IX.

MY CALIFORNIA DIARY.

Feb. 12, 1849-Nov. 11, 1849.

[This diary was brought to light not long after the foregoing Reminiscences had appeared in “The Unadilla Times.” Dr. Halsey was urged to include it in the proposed pamphlet, but made no definite reply to the suggestion. It obviously did not occur to him that it would be interesting to others than himself—not even to members of his own family. I do not remember having ever seen it before, or been informed by him of its existence. Written as it was amid the scenes described, the propriety of including it here seems clear. Although he used a pencil, and more than fifty years have passed, the words are still as distinct and legible as when he set them down.]

Feb. 12, ’49; left Plainville; stormy; staid at New Haven till 16th one o’clock P.M.; arrived in New York 7 P.M.

Left New York Friday 23, at 9 o’clock and 20 minutes; all sea sick before night. Saturday 24th, table vacant pretty much. Good appetites are few. Wind commenced to blow up from the north-east Saturday night and continued with rain till Sunday 25th at 2 o’clock P.M., when it changed into the south-east and continued a perfect gale Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday till 9 A.M., when it went into the north-east, or rather when we struck the trade winds blowing from the north-east.

We are now, Thursday P.M. 1st March tripping it towards Chagres at the rate of 10 knots an hour.

Friday 2nd. A beautiful day and going at a nice rate; warm and balmy.

Saturday 3d. A beautiful day; we this day crossed the tropic and every man has his coat off; sun comes down hot.

Tuesday 4th. Made land this morning 6 o’clock, the Caicos Islands on our right and Turks Island on our left; a beautiful day, thermometer at 10 o’clock stood at summer heat; shirt sleeves and summer vests are out in profusion; had divine service on board to-day by a lay brother (Mr. Appleton) of New York, an aged man who with two sons and two nephews are going to California after fortunes. Had occasion to prescribe for two cases to-day on board.

Monday 5th. Another fine day; we made the passage to-day between the Islands of Hayti and Cuba; we were not near enough to either to see how they looked except that there was very high land on both. The inauguration of President Taylor was observed by cracking a few bottles of champagne furnished us by the generosity of the house of Livingston and Wells of New York. It is getting very hot for us northerners.

Wednesday 7th. Another fine day and fine run. We shall make Chagres Friday if everything continues favorable.

Thursday 8th. Another fine day and we have made a fine run. Nothing of consequence has occurred to-day except an eclipse of the moon this evening. To-morrow we expect to see Chagres, being at 4 o’clock to-day but 130 miles off.

Friday 9th. Made Porto Bello this morning and from there to Chagres is thirty miles; the scenery was magnificent. Arrived off Chagres about noon where we anchored and lay till Saturday noon; had fine sport fishing.

Saturday 10th. Towed into harbor this morning by the “Orus.” Left Chagres 2 P.M. in the “Orus” which took us 15 miles up the river and then we took canoes. The scenery up the river is beyond northern conception in point of beauty. The land must be capable of producing unlimitedly.

Sunday 11th. Arrived at Gorgona and pitched our tent. The river is literally crammed with nice fish, but cannot be caught with a hook; am not so favorably impressed with the natives here as at Chagres; they are fast learning dishonesty from the Americans. They all smoke, women and all; I observed one woman smoking with the lit end in her mouth.

Monday 12th. Nothing of note to mention except that we drew our seine and caught a few noble fish; but there are too many snags to fish safely. Gambling is carried on here by some Americans and several fools have lost all their money and returned home. Very hot, thermometer ranging about 100.

Tuesday 13th. Five of our company went on to-day with the most of our baggage and the rest of us go when we get ready. Freight is from 6 to 10 dollars per 100 lbs. as you make your bargain.

Saturday 17th. Left Gorgona for Panama. Walked to the half way house and put up,—the distance called from 12 to 15 miles.

Sunday 18th. Started about 4 o’clock and reached Panama about 12; fell in on the way with a company who had a dog, and about two miles from the city it was taken rabid, but the owner would not consent to have it shot till it had treed us all. The city is a very ancient looking place, the buildings being constructed of stone, the old Spanish style with tiled roofs and surrounded by a wall of great strength, but time is crumbling it in many places. The inhabitants are a mixture of blacks, Indians and Spaniards—an ignorant inoffensive people, all Catholics; the cathedral was a splendid building in its day. All people smoke.

May 17th. Left Panama in a bunjo for the Panama steamer lying in the bay and with no little satisfaction—such in fact as no one but who has been imprisoned nine weeks in the same place can appreciate. We raised anchor about 12 P.M. and started for Francisco.

Friday 18th. We are on our way, all a jolly looking set of fellows. The news received from California and our being set free from a tedious imprisonment have put a happy look upon all. Saw a whale spouting this morning before getting out of the bay and also sharks.

Monday 21st. Nothing of note since last date. Pierce was taken sick today.

Tuesday 22d. P. is quite sick to-day, but hope he will not be long. We are getting along fine. We were followed to-day by a school of black fish and they attracted great notice jumping out of the water. They followed us several miles.

Wednesday 23d. P. is about the same. I fear he will be hard sick.

Thursday 24th. Nothing of note. We are on our way finely, having so far beautiful weather. P. is no better; a hard place to be sick in; no attention being paid to either sick or well.

Friday 25th. Many a sick person would give a fortune to be insured as delightful weather for a sea voyage. P. is about the same, his fever not quite as high as it has been.

Saturday 26th. We last night came very near being lost in the breakers. Our “look out” fell asleep and the first we knew we were aroused by the noise of the breakers, they being not more than one and a half miles off and we going 9 or 10 knots. The captain says there is a serious mistake in the survey of the coast along here as laid down on the chart, for at noon yesterday on taking his observation and looking at his chart, it made us to be 25 miles farther from land than we were which, with the heedless “look out” came very near being our death. We spoke a little schooner this morning bound for California in distress. She was 64 days out from Panama and had lost four men from thirst and 4 others with their small boat who went ashore for water and did not return—for what reason they know not and they already had the scurvy aboard. We supplied them with water and getting three hearty cheers for it we parted. Poor fellows, I fear they will never reach their destination. A fellow of the name of McGruder, who came with us from New York on the “Abrasia” went aboard of her as mate and was one of the four who went ashore and did not return.

Sunday 27th. We are passing the mouth of the Gulf of California to-day and there is a great change in the weather. P. is improving slowly.

Monday 28th. We this morning about 5 o’clock made Cape St. Lucas and of course got the first sight of California, showing a range of very high mountains. I began to feel as if I was going to California sure. May my Julia feel as well and happy to-day as I do. God protect her while I am absent. P. is doing well. A good many of the passengers have their overcoats on—a very unusual sight for the past four months.

Tuesday 29th. Nothing of note has occurred to-day. We saw a sail, but so far off as not to distinguish. More overcoats are in good demand. The weather is very cool. P. is about well. We had a very fine view of a whale to-day, being quite near and showing 30 or 40 feet of his length. He threw the water fine.

Wednesday 30th. This is the day fixed upon for the United States and Mexican governments to meet at San Diego to commence running the boundary line. We have the United States Commissioner (Col. Weller[124]) and suite aboard; we shall not reach San Diego before day after to-morrow (Friday) which of course breaks the treaty, the consequences of which we shall see. We have had strong head winds all the way from Panama and for the last 24 hours almost a gale because of which we have not made very fast time. We had another fine view of a whale to-day, being in the midst of a school of them spouting in every direction and our course right along side one, within I should think 50 feet of the vessel. It was a grand sight when he came to the surface throwing the cloud of spray and showing 40 or 50 feet of his length.

