named Dixon, James Williams, Moses Foster, Erastus Kingsley, Colonel Thomas Heath, Frederick A. Bolles and Chauncey Slade.

[68] It was standing in 1803, when Sampson Crooker bought it of the Bissells. A Mr. Robinson once lived in it and Judge Page was married there.

[69] Mr. Ayers was a son of Jehiel Ayers and was born near Carr’s Creek. His mother was a sister of John M. Niles who was Postmaster General under Van Buren, and at another time United States Senator. Another brother of hers was the father of Samuel Niles.

[70] Built in 1826 or 1827 after the burning of Mr Bragg’s first hotel in 1824.

[71] Oliver Buckley was the son of William Buckley and was born near Unadilla Centre in 1817. His father removed to Albany in 1822 and engaged in a mercantile pursuit. Oliver spent many years of his life on the Unadilla Centre farm and reared a large family of sons. His wife was the daughter of Judge Douglass of Franklin. His father came to Unadilla from Litchfield, Connecticut, by way of the Turnpike.

[72] This incident, as Dr. Halsey’s day book shows, occurred on November 27, 1844.

[73] Of these persons, the only ones now living, I believe, are: Miss Veley, David Hanford, Samuel D. Bacon. Mrs. Curtis Gregory, Mrs. E. C. Belknap and C. W. Carpenter.

“How fast has brother followed brother

From sunshine to the sunless land.”

[74] The father of Lewis and Edward Carmichael was William Carmichael who came to Unadilla about 1830. At the age of 16 he enlisted in the British service from Ireland, where he was born about 1785 and served for 16 years and 6 months, chiefly under Wellington. He was in the Peninsula campaign and witnessed the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna. Returning from Spain with Wellington he took part in the battle of Waterloo where he was wounded by a French soldier with a bayonet. He then came to America with his regiment and at Plattsburg left the service.

[75] Mr. Wolcott was a son of Nathaniel Wolcott, one of the pioneer settlers on the Ouleout. He died in middle life. The first charge in the ledger was for services to Mr. Wolcott. It is dated April 17, 1840—thirteen days after Dr. Halsey’s arrival.

[76] His father, also Reuben Kirby, was an early settler in the town of Bainbridge.

[77] On or near the site of the grist and saw mills built by the Tory John Carr before the Revolution. Here stood the first mills ever built in this part of the valley.

[78] John Butler was born in 1804 in Connecticut and came to Unadilla when a young man. At the time of his death, Dr. Halsey wrote a sketch in which he said Mr. Butler, in that “dense forest, rolled up a rude log cabin and started to hew himself out a farm which became one of the handsomest hill farms in the town.”

[79] Dr. Halsey was six feet two inches in height, but towards middle life, gained in weight and thereafter until he was about 70, weighed considerably more than 200 pounds. I can never forget the proportions of his figure as I saw him after death when he lay against the parlor wall in a suit of black. Taller he seemed than ever, his shoulders broader, the chest more dome-like, the features more aquiline, the forehead more ample—altogether the stateliest human figure I had ever seen recumbent.

[80] The date of this case was Oct. 13, 1840—six months after his arrival in Unadilla.

[81] Daisy died while the object of his long devotion, Miss Lavantia Halsey, was attending school in Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson, a school to which he could not go with her.

[82] Dr. Odell had then been practicing in Sidney for seven years. He was a native of New Berlin where he had read medicine with Dr. Ross. He died in Unadilla in 1883, at the age of seventy-four. In the year 1839 when he settled in Sidney he married Mary A. Mulford of New Jersey.

[83] Files of New York papers for those days show the wide extent of this fever. Horace Greeley’s Tribune, then eight years old, had a standing headline “The Golden Chronicle,” continued regularly on the first page, and each time filling about two columns with accounts of companies that were being organized in cities and small villages all over the Union.

[84] It was a panorama showing “California and the Gold Diggings” and had been introduced as a feature in the representation of a voyage around the world. Smith and Parkhurst were the proprietors. The entertainment was given at the Minerva Rooms No. 406 Broadway.

[85] On the company’s books, now in possession of the treasurer’s son, A. H. Dresser of Plainville, Connecticut, appear other items of credit for sales as follows: one-half barrel of pork, $14; butchers’ knives, $77.50; 2 bottles of mustard, $3.75; beads and finger rings, $39.00; 1 basket champagne, $45.00; one case of gin, $40.00; one case of claret, $27.00; 18¼ pounds of pork, $18.25.

