1816
February
The first settlers - Vermonters Isaac Smith, Rufus Trumbull and Reuben Wolcox, and Otsego County’s Elias Smith - arrive in Allegany County and settle the future Town of Granger.
Feb 10
Future Pittsford farmer, grocer and politician Jarvis Lord is born in Ballston Spa.
Mar 8
The New York State Canal Commission submits its final report to the legislature, based on surveys done by Benjamin Wright.
April
The approximate date Jacob Townsend sends his son Sheldon to Oswego aboard the schooner Niagara to work for his partner Alvin Bronson, a Lake Ontario commission agent.
Apr 4
Connecticut–born silversmith Eleazor Southworth and his wife Mary Southworth settle in Elba.
June
Killing frosts over the next three months wipe out all major crops in the Genesee Valley - The Year Without a Summer.
Jun 7
Light snow falls over the Finger Lakes.
September
Edwin Scrantom is apprenticed to A. G. Dauby, publisher of the new Weekly Gazette, the first newspaper in Rochesterville.
Sep 3
Holland Land Office clerk David E. Evans marries Lucy Grant in Batavia.
Sep 7
The steamboat Frontenac is launched in Buffalo for the Lake Ontario trade.
November
Bethlehem, Connecticut, store clerk Charles J. Hill, left without a job when his employer retires, and having moved to Rochesterville, then to Utica, then back to Rochesterville, accepts a bookkeeper’s job with Bissell & Ely.
Dec 2
Rochester nurseryman George Ellwanger is born at Gross-Heppach, Germany.
Dec 30
Two Oswego, New York lake sailors – Captain McDonald of the schooner British Queen and sailor Duncan Campbell - fight a duel with rifles at 15 rods - over claimed advances made to Campbell’s wife. Both men survive the incident.
State
The grandparents of temperance reformer Frances Willard settle in the Churchville area. ** The first printing press in Monroe and Seneca counties. ** The approximate date David Rumsey founds the Bath Gazette and Benjamin Smead begins the Steuben (& Allegany) Patriot. ** General Peter Porter is appointed to the commission studying the boundary with Canada. He resigns from Congress this year, builds a house in Black Rock (Buffalo). ** A front porch with Doric columns is added to Batavia’s Holland Land Office. ** Dansville’s Colonel Nathaniel Rochester is appointed a presidential/vice-presidential elector for the second time. ** Elisha Swift tours the state as a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. ** Eliphalet Follet settles on Chautauqua Road to the east of Rutledge, founding he village of Connewango, where he will soon build a tavern. ** The first church in Brutus is founded by the Methodist Episcopalians. ** The state office of Deputy Superintendent of the Onondaga Salt Works is abolished and the salary of the Superintendent is increased by $250 a year. A duty of 12.5¢ per bushel is levied on Onondaga salt for the increase of the canal fund. The Superintendent, instead of making a yearly report, is required to make one quarterly, and pay into the State treasury , all money collected, except expenses, on the first Tuesday of February, May, August and November. ** The Seneca Republican becomes the Ithaca Journal . ** Amos Bliss opens the first inn in the Erie County village of Alden. Seth Eastabrook opens the first store there. ** Nathaniel and Mehitable Kellogg arrive in Sodus with their family, from Williamstown, Massachusetts. They build a frame house at Main and Mill streets. ** The capital earmarked for the Seneca Lock Navigation Company project is increased to $60,000. ** Joseph Adams and his son Bina, along with Joseph Bartlett, make the first settlement in the Cattaraugus County Town of Otto. ** Canandaigua's St. John's Episcopal Church builds a wooden building at 183 North Main Street. ** Settler Horace Fowler becomes a deacon in Cohocton's First Presbyterian Church. ** The U. S. Government declines to participate in an Erie canal project. ** Bela Coe sells Coe's Stage House in Canandaigua for $14,000 and moves with his brother Canfield to Auburn, where they purchase William Bostwick's tavern. ** Benjamin Wright appoints Nathan Roberts assistant engineer, responsible for the section of the new canal between Rome and the Seneca River. ** The Comstock family of Quakers buy land in the future Lockport area, plant an orchard. ** Michah Brooks of Bloomfield and Jellis Clute of Leicester begin negotiations to purchase part of Mary Jemison’s Gardeau Reservation lands on the Genesee River. ** Educator Simon Newell begins raising $4,000 for a academy at Middlebury. ** Penfield sawmill owner Samuel Rich builds a home on Five-Mile-Line Road, still standing in the 21st Century.
Alfred
The town annexes part of the town of Angelica. ** The first Seventh Day Baptist church is completed.
Auburn
Judge Elijah Miller has a house built in Auburn. He will give it to his daughter Frances and her new husband William Henry Seward in 1824. Carpenter Brigham Young works on the house. ** Auburn Prison is built. ** The original Auburn Academy is destroyed by fire.
Bath
The approximate year David Rumsey attempts to revivie the Farmers’ Advocate; the paper lasts about a year. ** A two-square -mile area based on Pulteney Square is incorporated into the village.
Buffalo
The city is reincorporated. ** The Old Red Warehouse is built on the waterfront just north of Main Street. ** A request for harbor improvement funding is sent to Albany. Only a survey results.
Geneva
Hardware merchant Phineas Prouty, Sr. begins advertising in local newspapers. He joins the first fire company, formed this year. ** Branchport landowner John Beddoe advertises 5,000 acres for sale, in the Geneva Gazette.
Pittsford
A house (later known as the Guetersloh house), is built on Church Street, for the village’s first doctor, John Ray. ** Village Presbyterians begin meeting in a frame house at the Milepost.
Rochesterville
Pioneer Oliver Culver builds a house and tavern on East Avenue. ** Pioneer Ashbel W. Riley arrives. ** Elisha Johnson buys eighty acres of Enos Stone's farm on the eastern bank of the Genesee River for $10,000. ** A cotton mill, utilizing 1,392 spindles, is built. ** The population totals 331 at the beginning of the year, approaches 500 toward the end. ** Albany printer Everard Peck, a native of Berlin, Connecticut, moves his business here. ** Forms for "Petitions for a Division of the Counties of Genesee and Ontario" are printed here, the first printing job in the village. Forms will be made up again in 1818, 1819, and 1820. ** Matthew and Francis Brown, Sr. have a 1200-foot mill race dug along the western rim of the Genesee River gorge.
Sackets Harbor
The Ontario, the first steamboat on the Great Lakes, is launched. ** Construction of the Madison Barracks military post is begun.
Steuben County
The board of supervisors, contravening last year's decision to not pay Indians bounties on wolves and panthers, pays Tall John, a Bath-area native, $27.50 in bounties on wolves. ** The county’s tax levy amounts to $11,696.61. **
© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte
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