Thursday 31st. We are plodding along and shall probably reach San Diego to-morrow. Saw plenty of whale to-day. Had the laugh on 4 or 5 of the passengers who were in the habit of hooking from the galley. The cook baked a pie containing tartar emetic. They stole it and of course had occasion to cast up their accounts.

Friday, June 1st. We made San Diego today before it was noon and landed Colonel Weller and party, during which stay one of our crew ran away. We left about 2 P.M. again and hope to reach Francisco Sunday night.

Saturday 2nd. We found this morning that we were short of coal, but after looking about discovered several tons which we knew nothing of—a culpable neglect of the chief engineer, I should think. With prudence and using spars and other loose stuff about the vessel we hope to reach Francisco. We have had strong head winds to-day and made Point Conception about 2 o’clock, where it always blows a gale, but we weathered it. The coast about the Point presents a beautiful prospect of table land and high mountains in the rear. There is but little vegetation—no trees except occasionally a cluster with patches of grass. The plains are covered with herds of wild cattle.

Sunday 3d. We have had to give up our berths to make fuel for the engine. With the aid of them we hope to reach Francisco by 2 o’clock to-night. We have seen any quantity of whale to-day.

Monday 4th. We arrived at Francisco about 6 this morning after burning every thing loose about the vessel. The bay is a splendid one and the entrance puts me in mind of New York. The tide was going out and there was a terrible commotion of the water. The town is a small place yet but alive with persons. We are not discouraged about “the diggings” from what we hear. This is the windiest place I ever saw—worse than Unadilla Centre. We pitched our tents and remained here until Saturday 9th, when we left for the diggings intending to remain at Sacramento City a few days. We left Francisco about 5 o’clock and sailed up the bay about 30 miles and cast anchor for the night. For what reason I know not, but on endeavoring to raise the anchor on Sunday 10th morning, we could not do it and were obliged to cut the chain and go on.

Monday 11th. We had a dead calm to-day and only made five miles.

Tuesday 12th. We passed a very uncomfortable night last night. It rained all night and we all were wet through and, to add to our discomfort, the calm has continued all day and our provisions are getting low. “I’m going to Sacramento with my banjo on my knee.” I can realize that song now.

Wednesday 13th. The calm still continues and we have been trying to warp up, but haven’t made but a mile or two. I know not what we shall do, for starvation is staring us in the face. Hurrah! our agent went ashore this morning and walked to a small ranch and bought a small piece, 2 or 3 pounds; gave two dollars for it which will prevent our starving a day or two longer. What makes our situation more horrible are the clouds of mosquitoes. I never saw mosquitoes before so large and you cannot get away from them; every man’s face and hands look like puff balls.

Thursday 14th. The wind has served us very well to-day—at least until about three P.M., when we came into a bend in the river, when it was ahead and we had to warp again. But just before we had got through the bend the wind caught us and away we went down stream, losing all we had gained and brought up at a tree on the opposite side of the river where we tied up for the night and I went ashore with my blankets and slept under a splendid oak tree—the first good night’s rest I have had on the trip.

Friday 15th. By warping this morning a short distance we succeeded in getting the wind in our favor and we finally have reached our destination, Sacramento City, composed of two framed buildings and some 200 cloth ones and tents. The news we get here is as good as I looked for, but all of our baggage is a dead weight pretty much, as it will cost us more to get it to the mines (50 dollars a hundred) than it is worth and they ask 4 dollars a barrel per month for storing. We shall sell what we can and leave the rest.

Tuesday 19th. Five of us started to-day for the Middle Fork of the American river the balance remaining at Sacramento City. We travelled four miles and camped for the night under a splendid oak tree and we were well serenaded by a pack of prairie wolves.

Wednesday 20th. We have had a day’s walk in a broiling sun through an oak opening as level as a floor and have travelled 20 miles where there is no water. We met a man who showed us a lump of gold weighing 49 ounces, taken out a few days since. We have 25 miles to make to-morrow to reach Sutter’s Mill, and I dread it for my feet are both blistered.

Thursday 21st. We have only made 15 miles to-day over a hilly road and have had fine sport shooting game along the road. The country is full of wild animals, particularly wolves. We saw four this morning within 40 rods of each other. I suppose they were after a deer which was near them.

Friday 22d. We reached Sutter’s Mill (Coloma) about one o’clock to-day and found it like the other towns, a lively place of cloth houses and the hottest place I ever saw. I think the thermometer stands to-day 130° in the shade. I thought Panama was hot but this is ahead of it. We were disturbed last night between 11 and 12 by a person we took to be an Indian and we thought best to keep watch the balance of the night, each one to take his turn for an hour, but we had no further trouble.

Saturday 23d. We have been out to try our washer to-day and have washed out about 8 dollars—very good for raw hands, I think.

Monday 25th. We have been out to-day again and had better luck, having got 34 pwts. and 3 grains.

Thursday 26th. Started for the Middle Fork and arrived on

Thursday 28th; nothing occurring on the road worthy of note. One of our company went out with his pan and was gone about three hours and brought back 9 pwts. 11 grains of gold. I thought I had seen a wild, desolate region before, but it was a mistake. Here we are hemmed in by towering mountains, the thermometer from 100° upwards and snow in sight.

Friday 29th. We have been at work to-day, at least three of us, and have done very well; made 7 ounces, 8 pwts. and 18 grains. There is gold enough here but it requires very hard labor to get it.

Saturday 30th. We have done well indeed to-day, having dug, three of us, 11 ozs. 16 pwts. and 18 grains.

October 26th. We left the mines about the 1st of October and I made my way down to San Francisco where it was my intention of wintering, but there are more of my profession than patients and I shall make my way home as fast as possible.

Thursday 1st November. We left San Francisco to-day at 1 o’clock P.M. and made the port of Monterey the following day about 1 P.M. from which port we sailed about 4 P.M. and have had a rain storm since and it still (Saturday 3rd) continues to rain.

Sunday 4th. The rain ceased about 10 last evening when it cleared away and the wind changed into the north-west. We spread our sails and we are now speeding away by the united aid of wind and steam, but with nothing to relieve the aggravating ennui of a sea voyage except the western coast of California and Mexico which being a dreary, barren waste, gives but little relief. However, the cheering thought that I am on my way and with good fortune shall soon find dear friends and more than these my own Julia, makes my heart leap for joy. God speed the vessel.

Monday 5th. We made the port of San Diego last evening where we had to take in a new supply of coal which detained us till this evening. Our next port is Mazatlan.

Tuesday 6th. Nothing of note except fine weather and we are getting into a warmer climate.

Wednesday 7th. I have had to witness a scene to-day which I hope never to be obliged to see again—a burial at sea. The earthly remains of an only son, the pride of doting parents in New York, were committed to the mighty deep—a horrible sight to me. God grant that I may be allowed to get back to mother earth when I die, let that be where it will, among friends or foe; I care but little; but give me a tenement in the bosom of earth.