[86] The California had reached Panama on her first trip January 30, 1849. She had accommodations for a few more than one hundred, but took on board over four hundred and left behind many more. Steerage tickets were sold as high as $1,000. Many persons were glad to find beds in coils of rope. The steamer reached the harbor of San Francisco on February 28, “a day forever memorable in the annals of the State,” says Bancroft.

[87] The company sailed from New York on February 23d. The Abrasia was a brig. For some years before the discovery of gold the Panama railroad scheme had been in process of getting born. That discovery at once accomplished the undertaking. Capital now was easily found and early in 1849, engineers were despatched to make the surveys and locate the land. This railroad became an enormously profitable enterprise and so remained until railroads were built across the continent further north. It was finally sold to the Canal Company originated by Ferdinand De Lesseps for some $20,000,000.

[88] After the Panama railroad was built Chagres ceased to have commercial importance and fell into decay, Aspinwall—twelve miles distant—having become the terminus of the railroad.

[89] The Chagres river is about thirty miles long. After the Trinidad flows into it, its depth is from 16 to 30 feet. Navigation of its upper part is interfered with by cataracts and rapids. It flows through a country of extraordinary fertility. The fever which takes its name from this stream is well known for its severity. From an attack of it, Dr. Halsey—as described further on—came near losing his life.

[90] Julius H. Pratt, who went up the river several weeks after Dr. Halsey, says in the Century magazine for April, 1891: “The river was broad and its bank low and covered with an impenetrable jungle. As night came on the stillness and darkness of that tropical wilderness were very impressive. The boatmen chanted monotonous songs to the dip of the oar and wild beasts on the shore responded with savage howls.”

[91] The reasons for stopping at Gorgona instead of proceeding on to Cruces appear from a statement in Bancroft’s “Central America” that early in 1848 cholera had broken out “in a malignant form” following the hurried crowds up the river and striking down victims by the score. Such was the death rate at Cruces, the head of navigation, that the second current of immigrants stopped at Gorgona in affright, thence to hasten away from the smitten river course.

[92] Panama is the oldest European city on the American continent. For centuries it was the great entrepot for Spanish trade with China and India. Its annals go back to 1518 when the old city was founded by Pedra Rias Pavila. In 1670 it was destroyed by the buccaneers under Morgan and when rebuilt a new site six miles distant was chosen.

[93] Keats’s error here is famous. It was not Cortez who discovered the Pacific, but Balboa.

[94] Some of the shells he gathered on that occasion are still preserved at the family home in Unadilla.

[95] Men who reached Panama late in the spring fared still worse. One of these was Collis P. Huntington who had come from Oneonta, where he had been for several years a prosperous village merchant. In October of the previous year, with the merchant’s keen appreciation of prices as affected by a larger demand and small supply, he had sent out to San Francisco a cargo of goods by way of Cape Horn, with the intention of following himself in the spring by the Panama route. He sailed from New York on March 15, 1849, and on reaching Panama was obliged to spend three months waiting for a steamer. During this enforced leisure he walked twenty times across the Isthmus and by various transactions in trade added several thousand dollars to his possessions. He finally set sail from Panama aboard the sailing ship Humboldt in company with about four hundred other persons. He did not go to the mines but engaged in trade in San Francisco where he made the acquaintance of Mark Hopkins, with whom he formed a partnership, the latter history of which is now a part of the history of the industrial development of this country.

[96] Mr. Pratt, who sailed aboard the Humboldt, in a Century article describes the class of passengers with whom he associated. “We found,” he says, “a promiscuous crowd from every nation under heaven, the predominating type being that of the American rough. The deck was so densely packed with men from stem to stern that we could scarcely move. Many were prostrate with sickness or supported by friends or lying in hammocks swung along the side rigging. All day long this crowd of men were scathing, swaying, quarrelling and cursing. No food was provided, and hunger and thirst gave an edge to the bad passions of the mob.”

[97] Captain Bailey had succeeded D. D. Porter, afterwards Admiral of the Navy, in command of the Panama, but Porter was aboard the ship on this voyage. Others on board who were to reach eminence in various callings were John B. Weller, William W. Gwin, afterwards United States Senator, from California; Jessie Benton, daughter of Thomas H. Benton, and the wife of John C. Fremont; Joseph Hooker, afterwards known as “Fighting Joe Hooker;” William H. Emory, afterwards a general; Hall McAllister, brother of Ward McAllister, and Lieutenant Derby, the humorist who wrote under the name of “Phoenix.”

