LIVINGSTON COUNTY NY

                                PORTAGE

The following article, furnished by the kindness of Mr. C D Bennett, was received too late for insertion in Chapter XXI; but as it is worthy of presentation, we insert it in this connection.

Portage was in Albany County from its organization, November1, 1883, soon after the county of New York was taken by the English from the Dutch. It was in Tyron county from March 12, 1772, till that name was changed to Montgomery, April 2,1784. It became a part of Ontario co Jan. 27, 1786, and was embraced in the town of Northampton which included the Morris reserve, in 1797. March 30, 1802 it became a part of Leicester Geneseo County and as in included in the town of Angelica, Feb. 25, 1805. It went to Allegany County at its formation, April 7, 1806, and was included in Nunda at its organization, March 11, 1808. It was erected as a town and named Portage, from the carrying place round the Geneseo Falls, March 8, 1827. April 1, 1846 it annexed to Lvinginston county, about one fourth its area, lying west of the river, being with a part of Pike constituted the town of Geneseo Falls, and set to Wyoming county at the same time. It as a part of the Morris Reserve, and is wholly within the 50,000 acres tract sold in 1791 by Robert Morris to Gerritt Cottringer, and which lies between the Transit and the Picket lines, extending from near Silver Lake to Granger Center. It was soon afterwards brought by John Hornby, of Scotland who made John Greig of Canandaigua his agent for its sale and settlement. He employed Elisha Johnson to survey and sub divide it in 1807. The lots are oblong, about three fourths of a mile long and 100 rods wide containing about 140 acres and number from 1 to 100?. The numbers from 125, to 325 [numbers very hard to read] constitute the town of Portage 14,554 acres.

On every lot Mr. Johnson noted the quality of the soil and the kind and quality of the timber, with, with special reference to the amount of pine. On every place lot he estimated the amount of pine timber as equivalent to a certain number of acres thickly set with good pines. Nearly one fourth of the town in the southern part was mostly timbered with oak, etc. with two-thirds pine. On the rest it was estimated at from 4 acres to 30 acres on a lot.

Lots 175, 235, ? , ?, ?, averaged 140 acres of pine sash, while the total of the pine leads in the town was very near 2,000 acres. Probably no measurement was ever made of the quantity of lumber cut from a given acre of land; but on some acres it was estimated as high as 75,000 feet of pine. Some threes were gigantic size, measuring over 200 feet in height, and some over 7 fee in diameter; a log 12 long making 2,000 feet of lumber one inch thick. There was a large quantity of splendid oak, some that would saw 5,000 feet of lumber to the tree. Along the streams stood a large growth of maple, cucumber, etc. The timber as it stood would be worth more at present prices than the real estate and personal property now in town. The soil is mostly a sandy and gravely loam, dry and warm, suitable for the growth of corn and winter wheat. Though at about the same altitude with the towns west of the river, the snowfall is much less than there and comparatively free from drifts while the spring comes on a week or more earlier. Though her acreage is less than half the average of the other towns in the county, the number of her freeholders is 430, while their average is little over 300.The upper valley of the Geneseo river is 1,100 feet above tide water, and more than 300 feet higher than the lower valley at Mr. Morris. The intervening distance the river runs through deep gorges or caverns in a direct course about 12 miles. The Erie railroad is about 250 feet higher than the river valley while the surface of the south part of the town rises as much higher, or 1,600 feet above tide water.