Saturday 13th. We made the port of Mazatlan[125] about 10 A.M. where passengers were to be allowed to go ashore and some had left in the small boats when a British naval officer came aboard and brought the news of the cholera being ashore and of course we were not permitted to leave.

Sunday 11th. We made the port of San Blas about 10 A.M. but did not remain long.

[Here the diary abruptly ends. Three day’s later the ship must have reached Acapulco, on leaving which point Dr. Halsey became dangerously ill of fever and for nine days was unconscious, as described by him in a previous chapter. During the remainder of the voyage home he was never able to complete these notes of his trip. When again he took up the unfinished task, more than forty years had passed over his head and when he finally completed it he had reached almost the end of his allotted days.]

EDITORIAL NOTE—ILLNESS AND DEATH.

After the attack of Chagres fever Dr. Halsey continued through life a man in robust health. The only subsequent illness he ever had was the last. He wrote as follows in a letter of January, 1886:

“Three years more bring me to seventy years of age. I have good reason for feeling that I may not reach that period, and as time develops the truth of my views I can dispose of my affairs to better advantage than executors could. I am perfectly aware that my right kidney is affected with disease. I have been conscious of it for two years and have kept it measurably in abeyance, but it is gradually making progress. I have lost flesh within that time in very marked degree. I weigh less than 180, whereas I have been up to 212.

“I tell you this, not to alarm you, as it is only to be looked for as a final result some time in the future, though serious enough to warn me to put my house in order. I can keep the disease under control for some time probably, and as long as I can do so, prefer to remain in business. I have no fears of death or the future. With my children all fitted for life and well situated, my life work is finished and I am ready to yield to the universal demand of nature. I feel that I have lived not wholly in vain; that the world in some small degree may have been benefited. Although conscious that I have not filled the full measure of what might have been, want of training and guidance after I was left an orphan, is in a measure to be charged with the shortcomings. I am thus frank with my boys.”

After the last chapter of his Reminiscences had appeared in “The Unadilla Times” his health failed alarmingly. He wrote on Jan. 17, 1891: “I have lost ground in a quite marked way during the last week including the sense of feeling in my right foot. A little exertion exhausts me. To the Post Office and back is about all I can do. I feel that my worldly career is nearly ended, though I hope to see the Spring.” Three days later he wrote in what is probably his last letter: “If I lose ground as fast as I have lost it in the past two weeks, my stay here is short. I have my own affairs arranged in as good shape as possible, [he had made his will between the writing of these letters and had written out his wishes in regard to the funeral] and am ready to submit to the inevitable at any time.”

A few days before the end came, he was heard to say: “I am content enough, and yet I could have wished to visit Fred”—a reference to his son Frederick A. Halsey, detained at his home in Sherbrooke, Canada, by illness in his own family. His esteemed friend of many years, Dr. Paris Garner Clark, was now in constant attendance, visiting him each day and several times was called in the late hours of the night. During the last week he lost ground with unexpected rapidity, but on Sunday, February 15th, was able to sit up and dictate some final instructions as to his Reminiscences.

The end came on Tuesday the 17th. After a night of peaceful sleep, in the early forenoon of a beautiful winter’s day, the sky blue and cloudless, the earth white with snow, he passed away as if in a sleep. Among his final words were these: “I am going, going; but we have had a happy life. God bless you all.”

The approach of dissolution, which he had noted with professional discernment from week to week and day to day was thus accepted in the spirit in which he had performed the duties of life—without fear and with a manly heart.

That serene ending has often reminded me, as indeed his whole life reminds me, seen now from afar, of some lines by Walter Savage Land or to whom, in temperament and character, he had one or two points of close resemblance:

“I strove with none, for none was worth my strife: Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.”

The burial services were held at the family residence on the afternoon of Thursday, February 19th, when the Rev. Dr. R. N. Parke read the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes and prayers for the family and others present. Judge Gaius L. Halsey of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., a nephew and namesake of whom he was very fond, delivered an address. The day was cold, clear and still, sun and snow filling the world with light. Because of ice on the sidewalks, the procession passed up the centre of the street—a line that reached from the doorway of his home to the old churchyard path. When the mound had been raised up, evergreen boughs were made to cover it. On the following morning the ground was wrapped in a light covering of newly fallen snow from which rose up the large mound, the evergreens concealed beneath the mantle of white.

“Let me not mourn for my father; let me do worthily of him; let me walk as blamelessly through this shadow world.”

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.

INDEX.

Abbey, John, 109

Abel, Seth, 26

Academy, the, 79, 114; Col. North and, 131

Acapulco, city of, 270

Adams, F. O., 140

Adams, Rev. Norman H., 57; and the Anti-Rent War, 66, 70; comes to Unadilla, 85-86; his grave, 89, 137; his marriage, 164, 167; his new home, 168, 171; a donation for, 173, 196; popularity of, 207

Adcock, Daniel, 98.

Albany and Susquehanna Railroad, the, 131

Albout, settlement of, 3

Albright, Frederick, 283

Allen, ——, 99

Allen, Chester K., 118

Allen, Ethan, 204

Allen, Marvin C., 118

Allen, T., 162

American River, Middle Fork of, 254-256; mining on, 257

Ames, Mrs. A. S., 144

Amsden, Albert T., 56

André, John, 102

Anti-Rent War, the, 65

Antietam, battle of, 281

Arms, Sylvester, 105

Arnold, Abimileck, 103

Arnold, Benedict, 102

Arnold, Frank B., 128-129

Arnold, Stephen, 22

Atkins, Eldridge, 243

Axtell, Aaron, pioneer blacksmith, 13; his lands, 15, 32, 50

Axtell, Moses, 14

Ayers, Benjamin H., his business, 140; his home, 195, 201; his family, 202, 208

Bacon, Frank, 56, 194

Bacon, Samuel D., his home, 44; creek near his home, 52, 75; his father, 101, 206.

Bacon, Whiting, 101

Bainbridge, town of, 7, 8, 125

Bailey, Captain, 239, 240

Bailey, Horace E., 142, 201.

Baits, Col. David, supervisor, 44, 45, 49, 52

Baker, Rev. E. Folsom, 116

Baker, David, 102

Baker, Horace, 102

Baker, William, 102

Balestier, Robert S., 283

Banyar, Gouldsborough, his patent, 12, 14, 16; gift of farm by to St. Matthew’s Church, 88, 149

Baptist Church, the, 91

Bartholomew, George W., 243

Bartholomew, Laurence A., 282, 283, 284

Bartholomew, Alfred C., 283

Barlow, A. J., 39

Bates, Jerome, 56, 110

Baxter Saw Mill, the, 212

Beach, Henry A., 134

Beach, Abijah H., 29; his home, 57; his family, 83, 89, 139, 190, 202

Beach, Timothy, the Ouleout settler, 5, 58, 73, 191

Beadle, George E., 39

Beardsley, Levi, his “Reminiscences”, 120, 148, 150

Belknap, E. C., his home, 57, 138, 198, 206

Benedict, A. N., 104

Benedict, Hiel E., 195

Benedict, Hiram, 135

Benjamin, Moses G., 112

Bennett, Phineas, 105

Benton, Albert, his store, 60; his home, 61, 85, 93, 137

Benton, Caleb, 54

Benton, Stephen, his purchase of land, 15; and the Catskill Turnpike, 53, 60; his grave, 88; a Mason, 89; gives land for a street, 92; his store, 112; his distillery, 137, 160, 162

