1826
Jan 1
Total contracted debt to date for the Erie and
Champlain canals totals $9,108,269. Of the amount $1,621,274 went for auxiliary
waterways, dams, and officers’ salaries.
Jan 27
The Steuben County towns of Erwin and Hornby are
formed from Painted Post (later Corning).
Feb 5
Buffalo area lawyer Millard Fillmore marries
Abigail Powers.
Feb 25
The Wayne County Town of Port Bay (later Huron) is
established.
Feb 26
The Wayne County Town of Butler, named for
Revolutionary War general William Butler, is established.
Mar 14
The U. S. agrees, after much controversy, to send
two delegates to a congress of the new Latin American republics, to be held in
Panama, Colombia. One of the two is New York State judge William B. Rochester.
April
Canandaigua hotel keeper and sheriff Nathaniel Roe
Boswell is born in Union, New York.
Apr 10
The village of Rochesterville adopts its second
charter, establishing a formal annual election and creating the posts of
treasurer, tax collector, and constable. Five wards are established, each
having a trustee, an assessor and two fire wardens. The power of the Board of
Trustees is expanded to include the mandate, previously that of the mayor, to
enforce the By-Laws,
Apr 17
The Genesee County town of Gerrysville (possibly
after former U. S. vice president Elbridge Gerry, possibly after pioneer David
Gary) later renamed Alabama, is formed out of parts of Pembroke, New York, and
the Orleans county town of Shelby.
Apr 27
Rensselaer professor Amos Eaton goes to Albany to
arrange for boat for his upcoming students’ field trip across New York on the
Erie Canal.
May 8
The steam-boat Mexico arrives in Rochesterville from Prairie du Chien,
Wisconsin, carrying the news of the March 22nd murder in Wisconsin of a family
by Indians.
May 10
Amos Eaton and his students arrive at Salina
(north Syracuse), formed last year. Student Asa Fitch visits the salt works.
They continue on to Nine Mile Creek (Otisco). A bed-making committee is chosen.
May 11
The travelers have breakfast at Jordan. Fitch
begins feeling unwell. Dinner is eaten at Byron. The Lafayette continues on to Montezuma. Canal mile boards now
begin appearing, continue all the way to Buffalo.
May 12
The group has breakfast at Clyde. Fitch is feeling
better. They stop at Lyons for dinner. Professors Addison Hulbert and Bennet F.
Root leave the party to give lectures on botany and chemistry to local
audiences. The party meets canal commissioner Myron Holley. Supper is at
Newark. They stop at Palmyra for the night.
May 14
Professor Amos Eaton’s geological expedition
reaches Rochesterville. He predicts the town will fail to survive. ** Sweden, New York, gets three
feet of snow.
May 15
Eaton's group visits the Falls of the Genesee. The
professor is lecturing on the rock strata when he is stricken with a fainting
spell and begins hallucinating. Receiving medical attention, he recovers.
May 16
The party passes through the towns of Gates,
Clarkson, and the unincorporated
Brockport, spends the night at Holleysville (Holley). Asa Fitch reads
the 12th and 13th cantos of Byron's Don Juan.
May 17
Eaton's group passes through Newport (Albion),
crosses over the highway arch, and spends the night at Middleport. They hear of
a two-year-old who had drowned in canal just previously. Fitch reads cantos 14
and 15 of Don Juan. Fitch describes the countryside as, fertile and productive,
yielding abundant crops, to repay the labors of the husbandman."
May 18
The group passes evidence of the newly-begun fruit
industry. They examine flammable gas seeping out of the ground and name the
local community Gasport. As they pass through Lockport, they encounter local
entrepreneurs marketing excavated stone from the canal.
May 19
Eaton's expedition arrive at Manchester, encounter
200 U. S. troops en route from
Sacketts Harbor to Green Bay, Michigan. Several are under guard for desertion
and disobedience. A prisoner count reveals one missing. He's soon spotted and
recaptured. The Rensselaer party presses on to view Niagara Falls. Asa Fitch,
his expectations heightened, is unimpressed. He thought rocks above the falls
would frame the scene better. They descend the steps to the base of the
cataract and tour Goat Island.