Porter was then thirty-six years old and had made a good record in the Mexican war. Hooker was a year older and his rank was that of assistant-adjutant general. Gwin had been in Congress nine years, but was yet to earn that title of Duke which came from his relations to Louis Napoleon in Mexico. Admiral Porter died on February 13, 1891, four days before the writer of these Reminiscences. The Panama remained for many years in active service between San Francisco and other Pacific ports. In 1876 she was a store ship at Acapulco.

[98] By the census of 1890 San Francisco had a population of 297,900.

[99] The gambling tents in the mining towns became the principal places of resort. One of these tents later on paid a rental of $40,000 a year and $20,000 was known to be staked on the issue of a game of cards. A two-story frame building chiefly used for gambling purposes rented for $120,000 a year. A building known as the Parker House, at one time rented for $15,000 a month. It was then sublet for gambling purposes and made to return a handsome profit above the original lease.

[100] Prices fluctuated greatly in the years 1848-49-50, due to the inflexible rule of supply and demand. The highest prices appear to have been reached just before the first steamer arrived. Bancroft says flour sold as high as $800 a barrel. Sugar and coffee were $400 a barrel; a shovel, pair of boots or gallon of whiskey and many other things were $100 each. Eggs sold for $3 apiece. A doctor charged $100 or $50 or nothing for a visit. Cooks earned $25 a day. Butter was $6 a pound, and ale $8 a bottle. Mr. Pratt spent the winter of 1849-50 on the coast and gives figures to show the cost of living. He sold for $400 a cooking stove that cost him $60. A good workman could demand $16 a day. Boots that cost him $6 in New York would bring $100, and revolvers costing $20 would bring $150. A chicken could be sold for $16. Lumber brought $500 a thousand feet, but in the following year when mills had been started and the market overstocked he bought enough lumber to build a warehouse for the bare cost of freight.

[101] In August, 1849, small vessels were so scarce that 10,000 or 12,000 persons were waiting in San Francisco for the means by which to reach the mines up and beyond the Sacramento.

[102] Mr. Bancroft affirms that “the great majority of diggers obtained little more than the means to live at the prevailing high prices, and many not even that. In 1852 the average yield in cash for the 100,000 men engaged in mining was only $600, or barely $2 a day, while wages for common laborers were twice or three times as much.”

[103] Edmund B. Birch, a brother of Albert G. Birch of Unadilla, went to California in 1849, making the overland trip by way of Council Bluffs. Lyman Birch, another brother, started by the Panama route, but engaged to work for the railroad at Panama, then offering large inducements to labor which was scarce. Mr. Birch was taken ill with fever and returned home.

Other names might be added to show the extent to which the gold fever reached this part of the Susquehanna Valley. Some twenty-five or thirty men in the neighborhood of Oneonta besought Collis P. Huntington to accept the leadership of a company formed by them to go into the mines, but Mr. Huntington—wise man that he was—declined the offer and shipped a load of goods instead, realizing handsome profits on them.

[104] Sutter’s Fort had been founded in 1839 by John A. Sutter, a native of Switzerland. Its walls were 500 feet long and 160 feet in the other direction, with loopholes and bastions and a dozen cannon. Sutter was a pioneer and a great local magnate. In 1847 he owned 12,000 cattle, 2,000 horses, from 10,000 to 15,000 sheep and 1,000 hogs. He employed some Mormons to build a flour mill six miles up the American river and forty miles up the South Fork at Colona he built a sawmill with its power derived through a millrace. Of all that Sacramento region he had become a sort of lord, when through the construction of this millrace his agent, Marshall, found what he believed to be gold dust.

Sutter was sorry at the discovery, foreseeing that it threatened an interruption to all his established enterprises. Sutter, in fact, never realized any gain from the gold thus found by his own employes upon his own premises. All the current and direction of his life was suddenly broken and he lacked the foresight or alertness to adjust himself to new conditions. His employes everywhere deserted him in order to enter the mines. Titles to his lands, then in dispute, were lost through adverse decisions and he was finally reduced to want. His old age was at last made comfortable through a pension of $250 a month granted by the State of California.