Benton, Thomas H., 239

Benton & Fellows, 137, 197, 198

Betts, Eliza, 169

Betts, Peter, 15, 60

Betts, Samuel, 99

Bidwell, Jacob, 101

Bidwell, Simeon, 91, 102; his home, 195

Bigelow, David, 104

Billings, Jalleal, 107

Binnekill, the, mills on, 74; origin of, 76-77

Birch, Albert G., 107, 109, 250

Birch, Edmund, B., 250

Birch, Jeremiah, 106

Birch, Lyman, 250

Bishop’s Hotel, 115

Bissell, Benjamin, 140

Bissell, Betsy, 140

Bissell, family of, 19

Bissell, Daniel, his purchase of land, 14; sketch of, 16-18; his hotel, 17; town meetings in house of, 44, 57; his sawmill, 75; sale of his mill, 76, 80; his grave, 89

Bissell, Guido L., his purchase of land, 14; his activities, 18, 21; his home, 55, 60, 68, 140; his grave, 88; builds a bridge, 91, 95, 113

Bissell, Hannah, 19, 140

Bissell, John, his island farm, 57, 75, 76, 93; his home, 140

Blakely, ——, 181

Boardman, Elijah, 30, 55

Bolles, Capt. Frederick A., 65, 66, 206

Bolles, Frank G., 66, 281, 284

Border Wars, the, 3, 4, 100; survivors of, 154, 155

Bostwick, Capt. Amos, 55, 134

Bottom, John, 143

Bottom, Sophia, 90

Boult, Jacob, 26

Bragg, Gen. E. S., 79

Bragg, Joel, his mills, 77-80, 111, 207; his grave, 89; his orchard, 115; burning of his mills, 160, 161, 162; his hotel, 57, 140, 165, 191, 202; his death, 174, 201

Brant, Joseph, 155

Brant, N. F., 80

Brant, R. M., 196

Brannon, Samuel, 252

Bristol and California Co., the, 243

Browne, Thurston, 53

Briggs, Mrs. Henry, 138

Bryan, Alexander, 55

Bryan, Fowler P., 55, 89

Bryant, Mrs. W. S., 66

Buckley, Daniel, 99

Buckley, Oliver B., 57, 139, 202

Burdick, Jonathan, 102

Buchanan, James, 130

Buell, Abel, 125

Bushnell, Capt. A., 98

Butler, Capt. Frank, 215

Butler, John, the Tory, 156

Butler, John, 96, 215

Butler, Leonard L., 283

Butler, Walter N., 156

Butler, Col. William, 103

Bundy, ——, 214

Caicos Islands, 290

California, gold fever in, 222; Dr. Halsey’s experiences in, 256-266

Camp, Charlotte, 97

Canfield, H. Y., 80

“Captain Horn”, 204, 207

Cape St. Lucas, 294

Carpenter, Chester W., 206

Carley, John, 32, 150

Carley, Jonathan, 104

Carmichael, Edward, 24, 210, 283

Carmichael, Lewis, or Luke, 24, 87, 210

Carmichael, William, 210

Carr, ——, 99

Carr, Hezekiah, 99

Carr, William, 99

Carr’s Creek, road to, 49; settlements on, 101-102, 212

Carr, John, 212

Case, Abel, 26

Castle, Daniel, 98; his home, 135, 195; his shop, 140

Catskill, 10, 31, 35, 47, 48, 146, 152, 183

Catskill Turnpike, the, 7; its construction, 31, 111; stage line on, 121, 146, 160; Fourth of July on, 151-152; early days on, 181, 182

Catskill and Erie Railroad, the, 164, 168

Chagres, 227, 274, 290

Chapin, William, 101

Cherry Valley, village of, 43, 156

Church, Richard Billings, 181

Church, Simeon, 98

Church, Col. Timothy, 181

Clark, Jehiel, 98

Clark, Dr. Paris Garner, 304

Clapp, Col., 148

Clark, Elizabeth, 71

Clark, James W., 126

Clark, John C., 148

Cleveland, Grover, 80

Cleveland, Nancy, 69

Clyde, Alvin, 283

Cockburn, Sir George, 77

Cole, Thomas, 38

Collins, James, 135

Coloma, town of, 251, 266

Colwell, Dr. John, his grave, 89; sketch of, 119; member of the Unadilla Hunting Club, 148, 168; goes to New York, 172, 173, 191; anecdote of, 208; frolics with, 217-218

Compounce Pond in Connecticut, 223

Cone, Dr. Adanijah, his hotel, 58, 112; his coming to Unadilla, 64, 65, 83; his grave, 89; his home, 139; his office, 144, 191, 199, 215

Cone, Col. Daniel, his purchase of land, 16, 64; his grave, 89, 93, 118; his home, 139, 198; his shop, 144

Cone, Frederick L., his home, 64, 139; his business, 65, 67, 199

Cone, Gardner, 64, 89

Cone, Gilbert, his purchase of land, 16, 64; his grave, 89, 93, 118; his home, 139, 199; his shop, 144

Cone, Julia A., 65

Cone, Lewis G., his home, 64; his business, 65, 66

Cone, Salmon G., his residence, 13, 35, 64; sketch of, 67-68; his farm, 107, 286

Condensery, the, 34

Cooper, Fenimore, 193

Cooperstown, village of, 7, 8

Coon, Peter, 98

Cowles, Luther, 91

Crandall, Hiel, 141

Crandall, ——, 203

Crandall, Mrs. Isaac, 138

Crandall, Laban, 52

Crane, William H., 283

Crane, O. F. W., 198

Cranston, John, 99, 101

Crooker, ——, 95

Crooker, Edmund, 95

Crooker, George, 77

Crooker, Henry B., 282, 283, 284

Crooker, Mrs. H. B., 213

Crooker, Jacob, 77

Crooker, Sampson, his home, 58, 63; his mills, 76-78; builds St. Matthew’s Church, 86, 201

Crookerville, settlement of, 92, 94-95, 213

Cruces, 274, 275

Cuba, island of, 290

Curtis, Jeremiah C., 110

Curtis, J. Delos, 109, 110

Curtis, Lysander, 96

Darby, William, 159

“Daisy”, a dog, 219

Davis, Thomas J., 101

Davis, Peter, 101

Dayton, Henry, 109

DeForest, Abel, 95, 96

DeForest, Lyman H., 140, 202

DeForest, Mason, 136

DeLancey, Bishop, 87

Derrick, William, 99

Dewey, Harper W., 101

Dickens, Charles, 9

Dickinson, Daniel S., 129

Dodge, A. L., 243

Dodge, G. A., 37

“Dr. Bean Pole”, 215

Douglas, Stephen A., 80, 130

Dresser, A. H., 224

Dresser, George W., 243

Duley, M. W., 76, 80

Dwight, Timothy, 54, 58

Edson and Hanford, 198

Edson, Miss A., 161

Edson, Dr. Willis, sketch of, 41; his office, 143; his home, 200; anecdote of, 218

Edson, Darwin, 41

Edson, William D., 41

Eells, Horace, his home, 31, 134, 193, 194

Eells, John, 68; sketch of, 70, 71, 90; his home, 138, 198; runs for supervisor, 163, 171