Through Portage lay the shortest and easiest route between the Squakie Hilland Caneadea reservations, and here the trail of the Indians had been traveled for centuries. Here was constructed the Geneseo Valley canal. The earliest grade across the river, till far north is through this town, and here the Erie railroad was laid. The ever increasing streams of migration westward that set in after the Revolution and the destruction of the Indians power seemed to step with the century, a t the Geneseo river. It followed two principal channels one up the Susquehanna and its branches into Allegany; the other over the level land north of the lake country. The new century gave vigor and volume to the westbound rush. The Holland Company was laying roads to lure it on. Connecticut was leading it to her reserve in Ohio. Southern Livingston was between the streams. The various tracts it comprised were not in the market. It was thickly settled by squatters of that rough and restless class who like to live on the verge of civilization and prefer the liberty that is not limited by law. In 1816 George Williams sent by Mr. Greig to act as resident agent, opened a land office on Oak Hill, near the deep cut. Settlers came in rapidly so that in a few years nearly every lot was sold at from $4.30 to $4.50 per acre. Though strong inducements were offered to incline some of the scores of squatters to buy and remain Ephraim Kingsley a noted hunter from Vt. was perhaps the only one who brought and settled. They sold their “betterments” for what they could get and went west. Where the old Allegany road crossed the East Coy and West Coy creeks, settler began to stop in 1805-06. March 11, 1808, they procured the erection of the town of Nunda, 12 miles by 21, now constituting the town of Centerville, Eagle, Geneseo Falls, Granger, Grove Home, Hume, Nunda, Pike and Portage. For several years Mr. Kingsley, who lived a mile below Nunda village, was the only town office elected east of the river; but with the rapid settlement of the Cottringer tract, it was evident that the center of population would soon fall east of the Transit line. The founders of Nunda, at their own request were constituted a new town named Pike, after Gen. Albert Pike, and Oak Hill because the business center of Nunda, then twelve miles square, march 96t, 1818. The Tuscarora Tract and other lands comprised in the present town of Nunda soon after were offered for sale and settlement. The town was inconveniently large and several plans for its division were proposed at successive town meetings till March 31?. 1827/. Portage was set off six miles square, containing most of the population that had connected Nunda. On the erection of a new town it generally takes the now name, as when Anglica was formed from Leicester and Nunda from Angelica. But Smith’s Mills [now Portageville] was ambitious to become a town center, and effected a division of the town, by consequences taking the new name, while Nunda was again moved eastward into the recent wilderness, retaining the books and files of papers made by the doles the Granger, Griffths, Newcombs, Skiffs, and Mills, common names in Pike, but foreign to modern Nunda. The business relations of Portage and Nunda were mostly with the dealers in Livingston County and a large majority of the people preferred that their political connections should go with them. At the town meeting held in Portageville in 1846, the voters present from the East Side of the river almost unanimously voted to be set from Allegany County into Livingston, while those from the West Side voted in favor of being set into Wyoming County. Probably no other town was settled with a population so uniformly of Yankee origin. The north part called North Oak hill was settled by the Dakes, Millers, Moshers, Giffords, and many others originally from New England. A few years later it was said that there were seventy-five blood relations in their school district. Messenger’s Hollow, now called Oakland, was settled by the Fitches, Hills, McNairs, Messangers, Swains and others, mostly related. On Oak Hill came the Adamses, Frenches, Markson, Robinson, Smiths, Spencers, Strange, etc. relatives from Pawlet, Vt. East of them settled the Newtons, Patterson, Thompsons, relatives from Coleraine, Mass. Around Hunt’s Hollow ere the Allens, Bennetts, Clars, Cobbs, Hunts, Devoes, Nashes, Parmeleer, Slaters, Roots, Wiliamses, etc. mainly from Ct. Pennycook who named by Mr. Rosebrook at his raising of the first log house there was settled later by people from various places. The town was long distinguished fro the excellence of its common schools and for the number of teachers it sent forth. It has always been a temperance town, perhaps because it has but little village population. In the Morgan inclement it was strongly AntiMasonic. It became as decidedly Whig, and is now as much so Republican. Of the more than twenty saw mills built on the banks of the river and Cashaqua Creek the last one failed nearly twenty years ago. The vast quantity of pine lumber cut by them was run in rafts to Rochester, there assorted by the buyers into three qualities and sold at an average of $3,$7 and $10 per M. the poorer quality out measuring both the others. The risks and labor of rafting ceased when the Geneseo Valley Canal was completed to Mt. Morris in 1840, for it was better to haul lumber the sixteen miles than to raft it, but Portage had sold most of her lumber before that time, or rather she had given the lumber and got small pay for the cost and labor of handling it. One saw mill of 2,000 feet per day capacity succeeds the acre of former years, lumber and shingles come to us from Michigan and Canada, and even climb the hills to Allegany. Nor are the families of the pioneers more permanent than their works for the descendants of only seven of them, viz; of David Bennett, George Gearhart, John McFarland, Nath Olney, Robert W Thompson, George Williams, and Solomon Williams now hold any part of the premises originally taken by them from the land office. Thomas Tousey Bennett was one of the seven brothers who assisted in clearing the wilderness and developing the waters power of Hunt’s Hollow. His mill for filling, coloring and dressing the home make cloth of the early settlers was erected about 1821 or 1822 and was for a long time a prominent feature in the business of the place. Of the twelve sawmills on the Cashaqua Creek in the town of Portage the one build by him and Deacon Samuel Swain was one of the best. He died 1819, leaving four boys and three girls, all of who settled in western states, except Sarah, the youngest daughter. She married William Tousey in 1845, and soon occupied the Tousey homestead. They have there reared a family of four children, viz; Lucy Cornelia, Emma Jane, Carrie A and Lucius C Tousey.