FOOTNOTES:
[195] Pendleton, in Niagara County, was settled before the projection of the canal by Sylvester Pendleton Clark, who built the first log tavern here in 1821. Although a junction on the canal, and later a station on the Erie Railway, the town has not attained much prosperity.
For Lockport, see Bullock's Sketch, in our volume xix, p. 151, note 21.—Ed.
[196] Rochester, Perinton, and Fairport, all in Monroe County, on the canal, were settled before the route was laid out. The first permanent settlement at Rochester was not until 1803, although saw and grist mills had been built some years earlier, and worked intermittently. The name given to the village in 1811 was in honor of Nathaniel Rochester, of Maryland, an early purchaser of lands. The village incorporation took place in 1811.
Perinton, named for its first settler, Glover Perrin (about 1790), had little growth until the opening of the canal; the name is now applied to the township in which Fairport is situated. The first settler of the latter town came in 1810; there were but nine houses there, seven of which were log-cabins, at the opening of the canal (1822). It numbered in 1900, 2,439.
Irondequot Creek was an early highway into Iroquois territory. It was the rendezvous (1687) of the expedition led by Denonville, governor of Canada, against the marauding Seneca. See Thwaites, Lahontan's Voyages in North America (Chicago, 1904), i, pp. 123-130.—Ed.
[197] Clyde, in Wayne County, New York, had its first permanent settlers in 1811. It was at first called Lauraville; later, the river was, by a Scotch settler, named Clyde, and upon incorporation (1836) this was applied to the settlement.
Montezuma marshes, in southwest Cayuga County, were called by the aborigines Tiohero.—Ed.
[198] This part of the country is remarkable for the number of fine lakes, all of which have very harmonious names, taken from the old Indian language, such as Canandaigua, Cayuga, Seneca, Onega, Ontario, Oswego, Onondago, &c. From the immense Lake Superior, the area of which is estimated at 30,000 square miles, to the small lakes only a few miles in length, their forms differ entirely, and are in part highly picturesque. These lakes and rivers have been judiciously suffered to retain their ancient harmonious Indian names; whereas the Americans have, in general, transferred the names of European towns and districts to this land, where we often meet with excessively dissonant, inappropriate names, which frequently call forth a smile, as Dr. Julius very justly observes, Vol. I. p. 420.—Maximilian.
Comment by Ed. Nicolaus Heinrich Julius, author of Nordamerikas sittliche zustande, nach eigener Enshauungen in den jahren 1834-36 (Leipzig, 1839).
[199] For the Onondaga, see Croghan's Journals, in our volume i, p. 60, note 23.—Ed.
[200] The site of Syracuse had been that of an Indian village, where Ephraim Webster, coming from New England, built a trading post in 1786. It was included in the salt reservation established in 1797 and offered for sale by the state in 1804. The first purchaser was Abraham Walton, who built a mill upon the site the following year. Walton intended to found a village, but not until the establishment of the canal did Syracuse outgrow its embryonic stage. Meanwhile several names had been in use; Milan was suggested in 1809; South Salina was used for three years (1809-12); Corinth was desired, but a Corinth post-office already existing, Syracuse was suggested, because of a certain resemblance to the site of the famous Sicilian city. Organized as a village in 1825, Syracuse finally became a city in 1847.—Ed.
[201] The salt springs of this vicinity were noted by Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century. By 1770, salt from this region was an article of barter among Indian tribes. The first made by white men was in 1788; primitive methods were followed, however, until in 1797 the state set apart a reservation of thirteen thousand acres, embracing the saline springs, and the next year manufacture on a large scale was begun. Although much of the land was afterwards sold by the state, control of the salines was maintained by the government for a hundred years; in 1898, however, the state finding participation in this manufacture unprofitable, the springs became private property.—Ed.
[202] Manlius was first settled in 1792, when a log-cabin inn was opened upon its site, which was first called Liberty Square. Shortly after 1800 the name was changed to Manlius, and the first postmaster appointed. The town had in 1900 a population of 1,219.
Chittenango and Oneida, in Madison County, were not early settlements, but due to the growth of canals and railroads. Oneida was incorporated in 1848, and had (1900) a population of 6,364.
The site of Canastote (signifying "Cluster of pines") was purchased (1810) by Reuben Perkins; the settlement was, however, due to the canal, and was incorporated in 1835. It has attained a population of about three thousand.—Ed.