Eells Tannery, the, 203

Eldridge, Silva, 170

Embargo, the, 34

Emory, William H., 63

Eyre, Governor of Jamaica, 278

Fairfield Medical College, the, 189

Fancher, Seleck H., 122, 193, 216

Farnsworth, L., 98

Ferguson, Richard, 141

Fellows & Sands, 126

Fellows, Major Christopher D., his coming to Unadilla, 61-62; his mills, 95, 126; his store, 137, 139; his home, 198, 206

Fellows, George B., 39

Fellows, John, 62

Fellows, Mead & Finch, 198

Ferris, Eber, 93, 99

Ferry, Elijah, 77

Finch, David, his arrival in Unadilla, 68; sketch of, 71-72; his grave, 89; his home, 133, 198

Finch, William T., 72, 193, 206

Fisk, Rufus, 96

Fiske, George L., 307

Fitch, Amasa, 15

Fitch, Dr., of Franklin, 189

Fitch, Jonathan, 15; his home, 16

Fitch, William, 15, 45

Fletcher, Parker, 101

Fort Schuyler, 99

Foster’s Tavern, 92

Foster, Moses, 105

Foster, Norman D., 104, 106

Fox, Bradford, J. D., 283

Francis, Major David, 109

Franklin, village of, 54, 125, 189

Frasier, C., 104

Frederick, Md., 282

Freedom Lodge, 89

Fremont, Gen. John C., 237

Fremont, Mrs. John C., 239

Fuller, Abraham, 104

Gates, Mrs. Calvin, 65

Gates, Isaac, 47

Germaine, Lord George, 155

Gibbs, Dr. E. T., 189

Gordon, Samuel, 95, 164

Gordon, William, 95

Gorgona, 227, 228, 291

Golden Gate, the, 242

Goldsmith, B. M., 101

Goodrich, Jared, 243

Gould, Jay, 66

Graves, Edward H., 38

Graves, Thomas H., 195

Green, “Bill”, 217

Grannis, Marshall, A., 282, 283, 284.

Gray, A. P., 68, 70; his home, 198, 200

Gray, Mrs. A. P., 206

Gray, Eliza, 131

Greeley, Horace, 131

Gregory, Caroline, 118

Gregory, Mrs. Curtis, 206

Gregory, Ebenezer, 97

Gregory, H. C., 135

Gregory Hill, 97

Gregory, Jared C., 97, 135

Gregory, Milo B., 57, 61, 122, 197, 281

Gregory, Dr. Nelson B., his home, 57, 79, 140, 201; sketch of, 97

Gregory, Noah, 97

Griffith, Abner, 45, 50, 99

Griswold & Cone, 200

Griswold, Horace, 138, 163, 197

Griswold, Sheldon, his home, 73, 200; his shop, 138, 198

“Grog Shop Creek”, 52

Gulf of California, the, 294

Gwin, William W., 239

Hadley, Prof. James, 190

Halsey, Frederick A., 304

Halsey, Dr. Gaius, of Kortright, an oration by, 152-158; his life in Kortright, 181, 183, 184, 186, 152

Halsey, Dr. Gaius L., of Unadilla, 56; his grave, 89, 152; his Reminiscences, 177-178; life in Kortright, 179-189; coming to Unadilla, 191; early life in Unadilla, 193-221; in Panama and California, 222-275; his return to Unadilla, 279-281; California diary, 288; last illness and death, 302-306

Halsey, Judge Gaius L., of Wilkes-Barre, 305

Halsey, Juliet Carrington, dedication to, v; her marriage, 220; letters to from the gold diggings, 257, 260, 277, 294, 301

Halsey, Lavantia, 220

Halstead, Henry I., 284

Hampshire Hollow, settlement of, 50, 99, 100

Hanford, David, 206

Hanford, John, 203

Hanford, Louisa, 206

Hanford, Rhoda, 90

Hanford, Theodore, 26, 64

Hanford, Capt. Uriah, his lands, 13, 26, 90; his home, 139

Hanna, William, 5, 54, 103

Hardy, George W., 63

Harper, Robert, 93

Harrington, Stephen, 51

Hartwick Seminary, 185

Hawks, George, 282

Hawks, Erastus S., 283

Hawley, Rev. Gideon, 90

Hawley, W. H., 39

Hayes, Rev. ——, 143, 200

Hayes, Augusta, 116

Hayes, Clark I., quoted, 32, 55, 114; sketch of, 116-117; his home, 134, 206

Hayes, Capt. Daniel, 140, 202

Hayes, Frederick T., his life in New York, 117; a friend of Henry C. Noble, 159, 160, 161, 166; notes by, 173; his death, 174

Hayes, Isaac, 7; comes to Unadilla, 28, 60; his home, 30, 55, 134; sketch of, 35-36, 73, 83, 84; his grave, 88, 114, 116; his business, 159, 160, 161, 194, 207

Hayes, Mrs. Isaac, 114

Hayes, Mary, 161

Hayes, Jacob, 16, 37, 58, 135

Hayes, Joel M., 37

Hayes, Susan E., 85, 116

Hayes, Thomas, 37, 118

Haynes, John, 99

Hayti, Island of, 290

Heath, George W., 69

Heath, Col. Thomas, 65, 69

Hayden, Elijah, 49

Hemenway, ——, 99

Hill, Nathaniel, 47

Hine, Dr. Francis W., of Franklin, 189, 199

Hobart, Bishop, 85, 87

Hodges, Abraham, 6, 104

Hodges, Albert T., 80

Hodges, Hezekiah, 6

Hodges, Isaac, 6

Hodges, Peter, 56

Hodges, William T., 6

Hoffman, Harry, 109

Hoffman, John T., 131

Holmes, Abel, 98

Holmes, Amos, 98

Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 239

Hough, Col. David, 105, 163

Hough, John, 139

Hovey, Benjamin, 49

Hovey, Jesse R., 90

Hovey, Mary, 90

Hovey, Moses, 105

Howard, Dr. Frederick S., 40, 159

Howard, Henry H., 40; his home, 195, 206

Howard, Mrs. Henry H., 135

Howard, Samuel, 40

Howell, Capt. Edward, 88

Howell, Peter, 141

Hubbell, Lester T., his home, 73, 86, 89, 115

Hubbell’s Mills, 47

Hughston, Charles N., 286

Hughston, James, 5, 32, 88

Hughston, Col. Robert S., 41

Hughston, Mrs. Roberts, 206

Hughston, William J., 49, 91

Hull, Margaret, 65

Hunter’s Hall, 148

Huntington, Collis P., 25; goes to California, 235, 250

Huntington, Dr. Gurdon, his purchase of land, 14, 18; his store, 20, 136, 159; sketch of, 24-26; town clerk, 44; his home, 15, 24, 31, 35, 37, 56, 113, 194, 199, 281