[105] Samuel Brannon was a native of Maine. In his youth he had edited Mormon journals and became an elder of that church. In 1846 he went to California with a shipload of Mormons, mostly converts made in the East, intending to found a colony. But his plans were interfered with. The country had already been proclaimed United States territory. San Francisco became, however, for a time very largely a Mormon town. Brannon founded a newspaper in San Francisco and preached Mormonism on Sundays. With the finding of gold his community was disbanded. He had quarreled with Brigham Young and other Utah Mormons and was denounced as an apostate from the faith. Becoming the owner of large tracts of land in San Francisco and Sacramento he exerted an influence in the development of those towns and acquired large wealth. When the Civil War broke out he was rated the richest man in California, but his wife sued him for divorce and obtained a verdict which deprived him of one-half of his estate. From this blow he never recovered. During the struggle of Mexico against Maximillian, he aided that country with money and supplies for which he afterwards received a grant of land in the Province of Sonora. He attempted to colonize the province but the scheme failed and eventually he lost all his property. Brannon was born in 1819 and died in 1889 at Mazatlan, in abject poverty.

[106] In August, 1849, the rents of single building in Sacramento reached $5,000 a month, and certain lots were valued at $30,000 each.

[107] Mr. Gillespie, the writer of an article in the Century California series says: “Men pocketed their pride in California in those days. I met in the mines lawyers and physicians in good standing at home who were acting as barkeepers, waiters, hostlers and teamsters. An ex-Judge of Oyer and Terminer was driving an ox-team from Colona to Sacramento. One man who had been a State senator and Secretary of State in one of our Western commonwealths was doing a profitable business at manufacturing “cradles,” while an ex-Governor of one of our Southwestern states played the fiddle in a gambling saloon. These things were hardly remarked.”

[108] Sutter’s Mill was torn down in 1856.

[109] Wagons and teams used for transportation often involved large outlays. A wagon cost from $800 to $1,500—a capacious affair with boxes six feet deep and seventeen feet long. For a double harness from $300 to $600 were paid. Mules were in common use and a pair was valued at from $500 to $1,000. On mountain roads six pairs were needed for each wagon. A complete outfit, therefore, represented a cost of between $4,000 and $8,000.

[110] Of the exact location, Dr. Halsey, in a letter to his wife written from “Big Bar on the Middle Fork of the American River” on August 5th, 1849, says: “We were about fifteen miles (in a straight line; thirty by the road) north of Sutter’s Mill where gold was first found.” Bancroft refers to the richness of diggings in that locality and mentions the Big Bar as one place of note. He says the Middle Fork was esteemed the richest river for a regular yield in California with more bars of gold than any other, several of which were said to have produced from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 each. In the summer of 1848, “one Hudson obtained some $20,000 in six weeks from a canyon between Coloma and the American Middle Fork, while a boy named Davenport found in the same place seventy-seven ounces of pure gold one day and ninety ounces the next.” John Sinclair, at the junction of the North and Middle branches, “displayed fourteen pounds of gold as the result of one week’s work with fifty Indians, using closely woven willow baskets.” He secured $16,000 in five weeks. One bar alone on the Middle Fork yielded over $1,000,000, and yet in spite of these figures “the unfortunate far outnumbered the successful.”

[111] “Last Saturday,” wrote Dr. Halsey to his wife from the Big Bar on September 18th, “we divided what we had dug and my share was a fraction over fifty-one ounces, which at $20 per the ounce amounts to $1,020. This gives me just $11.50 for every day I have been in the mines, clear of all expenses, and I know we have worked as hard as any other company.”

[112] In a letter written during his last illness, in reply to inquiries from me, Dr. Halsey said: “There was a place below us, and as I supposed near the confluence of the stream with the other branch called Spanish Bar. I am inclined to think the place now known as Murderer’s Bar is the same. Where we were, on the Big Bar of the Middle Fork, was supposed to be about ten miles above the junction with the North Fork.”

[113] Of the first steamer on this river, Bancroft says: “On the 15th of August, 1849, a scow was launched and two days later the George Washington, the first river steamboat of California arrived from Benecia. In September the Sacramento was launched a mile above the town, and shortly after arrived another of the same name, of scow build, which sold for $40,000.”

[114] A son of Roswell Wright, the early merchant of Main and Mill Streets, Unadilla.

[115] Cruces is one of the oldest settlements on the American continent. In the days of Spanish rule large quantities of silver in ingots were often stored there. The place was captured by Admiral Drake in the fifteenth century. Morgan, the buccaneer, captured it in the seventeenth.

[116] One of the bags in which he brought home his gold is still preserved at his home in Unadilla. From some of the gold he had two finger rings made. Both are now in Unadilla and one of them since 1850 has been worn by his wife.