May 20
The group walk along Lake Erie shore in the
evening. Professor Eaton recapitulates the expedition in the evening.
May 21
Sunday. After services several of the party walk
to an Indian village. Fitch describes log huts, "much warmer than some I
have seen inhabited by white people...I had a short conversation with one of
the Indians, who could speak English. Only a few could even though they lived
among whites...Most, if not all, however, know the meaning of the words
whiskey, tobacco, etc. Dress of some very fine."
May 22
The party walks along beach, view five-foot-high
waves.
May 23
Eaton's group reaches Sturgeon Point, the western
end of their journey. They encamp at 18 Mile Creek outside of Buffalo.
May 24
The group is invited to dine with General Peter
Porter and wife. They cross into Canada and tour Fort Erie battlefield.
May 25
Eaton and his students cross the mouth of
"Tonnewanta" (Tonawanda) Creek, spend the night at Lockport.
May 26
Eaton sets a goal for remainder of journey of 30
miles a day. The reach Gasport to find that their name for the settlement is
already appearing on signboards. Moving on to Middleport they notice an
abundant harvest along the way.
May 27
The expedition spends the night at Newport. Fitch
describes the citizens as "About as sassy, indecent, vulgar and dirty set
of inhabitants as we have yet met with."
May 28
Sunday. Arriving in Rochesterville the group
attends Presbyterian services. Naturalist Constantine Rafinesque joins the
party. Some of the group spend the evening at the Canal Hotel.
May 29
The party visits the Lower Falls with Professor
Rafinesque. They view a perfect rainbow, note that the river is lower this
time. A number of them collect wild geraniums (rare in eastern part of the
state).
May 30
Eaton passes through Pittsford. Fitch leaves the
group briefly to visit friends. The party collects plants in a marsh at
Palmyra. George Clinton sleepwalks, wakens party in middle of the night.
May 31
Breakfast is eaten at Newark. A mosquito swarm
attacks. The students build fires on board the boat to drive them off.
June
Simon Bolivar convenes an inter-American congress
in Panama. One U. S. delegate dies en route and the other, William B.
Rochester, arrives after it's ended. **
Contracts are let and work will soon begin on the improvements to the
Seneca and Cayuga lakes outlets.
June 1
Eaton's party reaches Otisco.
June 2
They reach Salina. Eaton gives public lectures on
chemistry and natural history.
June 3
They reach Manlius. Fitch reports it was once
named Fuddletown, from the first inhabitants, who were a drunken, carousing set
of people. But the present inhabitants are different and very zealous in
obliterating the former name.
July
A gathering of Scots clans is held in Caledonia.
Jul 4
The cornerstone is laid for the first lock of the
Oswego Canal.
Aug 19
Joseph Ellicott, former Resident-Agent for western
New York's Holland Land Office, despondent and ill, takes his own life, at
Bellevue Hospital in New York City, at the age of 65.
Sep 10
William Morgan is arrested in Batavia to protect
him from a Freemason mob accusing him of revealing Masonic secrets.
Sep 12
Morgan is taken from jail in Canandaigua,
vanishes. It’s been said the party stopped overnight at Pittsford’s Phoenix
Hotel, where Morgan has his last dinner.
Oct 30
Harvard student James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, is
reprimanded for "illegal dress".
November
Mid-term U. S. elections end with an
anti-administration House majority.
Nov 12
Mason Seth Chapin dies in Buffalo at the age of
36.
Nov 20
Buffalo storekeeper Orlando Allen marries Marilla
Adaline Pratt, sister of grocer Oliver Pratt.
Dec 21
Connecticut-born Indian agent and judge Erastus
Granger dies in Buffalo at the age of 61. He will be buried in Forest Lawn
Cemetery.
State
De Witt Clinton is returned to the governorship,
defeating Democrat candidate William B. Rochester. ** Caledonia's first post office, bank and
apothecary shop is built by Major Gad Blakeslee. It will later house the public
library. ** Rensselaerian School (Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute) professor Amos Eaton leads a geological expedition across the state
aboard the canal boat LaFayette.
He is accompanied by Governor De Witt Clinton’s son George, future state
entomologist Asa Fitch and physicist Joseph Henry, among others. They name the town of Gasport when they
discover coal gas from a spring. ** E. M. Perkins begins publishing the Le Roy News-Gazette.