Hurlburt, Mrs., ——, 135

“Indian Monument, the”, 105, 149

Ingraham, William, 143

Jamaica, island of, 276-278

Jarvis, Melancthon B., 73, 144

Jennings, Edson S., 39

Jennings, Mrs. Edson S., 206

Jeyes, Miss, 140

Johnson, Dr., ——, 145

Johnson, George H., 283, 284

Johnson, Sir William, 103

Johnston Settlement, the, 4, 5

Johnston, family of, 6, 103

Johnston, Hugh, 104

Johnston, William, 233

Johnston, Rev. William, 233

Johnston, Witter, 104

Jordan, George B., 282, 283

Joyce, George S., 284

June, Titus, and Angevine, 209

Keats, John, 229

Keeler, Rev. James, 85

Kilkenny, road to, 51, 131, 139

Kingsley, Bradford, 85, 118, 197

Kingsley, Erastus, 64; his wife, 65; his grave, 89, 114; sketch of, 117-118; anecdote of, 119; his hotel, 115, 190, 196, 209, 210

Kirby, Reuben, 211

Kirby, Theodora, 211

Kingston, island of Jamaica, 276-278

Kortright Centre, village of, 152, 180-189, 263

Kortright, Laurence, 180

Lamb, ——, 98

Lamb, Gurdon, 196

Lamb, Lewis, 196

Lamb, Samuel, 101

Lane, Smith, 198

Lansing, family of, 12, 13, 16

Laraway, J. I., 206

Lathrop, Elisha, 50, 99

Lathrop, Levi, 101

Laurens, town of, 43

Lebanon, Conn., Unadilla pioneers from, 5, 15, 16, 17, 24, 125

Lee, Philemon, 109

Lesure, Asa, 101

Lesure, Bethel, 99

Lesure, John, 101

Little, E. S., 39

Livingston, John, 12, 13, 14

Lock, Nathaniel, 48

Loomis, David P., 72, 141, 201

Lord & Bottom, 114

Lather, Elisha, 105

Luther, Martin B., 106, 286

McAuley, Robert F., 185

McAuley, Rev. William, 184-185

McCall, Turner, 121, 141

McLaury, Mrs. William, 135

McMaster, Capt. David, 104

Mallery, Albert, 141, 201

Mann, Dr. ——, 200

Marble, Edward, 197

Martin Brook, 6, 20, 74; high water in, 23; road along, 50; and the Binnekill, 76, 203

Martin, Benjamin, 136

Martin, Edward, 136

Martin, Robert H., 136, 166

Martin, Solomon, his lands, 14, 16, 18; arrives in Unadilla, 20-23; his store, 22; as sheriff, 22, 31; town meetings in his house, 44, 48; helps build a road, 49, 50, 53; his home, 56, 83; his grave, 88, 113, 136

Martin, Mrs. Solomon, 21

Martin, William, 136

Mason, Judge, ——, 215

Masonic Hall, the, 72, 114, 115, 122, 136, 195

Massereau, John, 49

Maxwell, James, 96, 98

Mazatlan, 301, 302

Mead, Elias, 144

Mead, Rufus G., 90, 142, 160, 168; anecdote of, 208; in California, 250

Mechanics’ Hall, the, 70, 91, 196

Meeker, Alanson H., 281

Merriam, Samuel, 99

Merriam’s Sawmill, 52

Merithew, Windsor, 102

Merriman, Theophilus, 101

Methodist Church, the, 91

Miller, Henry L., 126

Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, 166

Monell, Judge, ——, 148

Monfort, Garrett, 90

Monfort, Sarah, 90

Monroe, Thomas, 109

Monterey, 301

Morgan, ——, 55

Morris, Gen. Jacob, 99

Morris, Judge, ——, 148

Morse, Bennett W., 211

Mudge, William L., 109

Mulford, Mary A., 220

Musson, Richard, 98

Musson, Robert S., 99

Mygatt, Clarissa A., 127

Mygatt, Henry R., 37, 127

Napoleon Bonaparte, 78

Nash, Rev. Daniel, 29, 36, 82, 90

New England, influence of on Unadilla, 10-11

Nichols, Tyrus, 193

Nichols, Lewis S., 282

Nichols, David, 283

Nichols, Edmund, 283

Niles, Joseph, 101

Niles, Samuel, 102, 202

Noble & Emory, 196

Noble & Hayes, 18; their arks, 33-34; their store, 51, 98, 90, 111; their distillery, 133, 134, 159, 193, 194

Noble & Howard, 194

Noble, Anna, 30

Noble, Carrington T., 29

Noble, Judge Charles C., 31; sketch of, 39, 55, 79, 97, 135; his death, 194; his office, 195

Noble, Mrs. Charles C., tribute to, 39, 97, 114; her early home, 166, 206

Noble, Clark, 29

Noble, Curtis, comes to Unadilla, 28; in New Milford, 30; his business, 30-35, 38; his home, 55, 60, 73, 83; his grave, 88, 134, 163

Noble, Edward B., 29

Noble, Elnathan, 29

Noble, Col. George H., 31; sketch of, 38, 55, 63; letter from, 85, 159, 161; comments on cholera, 172; his death, 173; his home, 197, 198

Noble, Mrs. George H., 206

Noble, George N., 29

Noble, Miss H. A., 161

Noble, Henry C., 117, 147; his diary, 159-174; his death, 173

Noble, Jesse, 133

Noble, John, 29

Noble, John Henry, 29

Noble, Louis LeGrand, 37

Noble, Thomas, 28

Noble, Thomas H., 27

Noble, Whitney P., 27

North & Co., 132

North, Benjamin, 129, 130

North, Robert, 129, 130

North, Samuel, 130

North, Col. Samuel, in the Anti Rent War, 66; grave of, 89, 112, 124; sketch of, 129-132; County Clerk, 130; Canal Appraiser, 131; his account of the village, 133-145; quoted, 147; goes to New York, 171, 172

North, Samuel S., 24, 132

North, Thomas, 129

North, Thomas G., 129, 131, 284

North, Thomas G., & Co., 132

Norton, Capt. Andrew J., 243, 264, 268, 272, 273; saves Dr. Halsey, 274-275, 279

Norton, Rev. S. H., 88

Nye, Obel, 104

Odell, Dr. Evander, his home, 44, 140, 146; trustee of the academy, 128; sketch of, 220

Ogden, David, 104

Ogden, Daniel, 104

Ogden, Major, E. A., 166, 171

Ogden, Henry A., his grave, 89; his office, 120; his home, 142, 148; his death, 173

Oghwaga, the Indian village, 69, 178

Old England District, the, 42

“Old New York Frontier, the,” 4, 54, 178, 180; extract from, 279-280

Olds, Alonzo, 282, 283

Olds, Milo, 282, 283

Onderdonk, Bishop, ——, 171, 172

Oneonta, town of, 7, 8, 43, 104, 163

Oriskany, battle of, 99

Osborn, John, 203, 204

Otego, town of, 7, 43, 104

Otsego, county of, 46; formation of, 42, 43; growth of population in, 44, 47, 82, 104, 147

Otsego Lake, early settlement at, 3

Ouleout, the early settlements on, 3, 5, 49, 54, 104, 150, 270, 271

Overheyser, Barrett, 47

Owens, Evans, 199

Oxford, town of, 49

Packard, Mr. ——, 281

Page, Miss E. B., 161

Page, Jared, 62

Page, Maria, 127

Page, Robert, 63

Page, Sherman, 38; comes to Unadilla, 62, 83, and St. Matthew’s church, 84, 86; grave of, 88, 89, 92, 93, 127; his home, 142; and the Hunting Club, 148-149, 160, 197; his marriage, 240