[117] Great discontent had long prevailed there and the place was still in a disturbed condition. The liberated slaves between 1833 and 1841, then in a state bordering on revolt, had caused the suspension of cultivation on no fewer than 653 sugar plantations, besides 456 others where coffee was grown. The owners of these plantations had abandoned them. A more or less unsettled condition continued to prevail until 1865, when the natives rose in rebellion and shocking atrocities occurred. The famous Governor Eyre finally suppressed the uprising, but through measures so vigorous and severe that he was recalled to England. Jamaica is almost entirely peopled by blacks. They comprise about 87 per cent of the whole.

[118] One of the meanings assigned to Unadilla by local tradition is “Pleasant Valley.” It has also been said to stand for some kind of a river. The meaning given by Morgan, our best authority, is “Place of Meeting”, which refers to the junction of the two streams. The word has been spelled in many ways. As in the Fort Stanwix deed we find Tianaderha, so Gideon Hawley in 1753 wrote Teyonadelhough. Richard Smith cites the form Tunaderrah. Other forms are Cheonadilha and Deunadilla, while Unendilla and Unideally are common. Joseph Brant in a letter to Persefer Carr wrote Tunadilla.

“All these forms resulted from the white man’s efforts to put into writing the word as he heard it pronounced by various Indian tribes. The form Unadilla comes nearest to the Oneida dialect, which has the charm of greater softness than the others. Stone is at a loss to understand why the pioneers were not content to accept as final the spelling adopted by an educated Indian like Brant. The present spelling was adopted however when the town was formed. In the Poor Master’s book of 1793 the word is written as we write it now.

“How long the name had been in use before Hawley used it, is of course, matter of conjecture, but it was the name of a place before it ever was applied to a stream. In 1683 the Indians called the river ‘The Kill which falls into the Susquehanna.’ The stream had obviously at that time received no name. Originally the name was applied not only as now to the Unadilla side of the two rivers, but to lands across them included in the towns of Sidney and Bainbridge. It was a term for all the territory adjacent to the confluence and now intersected by the boundaries of three counties.

“The Unadilla river and part of the present town of Unadilla with perhaps all of it, were Oneida territory. Further east were Mohawk lands The Oneidas are know to have sold lands as far east as Herkimer and Delhi. Evidence, however, which Morgan regards as safe, begins the line of division at a point five miles east of Utica and extends it directly south to Pennsylvania making Unadilla border lands between the two nations. Lands in several parts of Otsego country were sold by the Mohawks but none lay as far west as Unadilla.”—From “The Old New York Frontier”; pages 26 and 27.

[119] He also formed a partnership with Dr. Joseph Sweet and made arrangements to erect for use as their office the building that for about twenty-five years was occupied as the post office. Postmasters who served out full terms in this building are: Mr. Packard, Henry Van Dusen, Frank G. Bolles, Alanson H. Meeker and Milo B. Gregory.

[120] The battle of Antietam was fought on September 16 and 17th, 1862, by the Union army under McClellan and the Confederates under Lee. More than 100,000 men were engaged. As a result of the battle Lee withdrew from Maryland soil to Virginia and Lincoln, in accordance with his promise in the event of such a result, five days later issued the proclamation abolishing slavery. A short distance from the scene of the battle lies the city of Frederick, to which many of McClellan’s 9,416 wounded men were conveyed.

[121] In many of the battles of the war Unadilla had representatives—notably in those fought in the eastern part of the field of conflict. Records already printed show that about 200 men enlisted in Unadilla. Below are some of the battles in which they fought with the names of many of the men:

At South Mountain, Sept. 1862: Henry B. Crooker, William J. Place, William T. Smyth, Marshall A. Grannis and Laurence A. Bartholomew.

At Antietam, Sept. 1862: Charles York, William J. Place, Laurence A. Bartholomew, Henry B. Crooker, Marshall A. Grannis, William T. Smyth, Alonzo Olds, Milo Olds and George Hawks.

At Fredericksburg, Dec. 1862: Henry B. Crooker, George B. Jordan, William T. Smyth, Marshall A. Grannis, Milo Olds, Alonzo Olds, Morris Shaw, Laurence A. Bartholomew, Lewis S. Nichols, Charles York, and William J. Place.

At Petersburgh, May 1864: William J. Place, Henry B. Crooker, Alonzo Olds, James T. Wilkins, M. R. Vandervoort, George H. Johnson, Wesley A. Vandervoort, James Webb, and Leonard L. Butler (killed).