[203] The Oneida Indians, one of the "five nations" of the Iroquois confederacy, lived east of the Onondaga, in the present Madison and Oneida counties. In 1788 they ceded their land to New York state, retaining a large reservation, which has been gradually disposed of for successive annuities. About 1820 the project of their removal to Wisconsin was broached, and two delegations representing diverse interests among the Oneida, headed respectively by Dr. Jedidiah Morse, and Reverend Eleazer Williams, visited the West, and entered into arrangements with the Menominee and Winnebago tribes for territory contiguous to Green Bay. These treaties were the subjects of much negotiation, but the controversy was finally settled (1831) by the United States government in favor of the New York Indians. With the Oneida were three tribes of New England Indians—the Stockbridge, Munsee, and Brothertown—who had previously been (in the latter part of the eighteenth century) received among the Oneida in New York. The migration of these various tribes began about 1823, and continued at varying intervals until about 1846, a small remnant only remaining in New York. In Wisconsin they located permanently; the Munsee and Brothertown having assumed citizenship, are for the most part absorbed in the white population of Brown, Outagamie, and Calumet counties, chiefly the last named, although a few are mingled with the Oneida on their reservation near Green Bay. The latter number about two thousand, and are in a fairly prosperous condition, chiefly farmers. On the Stockbridge reservation in Shawano County there are about five hundred engaged in farming and lumbering. Consult Wisconsin Historical Collections, ii, pp. 415-449; xv, pp. 25-209; and J. N. Davidson, Unnamed Wisconsin (Milwaukee, 1895).—Ed.
[204] Oneida Castle was located south of the modern town of that name, in Lenox Township, Madison County, on the borders of Oneida County. At this village Reverend Samuel Kirkland established himself as a missionary in 1766, and it was chiefly due to his influence that the main body of the Oneida remained neutral during the Revolutionary War. After the removal to Wisconsin a few of the tribe clung to their original home, and about a hundred and fifty are still to be found in this vicinity.—Ed.
[205] Verona's first settlement was made in 1797 by Captain Ichabod Hand, who kept a tavern on the road from Rome to Oneida Castle.
New London is a small hamlet in Oneida County, erected during the progress of the canal. Its first settler came in 1824, and the following year a post-office was erected.—Ed.
[206] The site of Rome was on the Oneida portage between the Mohawk Valley and waters flowing into Lake Ontario. As early as 1756 the English had erected Fort Bull at the western extremity of the portage, but this was promptly captured and destroyed by French troops. Two years later, Fort Stanwix was erected by the British general of that name; the cost was $60,000, and the fort was heavily garrisoned until the close of the French and Indian War. In 1768 the famous treaty with the Iroquois, making a great land cession to the English colonies took place at this outpost. At the outbreak of the Revolution the name of the fort was changed to Schuyler, and the next year (1777) it was besieged by Major Barry St. Leger with a force of Indian allies; the post was finally relieved by General Benedict Arnold. The first settler near the fort was a German, Johann Reuff (or Roof). He fled at the time of the siege, and the place was without inhabitants until 1785-87, when New England colonists began to arrive. The site of Rome was purchased by a New York merchant named Lynch who laid out a town (1796) and called it Lynchburg; this was later changed for the classic cognomen, and the village of Rome incorporated in 1819.—Ed.
[207] Oriskany (Indian dialect, signifying "nettles") was the site of the battle of August 6, 1777, when General Nicholas Herkimer, of the American army, repulsed the invading British forces under Major St. Leger. The village was settled in 1802 by Colonel Garrett Lansing, a Revolutionary soldier, and a post-office opened about 1821.—Ed.
[208] Hugh White of Middletown, Connecticut, was one of the four purchasers of a confiscated Tory patent known as Sadequahada, he being the first settler west of German Flats, on the Mohawk. Coming out to his purchase in 1784, with his entire family of sons and sons-in-law, he settled what was for a time known as Whitestown, whither a number of Connecticut relatives and friends followed in succeeding years. Judge White was a man of ability and much physical strength. He attained considerable influence with the Oneida, who adopted him into their tribe. Dying in 1812, he left many descendants. Originally known as Whitestown, the village surrendered that title to the township, and was incorporated (1811) as Whitehall Landing, a name changed two years later to Whitesborough. The Oneida Historical Society in 1884 celebrated the centennial of the founding of this place by erecting a granite shaft upon the village green. Whitesborough at one time bid fair to rival Rome and Utica, but has now a population of only two thousand.—Ed.
[209] The village of New York Mills, the site of the first cotton factory in the state, was founded in 1808 by Walcott and Company. In 1825 a partnership was formed with Benjamin Marshall, of New York City, who retired in 1847. The mills are still owned and managed by the Walcott family.—Ed.
[210] Skenandoah (Skenando) died in 1816, reputed to be a hundred and ten years old. He favored the Americans in the Revolutionary War, and was long known as the white man's friend, an eloquent advocate for peace, and a Christian of strong character. His grave is at Clinton, Oneida County, near that of his friend, the missionary Samuel Kirkland.
The incident in relation to White's granddaughter (not daughter) is well authenticated. See D. E. Wager, History of Oneida County, New York (Boston, 1896), p. 618.—Ed.