Page, Vincent, 63; in California, 250

Palmer, John, 99

Palmer, Lee, 99

Panama, Dr. Halsey’s account of, 227, 228-236; his return to, 270-273, 290

Panama Railroad Co., 224

Paper Mill region, the, 3, 102-106

Parke, Rev. Dr. R. N., 305

Parker, Judge, A. J., 131

Parsons, William H., 39

Patterson, Samuel, 99

Peam, Joseph, 53

Perry, Rev. Marcus A., 85

Phelps, Horace G., 107

Phelps, Philo L., 90

Pierce, Isaac, 243, 293, 294

Piersol, Nathaniel, 161

Place, “Elder”, 197

Place, Elijah, 96

Place, William J., 282, 284

Plainville, Conn., 221, 243, 289

Platt, Brewster, 77

Pompey, a negro, 149

Pomp’s Eddy, 149

Poplar Hill, 102, 149

Porter, Admiral D. D., 239

Porto Bello, 291

Pooler, John, 19, 32

Pooler, S., 163

Post, Abraham, 101

Postmasters of Unadilla, Isaac Hayes, 36, 160; Roswell Wright, 113; Chauncey Slade, 286; Mr. Packard, 281; Henry Van Dusen, 281; Frank G. Bolles, 281; A. H. Meeker, 281

Potter, Harvey, 99

Potter, William, 47

Presbyterian Church, the, 58, 90

Price, Nicholas, 136

Priest, Amos, 134, 194

Priest, Mrs. Amos, 194

Prindle, Judge, 218

Prindle, Zachariah, 217

Queenstown, battle of, 100

Raitt, George D., printer of this volume, iv, 39

Rathbone, Gen., ——, 148

Reed, Phineas, 109

Reynolds, George W., 78

Richardson, James, 283, 284

Rider, Gardner, 211

Rifenbark, Adam, 26

Rifenbark, W. E., 143

Ripley, Benjamin P., 39

Robbins, Ephraim, 101

Robertson, Neil, his purchase of land, 16, 64; his home, 69, 144, 200; his grave, 89; his shop, 139

Robertson, Samuel, 206

Rogers Hollow, 96, 139, 203

Robinson, ——, 142

Rogers, Jabez, 108

Rogers, Joseph, 109

Rogers, Perry P., 166, 108, 116

Rogers, Peter, 95, 283

Rogers, Samuel, 107-108

Root, Major C. P., 129

Root, Gen. Erastus, 102, 186

Round Top, 149

Rowley, Capt. Seth, 99-100

St Matthew’s Church, men buried in churchyard of, 11, 19, 72, 77; organization of, 82-89, 112, 114, 116, 120, 142, 149, 161, 201, 207

Sacramento, city of, 246, 250, 251-253, 255, 266; many physicians in, 267, 297, 298

Sacramento River, 247-250

San Diego, 242, 296

Sand Hill, 90, 99

Sand Hill Creek, 50, 52, 53

Sands, Dr. Andrew J., 126

Sands, Benjamin, 124

Sands, Elizabeth E., 126

Sands, Frederick A., 37, 63; his grave, 89, 91; sketch of, 124-127; his home, 197

Sands, J. Fred., 63, 127

Sands, Jerome B., 126

Sands, Marcellus, 126

Sands, Judge Obadiah, 124

Sands’ Point, 124

Sands, Dr. William G., 126

Sanders, Joshua C., 126

San Francisco Bay, 242

San Francisco, city of, 244-246; sudden growth of, 267, 297

Saunders, Benjamin, 93

Saunders, B. G. W., 100

Saunders, Capt. Elisha S., 45, 46, 100

Scott, “Granther”, 109

Scott, David, 138

Scott, Mary, 136

Scott, Seth, 109

Scott, Silas, 109

Scott, W. H., 171

Scramling, Henry, 45, 104

Seeley, Holley, 90, 144

Sewell, William H., 120

Seymour, Miss ——, 126

Seymour, Horatio, 131

Shavers’ Corners, settlement at, 107

Shaw, Morris, 282

Sherman, Frederick T., 116

Sherwood, ——, 105

Sidney Centre, settlement at, 94, 101

Sidney, village of, first settled, 3, 4

Sinclair, John, 258

Sisson, Aaron, 99

Sisson, Giles, 26

Sisson, John, 45, 99

Siver, David, 284

Siver, Charles C., 284

Skinner, Jesse, 109

Slade, Chauncey, 105, 286

Slade, Dr. ——, 105

Slade, Michael, 283

Slavin, Mrs., 193

Sliter, Jonas, 26

Smith, Charles, 250

Smith, Edward, 99

Smith, Edwin J., 121, 200

Smith, Ephraim, 101, 104

Smith, Israel, 49

Smith, Jarvis, 99

Smith, Joseph, 99

Smith, Samuel, 101

Smith Settlement, the, 102

Smith, Sylvester, 100

Smyth, William T., 282

Southington, Conn., 221

Spaulding, Gaius, 101

Spanish Bar, in California, 266

Spaulding, Ira, 121

Spencer, Amos, 107

Spencer, Jonathan, 106

Spencer, Orange, 106

Spencer, Philip M., 283

Spencer, Porter, 107

Spencer, Simeon, 107

“Spencer Street”, 106

Spencer, W. D., 93

Sperry, Rev. Lyman, 69-70, 137, 197

Sperry, Watson R., 69

Spickerman, family of, 150

Stark, Jonathan, 106

Stone, LeGrand, 135

Stoyles, Stephen, 104

Steele, ——, deputy sheriff, 66

Sternberg farm, the, 73

Sullivan, R. F., 39

Sumner, Mrs. Harriet Bissell, 17, 18, 76

Sutter, Capt. John A., 251, 255

Sutter’s Fort, 251

Sutter’s Mill, 256, 266, 299

Sweet, Chester, 212

Sweet, Dr. Joseph, 120, 197, 196, 281

Sweet, Dr. Joshua J., 282

Sweet, Marvin P., 56, 136, 197

Taylor, Hannah, 65

Taylor, Lydia, 65

Teller, R. K., 93, 113, 218, 201

Thatcher, George, 73

Thatcher, Capt. Josiah, sketch of, 73, 83, 84, 85; grave of, 88, 164

Thompson, Elisha, 95

Thompson, Foster, 121

Thompson, William J., 72; enlarges St. Matthew’s church, 87, 95; as a builder, 115, 128; his home, 136; his marriage, 169, 196, 197

Thornton, Jeremiah, 106

Tingley House, the, 143

Trinity Church, New York, 86

Trumbull, Jonathan, 17

Tulare Swamp, in California, 248

Turk’s Island, 290

Unadilla Bank, the, 114

Unadilla, original settlement, 3, 43, 103, 280; early town records of, 44-53; as a county seat, 47; upper bridge at, 91; lower bridge at, 92; school at, 93; Horatio Seymour’s visit to, 131; water works of, 131, growth of, 146-147; Hunting Club of, 148; “up-street and down-street”, 163; Fourth of July at, 164; described in 1840, 193-203; men from in California, 250; men from in Civil War, 282-284; origin of the name, 279-280

