Wednesday, April 7, 2010

CENTRAL / WESTERN NEW YORK timeline / 1795

January
Charles Williamson purchases the slave Utica, the first black in Bath, from Rensselaer Schuyler for $250. ** Connecticut investor William Wadsworth drives three ox teams from New York City to Big Tree (Geneseo) escorting six families to settle there.
Jan 19
Rochester tavernkeeper, state legislator and reformer William Clough Bloss is born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to Revolutionary War veteran and farmer Joseph Bloss and his wife Amy Wentworth Kennedy Bloss.
Jan 21
Last November’s Canandaigua Treaty between the U. S. and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Nation) is ratified by Congress.
Mar 7
Indian agent General Israel Chapin dies at Buffalo Creek.
Mar 24
State surveyor general Simeon De Witt acquires Benjamin Ellicott's certified map of his Pre-emption Line survey, by an act of the legislature.
Apr 9
The New York State Legislature passes “An act for the encouragement of schools". $50,000 annually is appropriated for the next five years, to establish and support common schools.

May 25
William Kersey begins a survey of a section of land northwest of Bath, for Charles Williamson.

June
The Cayuga sell their 64,000-acre reservation to New York, setting aside 4 lots of about 3200 acres, for $1,800, first of annual payments of that amount, but with no federal official on the scene. ** Two traveling companions of France’s Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt leave him in Niagara Falls, visit York.
Jun 23
Early Rochester settler Nathaniel Hayward is born in Vermont.
July
James Wadsworth writes his uncle Jeremiah that Genesee Valley lands are high in demand now that the Iroquois have relinquished their title to the eastern part of the Phelps-Gorham Purchase. Lands are going for 20-23 shillings an acre (about $2.40-3.80).
Jul 1
William Wadsworth buys 345 acres of Genesee Valley lands for $100.
Sep 8
East Bloomfield's Congregational Church, the first church in the village, is formed by the Reverend Zadock Hunn.
Nov 15
East Bloomfield's Congregational Church is officially organized.
State
Two Englishmen erect a log cabin on the future site of Caledonia. ** Ephraim Webster is granted 140 acres of land on the future site of Syracuse. ** Miller Daniel Penfield begins buying Township 13 Range IV of the Phelps and Gorham Tract. The town will be named after him. ** Cornelius McCoy settles at the future site of Dansville, founded next year. David Sholl builds a mill there. ** Williamson is appointed an Ontario County judge. ** Aaron Hunt and mill builder Jacob Holdren settle in the Canadice Lake area. ** Williamsburgh has twelve houses by the end of the year, Whitestown 40. ** Charles Scholl completes grist and sawmills on Canaseraga Creek for Charles Williamson, at the site of today’s Leicester. ** Williamson begins importing cattle from New England in the spring. ** Naturalist Amos Eaton enters Williams College, in Massachusetts. ** U. S. senator Aaron Burr, his daughter Theodosia and her husband Joseph Alston, travel to Niagara Falls. Burr leaves his party at Canawagus and travels to the falls at what will become Rochester. He stays overnight with settler Peter Shaeffer at Wheatland. ** Bloomfield's Markham family buys land in Canada, and moves there for the next four years. ** New York buys 62,115 acres of Cayuga Nation land on both side of northern Cayuga Lake. The Cayuga retain 1,900 acres. ** Merchant George C. Latta is born to Irish-born businessman Samuel Latta and Sarah Jackson Latta, in Canandaigua. ** During the winter large numbers of oxen-drawn sleds make their way west from the Hudson to the Genesee lands. ** Geneva suffers a Genesee Fever epidemic through the summer. ** Williamson records 31 deeds and 157 mortgages for the Pulteney Associates. His expenses for sundries alone runs to £790. He has sold 463,00 acres to date. ** This year and next Williamson will purchase small tracts of western New York land - four from Thomas Morris, four from Oliver Phelps, and 14,000 acres from Birdsong and Nathaniel Norton. ** Williamson tries to promote investment in Connecticut's Lake Erie lands, sending Colonel Benjamin Walker to Hartford to talk with the Connecticut Legislature. His employer Sir William Pulteney will turn down the proposal. ** Williamson pays $43.75 to Alexander MacDonald for “Eben: Allan & Saw Mills Note of hand Given to You.” ** Mendon pioneer Cornelius Treat takes 20 bushels of wheat to Canandaigua, where he trades it for a barrel of salt. His wife, Esther Park Treat, dies this year, the first death in the town. ** The Iroquois population has dropped to approximately 3500. ** Samuel Lewis's state map is published. ** 100,000 acres of Oneida Indian land are conveyed to the state. ** The state appoints agents David Brooks, John Cantine, John Richardson, and Philip Schuyler to purchase the remaining Cayuga, Oneida and Onondaga Indian reservation lands for resale. ** Colonel Wilhelmus Mynderse builds a gristmill on the Seneca River at the site of Seneca Falls, following a sawmill built there earlier in the year. ** The population of the Genesee Valley region reaches 12,000. ** The approximate date Charles Williamson, struck with its resemblance to Lyons, France, renames the Forks - Lyons. ** The approximate date David Scholl builds a plank house in Dansville. ** An autumn earthquake breaks off a rock section of Niagara Falls, changing the curvature. ** The state has 64,017 eligible voters. ** David Wagener builds a gristmill at Penn Yan. ** Penfield resident Caleb Hopkins marries Dorothea Mabee, sister of his friend Jacobus Mabee. He also tries, unsuccessfully, to interest Connecticut’s James Wadsworth in purchasing nearby land. ** Buffalo has 12 settlers.


Bath
Henry and William McElwee begin clearing land for a village. ** The Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt visits Charles Williamson. ** Williamson hosts a “World’s Fair, builds a racetrack.
Pittsford
The area is inhabited by a number of recent English immigrants. . ** Northfield (eventually Pittsford) pioneer Thomas Billinghurst, a Baptist minister, arrives in the U.S. from England. Pittsford, New York ** Pioneer Israel Stone dies. ** Westfield, New York, doctor John Ray and his wife Sabra settle here.
Rochesterville
Josiah Fish and his son Libbeus travel from Vermont to the mouth of the Genesee in the spring. They stay for a day or two with Frederick Hosmer, one of the two families living there (the other William Hincher’s), then set up on their own. In the summer a Mr. Sprague is sent to take charge of Allan's Mill. His wife, three daughters and a son-in-law named Fleming go with him, as do the Fishes. They are joined there by hunter John Parks, and his dog. Libbeus Fish suffers with the ague and fever through the summer.
© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte

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