[211] At the close of the American Revolution a grant of 300,000 acres upon Grand River, Ontario, was secured from the British government, and the entire tribe of Mohawk removed thither, accompanied by British sympathizers from the other Iroquois tribes. The reservation is now reduced to about 60,000 acres. Mohawk also live at St. Regis, Caughnawaga, and Bay of Quinte, Quebec. A descendant of Joseph Brant, the great Mohawk chief, recently stated that there were still 30,000 Iroquois in Canadian boundaries. See F. W. Halsey, Old New York Frontier (New York, 1901), p. 320.—Ed.
[212] At Utica, originally a ford on Mohawk River, a small fort was erected during the French and Indian War, named Fort Schuyler, but it was abandoned before the Revolution. The first two houses were built upon the site in 1786; the early prospect for growth was not bright, and the increase was slow. The village was incorporated in 1798, when the new name was selected by lot. The city charter was received in 1832.—Ed.
[213] German Flats was the original seat of the Palatines who emigrated to New York in large numbers in 1710, and began to settle as early as 1712 on land patented to them by the Mohawk. The settlement was for many years the outpost of the Mohawk Valley, and thus was sadly harassed in Indian wars. In November, 1757, French and Indians led by Belestre fell upon the village, carried away captive many of its inhabitants, and burned the entire settlement. A similar fate befell the place in 1778, when the Mohawk chief Brant advanced against this valley, and continued attacks were maintained by his people until the close of the war. The Germans were loyal to the American cause, and under General Nicholas Herkimer formed the bulk of the army that won the day at Oriskany. About 1784 there was a large influx of new settlers of American stock. The chief town of the settlement is now known as Herkimer, with a population of about six thousand.—Ed.
[214] Canajoharie, in Montgomery County, was the site of a Mohawk village where Joseph Brant had his early home. In 1750 Philip Van Alstine built the first house upon the site, and ten years later erected thereon a mill. The early settlers were chiefly Germans, and the place suffered severely during the Revolutionary War, being raided successively in 1780 and 1781. By 1790 the settlement had taken on new life, and by 1829 was incorporated as a town.
Near Rotterdam, an early Dutch settlement, is located the oldest house of that region now extant, thought to have been built in 1680, and known as the Jan Mabie house.
Schenectady (also called Corlaer in early days) was laid out in 1662 by Arent Van Curler and fourteen associates. As a frontier settlement in King William's War, it suffered an attack and massacre by French and Indians (1690). In 1705, Queen's Fort was built therein, and it was garrisoned until the Revolution. The first town charter was obtained in 1763, and the city incorporated in 1798.—Ed.
[215] The Mohawk and Albany Railway was projected by George W. Featherstonehaugh, an Englishman of some eminence, who had married an American and settled near Albany. A friend of George Stephenson of England, Featherstonehaugh conceived the idea, as early as 1825, of uniting Albany and Schenectady by a railway. The next year a company was incorporated, whose president was Stephen Van Rensselaer. Delay was incident upon construction, and the line was not opened until August, 1831, when the locomotive "Detroit Clinton" drew a train of carriages from Albany to Schenectady. The Mohawk and Albany Railway was the progenitor of the present New York Central and Hudson River Railway. See G. S. Roberts, Old Schenectady (Schenectady, 1904), pp. 143-152.—Ed.
[216] For a biographical account of Dr. Edwin James, see our volume xiv, preface, pp. 13-25.—Ed.
[217] For sketches of these scientists, see our volume xxii, p. 29, note 3, and p. 64, note 27.—Ed.
[218] Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) was educated in medicine at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Edinburgh. In 1823, he settled in practice in Philadelphia, and interested himself in the development of natural science, being a member for many years and finally president (1850) of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. To this institution he bequeathed his collection of skulls, which he began in 1830, and which is the largest museum of comparative craniology in the United States, containing over fifteen hundred specimens, nearly two-thirds of which are human. For the origin of Peale's Museum, see our volume ix, p. 55, note 22. Titian Peale is noted in our volume xiv, p. 40, note 1.—Ed.
[219] For brief notice of John Jacob Astor, see Franchère's Narrative, in our volume vi, p. 186, note 8.—Ed.
[220] For Dr. Julius, see ante, p. [179], note 198. The riots of July 9-11, 1834, were occasioned by popular opposition to the abolition movement. The American Anti-Slavery Society held a meeting in New York on the fourth of July; immediately excitement arose, and the leaders were threatened. On the night of the ninth, the attempt to hold a meeting of the society resulted in an attack on the Chatham Street chapel—the place of meeting—and the house of Lewis Tappan, one of its prominent members. See Niles' Register, xlvi, pp. 332, 346, 357-360.—Ed.
[221] See p. [169], for illustration of harpoon for dolphins.—Ed.