Unadilla House, the, 58, 92, 148, 200

Unadilla Centre, 45; Methodist church, at, 91, 97, 98, 297

Unadilla, county of, 47

Unadilla Hunting Club, meetings of, 148

Unadilla, Neb., 41

Unadilla River, settlement at mouth of, 3, 42

“Unadilla Times, the”, editors of, 38, 39, 159; R. S. Musson’s article in, 99; Sylvester Smith’s article in, 101; Col. North’s account of village in, 133-145; Dr. Halsey’s reminiscences in, 177-288

“Unadilla Weekly Courier”, 39

United States Hotel in New York, 278

Upton Patent, the, 46

Utter, Julius, 110

Van Cott, John, 71, 144, 200

Van Dusen, Henry, 281

Vandervoort, M. R., 283, 284

Vandervoort, Wesley, 283, 284

Veley, Miss Elizabeth, 202, 206

Veley, John, 19

Van Dewerker, John, 104

Van Vechten, family of, 12, 13, 14

Walton, William, 130

Walker, Dr. David, 37, 56, 136, 162, 163; his store, 167

Wallace Patent, the, 8; owner of, 12; lots in, 12-16, 17

Warrener, Wheeler, 197, 203

Washburn, Jr., Luke, 138

Washington, George, 153

Watson & Hayes, 196

Watson & Noble, 196

Watson, Arnold B., 86, 89; sketch of, 113-114, 115, 126; his home, 135, 195, 140; his new home, 170, 203, 207, 208

Watson, Mrs. Arnold B., 206

Watson, E. S., 39

Watson, Henry M., 116

Watson, Julia N., 116

Watson, Sarah A., 116

Watson, Susan H., 116

Watson, William H., 116

Wattles’s Ferry, pioneers at, 5, 7, 16, 21; turnpike from, 47, 53, 54, 62; toll bridge at, 109

Wattles, Nathaniel, 5, 44, 68, 88

Wattles, Rachel, 68

Wattles, Sluman, 5; business relations with Solomon Martin, 21-22; builds a road, 48, 49; and the Catskill Turnpike, 53, 58, 108, 125

Wauteghe Creek, the, 43

Webb, James, 283, 284

Webb, Thomas T., 283

Webster, Daniel, 11

Weidman, Jacob F., 284

Weidman, Peter, 75, 284

Weller, John B., 239, 295, 296

Wellman, John, 102

Wells Bridge, 94

Wheaton, Benjamin, 100

Wheeler, Rev. Russell, 29, 85

Wheeler, Eugene R., 284

Wheeler, George R., 284

Wheeler, William, 26

White’s Store and Hall, 20, 63, 136, 281

White, James, 58, 64, 139, 144, 199

White, Dr. Joseph, of Cherry Valley, 41, 119, 181

Wilkins, James T., 283

Williams, Col. A. D., 37, 56; his grave, 89, 90, 113, 114; sketch of, 118; his store, 141; made a Colonel, 166, 199; his home, 201; opens a road, 203; his store, 208, 281

Williams, Elizabeth, 118

Williams, Israel, 118

Williams, James, 143

Williams, Thomas, 118

Wilbur, Thomas, 99

Wilmot, Daniel W., 68, 138

Wilmot, Emeline, 206

Wilmot, William, 68, 89, 138

Winans, Walter, 101

Winston, Wellington, 243

Wolcott, George, 134

Wolcott, Harry, 211

Wolcott, Nathaniel, 211

Wood, Charles, 121, 141

Wood, Stephen, 95

Woodruff, Henry S., 89, 121, 201

Woodruff, Joel, 121

Woodruff, John, 122

Woodruff, L. Bennett, 58, 77; his grave, 89, 114; sketch of, 120, 141; his marriage, 170, 200; his home, 201; anecdote of, 208

Woodruff, Lloyd L., 121, 122, 201

Woodworth, Alvin, 105

Woolsey, Commodore M. T., 164, 195

Wright, Henry, 250; in California, 271-272

Wright, Johnson, 144, 200

Wright, Roswell, his store, 19, 72, 112, 113, 118, 126, 129, 141, 272

Wright, Watson & Co., 141

Yale, Enos, 107

Yates, Arthur, 63

Yates’s Ferry, 47

York, Charles, 282, 283, 284

[PUBLISHED IN APRIL 1901. NOW IN ITS THIRD EDITION.]

The Old New York Frontier,

ITS WARS WITH INDIANS AND TORIES. ITS MISSIONARY SCHOOLS. PIONEERS AND LAND TITLES, 1614-1800.

By FRANCIS WHITING HALSEY.

This volume, by the author of “The Pioneers of Unadilla Village,” deals with that territory which for more than a hundred years was the frontier between the white men and the Indians in New York State. The record has never before been printed in a book in its entirety from the first settlement. Even the Revolutionary part, embracing the Border Wars, has not been dealt with in any regularly published history since Stone, Simms, Jay Gould and Campbell wrote their now very scarce volumes fifty and sixty years ago.

Meanwhile, a large mass of new material has come to light in State publications, local histories and collections of manuscripts that seem not to have been accessible to any earlier writers. They shed floods of new light on an important subject and comprise about 160 large folio volumes. The author began his researches eleven years ago and completed “The Old New York Frontier” in the summer of 1900 after a personal examination of the Joseph Brant manuscripts in Wisconsin.

The Border Wars were integral parts of British campaigns in America. They bore the same, if a less important, relation to the struggle for control of the Hudson Valley that Burgoyne’s campaign and Arnold’s treason bore. What made them more barbarous, was the unarmed and defenseless state of the settlements attacked. Before the Tory and Indian invasions came to an end, more than 12,000 farms on this frontier had ceased to be cultivated, some hundreds of women had become widows and thousands of children orphans.

The volume relates almost wholly to the headwaters of the Susquehanna from Otsego Lake to Old Oghwaga (Windsor) and to the valley of the upper Mohawk—a region to which Fenimore Cooper has given enduring interest as containing the home of himself and his father and the scenes of some of his most famous works of fiction.

CONTENTS.

[DIVIDED INTO 43 CHAPTERS.]

INTRODUCTION: WHY THIS HISTORY?

PART I. (In 3 Chapters.) Indians and Fur Traders.

PART II. (In 7 Chapters.) Missionaries and the French War. 1650-1774.

PART III. (In 5 Chapters.) Land Titles and Pioneers. 1679-1774.

PART IV. (In 5 Chapters.) The Border Wars Begun. 1776-1777.

PART V. (In 5 Chapters.) Overthrow of the Frontier. 1777-1778.

PART VI. (In 4 Chapters.) The Sullivan Expedition. 1779.

PART VII. (In 5 Chapters.) Last Years of the War. 1780-1783.

PART VIII. (In 8 Chapters.) The Restoration of the Frontier. 1782-1800.

FOURTEEN FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait of Joseph Brant Council Rock, Otsego Lake Portrait of Sir Wm. Johnson Fort Oswego Portraits of Four Eminent New York Indians Monument at Oriskany Portrait of Fenimore Cooper Monument at Cherry Valley Portrait of Col. Marinus Willett The Susquehanna at Unadilla Village Portrait of Gen. James Clinton An Iroquois Fort in Central New York Otsego Hall, Cooperstown Confluence of the Susquehanna and Unadilla Rivers

TWO MAPS.

The Frontier of New York in the Revolution. Early Land Patents on the Frontier, with dates and owners’ names.

Charles Scribner’s Sons, Publishers 153-157 Fifth Avenue, New York. 8vo, $2.50 NET.