In Burnside’s Expedition, Jan. 1862: Marshall A. Grannis and George B. Jordan.

At Chancellorsville, May 1863: Frederick Albright, Alonzo Olds, Milo Olds, Alvin Clyde, (he met his death there) John M. Smythe (also killed there) Morris Shaw, William H. Crane, Charles York, and Laurence A. Bartholomew.

At Spottsylvania, May 1864: Richard Slade, Edmund Nichols, Alonzo Olds, Morris Shaw, David Nichols, Charles York and Laurence A. Bartholomew.

In the Seven Days Fight, July 1862: James Richardson and Thomas T. Webb.

At Malvern Hill, July 1862: Edward Carmichael who was made prisoner and spent four weeks in Belle Isle Prison.

At Yorktown, May 1862: Robert S. Balestier and Thomas T. Webb.

In the Wilderness, May 1864: Morris Shaw, Alonzo Olds, Erastus S. Hawks, Alfred C. Bartholomew, (killed) Bradford J. D. Fox (killed) Charles York and Laurence A. Bartholomew.

At Winchester, Sept 1864: Alonzo Olds, Peter Rogers, Philip M. Spencer, Charles York and Laurence A. Bartholomew.

At Lee’s Surrender, April, 1865; were present Morris Shaw, George H. Johnson, Alonzo Olds and Marshall A. Grannis.

Besides these battles the town was represented at Cold Harbor by George H. Johnson; at Bermuda Hundred by George H. Johnson, Marshall A. Grannis, and William J. Place; at Rappahannock Station by Charles York and Laurence A. Bartholomew; at Cedar Creek by George R. Wheeler; at Drury’s Bluff by Henry B. Crocker and Marshall A. Grannis; at Honey Hill and Bull’s Neck by Peter Weidman and Jacob F. Weidman.

At Salisbury Prison the town was represented by M. R. Vandervoort and W. A. Vandervoort, and by James Webb who died there, and at Libby Prison by James Richardson.

Henry J. Halstead was a Sargeant under Generals Stone, Banks, Burnside and Butler. George L. Fiske was an orderly to General Warren. At Fair Oaks George S. Joyce was promoted to be an orderly and at Gettysburg he became a first Lieutenant. Frank G. Bolles served in the war as a Second Lieutenant.

Another soldier from Unadilla was Charles C. Siver after whom the Grand Army Post was named. Mr. Siver became a prominent business man in Unadilla as the partner of Thomas G. North. He died all too soon. His father was David Siver who long survived him, dying in May, 1890, after having lived here since 1860. He was held in much esteem. He had come from Montgomery County and settled in Sidney about 1845, where at one time he was a merchant and at another a farmer. Other sons besides Charles came with him to Unadilla and their industry contributed notably to the welfare of the village.

[122] In politics he was a Democrat. Before the war he was supervisor of the town and was a delegate afterwards to a State Convention at Rochester which nominated a governor and other officers. He was in sympathy with the public measures of Samuel J. Tilden and had some correspondence with him. With Salmon G. Cone and Martin B. Luther he afterwards supported in this region the Labor and Greenback parties and in 1883 was the candidate of those organizations for Comptroller on the State ticket.

[123] This store had been started a few years earlier by Charles N. Hughston. Before that the nearest approach to a drug store in the village probably existed in the building which was so long occupied by the Post Office. At that time it was Dr. Halsey’s office. On one side of the room was shelving filled with a supply of necessary drugs, and with a counter and drawers. The partnership of 1865 was with Chauncey Slade and continued until January, 1871. Mr. Slade during this period had been postmaster. He now removed to Adams, Jefferson County, but his health failed rapidly and he died in Binghamton in 1872.

[124] John B. Weller was a member of Congress from Ohio from 1839 to 1845; became Lieutenant Colonel of an Ohio regiment in the Mexican war and succeeded to its command on the death of its Colonel at Monterey. When Dr. Halsey met him he had been recently appointed commissioner to Mexico under the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. He afterwards became a citizen of California and in 1851 was elected United States Senator. Subsequently he was elected Governor of California and in 1860 was appointed United States Minister to Mexico. He died in New Orleans in 1875.

[125] Mazatlan lies at the entrance to the Gulf of California and had a population in 1891 of 12,700. Many of the houses are built in the old Castilian style. Mazatlan has lost something of its importance in late years since the Pacific railroads were built. Important silver mines exist near the place. In 1873 they were valued at $2,000,000.