** U. S. Secret
Service founder Lafayette C. Baker is born in Stafford. ** Geneva College (Hobart and
William Smith Colleges) holds its first Commencement exercises, graduating
five. ** The village of Tonawanda
has 12 buildings.
** The vote is
extended to all white male citizens aged twenty-one or older. ** Shakers begin a colony,
later to be called Alasa Farms, at Sodus Bay. ** General James Hutchinson dies. His home on the
West Seneca Turnpike near Onondaga Hill, is handed down to his son Orrin. ** The approximate date a jail
is built in Batavia, at the south side of Main Streets at Oak Street. ** The family of
seventeen-year-old Philip S. Lott arrives in Lodi from Hunterdon County, New
Jersey. ** Mendon's Daniel Barnard
becomes the first Representative to Congress from Monroe County. ** James S. Wadsworth of
Geneseo enters Harvard.
** Over 50,000
acres of reservation land is purchased from the Seneca. ** The Wayne County Town of
Winchester is renamed Marion, for Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion,
"The Swamp Fox".
** Bath
businessman John Magee is elected to Congress. ** Combined revenue from the Erie and Chanplain
canals totals $675,190.
** The state
authorizes a dam on the Genesee River at Mt. Morris. ** Vermonters Mr. and Mrs. Parker Nichols settle in
St. Helena, in the central Genesee Valley. ** Canal engineer James Geddes does a survey for a
Genesee valley canal but nothing comes of his efforts. ** Pioneers make their way into
the area of the future Lyndon, in Cattaraugus County, by way of the Erie Canal
and the Ischia Valley.
Buffalo
The recently established merchant house of Lyman
Rathbun and Company moves to new, larger offices. ** The pier at Black Rock is crushed by ice. ** Grocer Hiram Pratt marries
Maria Fowler in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Connewango
Ontario County settler John Towers moves here.
Jared Stevens arrives from Genesee County. ** Jotham Metcalf starts a Methodist class in his home.
Erie Canal
418 boats arrive in Buffalo harbor this year 1,100
craft lock through the canal.
** Locks 51 and
50 in Cahoes are made double locks.
Pittsford
A brick home is built on the north side of Monroe
Avenue for Erie Canal contractor Sylvanus Lathrop. ** The village’s Presbyterians sell their 1816
frame house at the Milepost to the Baptists. They have Lathrop build a stone church for them on Church
Street.
Rochesterville
Population reaches 7,669. ** Monroe County's almshouse
is built on South Avenue.
** Edwin
Scrantom, along with Whittlesley and Mumford, purchase the Monroe Republican. ** Professor Eaton gives a lecture in
Rochesterville sponsored by the city’s Chemical Class, which was formed to buy
books on mechanical subjects. It will be the basis for the city’s Franklin
Society. ** Oliver Loud and Everard
Peck's Western Almanack
replaces the "Advice to Farmers" pages with a table of interest
rates. ** Peck begins selling The
Christian Almanack, published by
the American Tract Society.
** The
Rochesterville Daily Advertiser
begins publication. It is the first New York daily newspaper west of
Albany. ** Daniel D. Barnard is
elected as the first U. S. Representative from the new 27th Congressional
District (Monroe and Livingston counties). ** The city's first public library is founded. ** The village's seven flour
mills ship 200,000 barrels.
** South
Carolina farmer John Chattin arrives in the Brighton area. ** Louis Selye erects a
building on Brown's Race for the manufacture of fire engines. ** The village has six
churches and nine sawmills.
Art
The approximate date painter George Catlin paints
Seneca chief Red Jacket.
Michigan
The approximate date the Prusa family of German
immigrants arrive in Jacksonburgh (later Jackson), from Dansville, New York.
Christian Prusa Jr. starts a tannery here, one of the Territory’s first.
© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte
The above timeline is just a small, selected
section of a series of World History timelines – from BC through last year
- I’ve been building up over the a
number of years. If you have a single year you’re particularly interested in
seeing, here or on the Eagles Byte site (http://www.eaglesbyte.blogspot.com/),
e-mail me at
and I’ll send you the complete (unedited) World
History timeline for that particular year.
David
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