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Genesee County, the Holland Land Company, and the Fabric of American History

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Genesee County, the Holland Land Company, and the Fabric of American History Genesee County, the Holland Land Company, and the Fabric of American History Michael J. Eula, Ph.D. Genesee County Historian Let me begin by thanking all of you for inviting me to speak today. I am honored to be here, and look forward to an exciting and productive relationship in the years ahead. I see this short talk as an opportunity to reflect in public my initial thoughts on our County’s history, and hope that my brief remarks will stimulate discussion. When I was approached and invited to give this talk I was immediately struck by the irony of being asked to reflect in public about a topic which has over the last several months been on my mind consistently, and has now become the exclusive focus of my professional life. During the years I spent as an academic historian I consistently felt that history is too important an area of life to be left to the campus, and to now have this opportunity to bring history to as wide an audience as possible is, to risk an understatement, exhilarating – and yes, even a bit frightening. But for the moment I will put aside any discussion of my ideas about extending the wonderful work undertaken by my predecessor, Susan Conklin. I will also put aside any discussion of how to continue and expand upon the enthusiastic and committed work undertaken by the leadership of the Holland Land Office Museum, along with that of the town historians whom it has been such a pleasure to begin work with. I will restrain myself from sharing ideas designed to bring even more of this County’s rich past to as many people as possible. I will instead restrict myself to a broad sketch of our County’s history, which means initially to say that, at least in my view, it is not an overstatement to say that Genesee County, while having its own unique historical qualities, is also one in which the broader fabric of American history is also visible. Tying together the thematic elements making up this fabric is of course the central role played early on by the Holland Land Company. Hence there is a discernible connection between the unfolding of the County’s history, along with that of the Holland Land Company – and of wider America. In that multilayered history – that sometimes mystifying array of patterns and configurations – we see what can be understood as an area of the country – and its people – who serve to constitute a crucial watershed in American history; a history which remains to this day fresh and unfinished. Maybe the most prominent motif revealed in the history of Genesee County is the unbounded optimism which motivated its people from the beginning. And by its people I mean not just such pivotal historical actors as Robert Morris and Joseph Ellicott, but, in addition, the Native Americans at Buffalo Creek who saw the potential of a flour mill on the western side of the Genesee River – an overlooked and rare chapter in Native American history illustrating the fusion of the self-interest of two groups – Europeans and Native Americans – who otherwise are typically depicted as having interests so mutually hostile that peaceful cooperation remained unattainable. Hence the optimism growing out of the self-interest of two seemingly disparate groups early on served to embody an optimism that may be more accurately understood as a fervent belief in progress which resonates throughout the long and storied history of our County. It was that unshakable belief in the possibility of a progress inextricably tied to freedom which sustained Genesee County throughout a history punctuated by wars, economic downturns, and even the outbreaks of medieval-like plagues – the influenza scourge of the post-World War One period. Despite such challenges, the people of the County actually seemed to have their faith in the idea of progress strengthened – while such setbacks seemed to plunge other areas of the country into despair and disintegration, the political, social, and moral fabric of Genesee County’s people remained distinctly upbeat. How can we explain this? Maybe more than anything else, four factors need to be acknowledged – four variables first set in motion by the Holland Land Company at the end of the eighteenth century. When Robert Morris sold all of his land in Western New York to five trustees acting on behalf of Dutch land developers – the Holland Land Company – a belief that progress is rooted in free enterprise was on display. So too was the attendant philosophy of individual freedom in other areas of life – press, religion, assembly, speech and so forth – which was seen as a pivotal component of progress. This vision of what some have called classical liberalism is one that runs throughout the history of Genesee County. While it is true that this theme is also evident in wider American society, that same society – reeling from the effects of, say, the Great Depression – retreated from that view which, it can be argued, was never truly recaptured from the New Deal on. But even a cursory examination of Genesee County’s history reveals that in this sense the history of our County is here too somewhat unique. For example, look at George’s Dairy in Batavia. Despite the deepening economic crisis by 1930, owner Sylvester George – along with his sons – purchased the Fred Parker Farm in Elba. The following year they dared to expand the business to include dairy sales in what was called the ice storage room (a reference to ice cut from the Tonawanda Creek and then stored in a cement block building to cool milk in the summer). In January of 1932, as national unemployment skyrocketed and the numbers of failing businesses and banks continued to escalate, the Georges nonetheless kept expanding – adding a dairy route on January 1, 1932. George’s Dairy is an example of a persistent belief that progress is possible despite immediate obstacles. It was a display of a moral motor force that could not shake a belief that improvement is attainable. The faith in progress, anchored in the conviction of individual liberty, was one that even the Great Depression could not eradicate in Genesee County. And that liberty was not the product of political intervention. It was instead the result of decisions made by Sylvester and Mary Petz George and their children. Their exercise of individual freedom dovetailed with the assumption that all of this added up to a progressive development of individual lives and society at large. Their business continued beyond the life of Sylvester, who died in 1961. But the insistence upon the reality of progress first displayed in the entrepreneurial spirit of the Holland Land Company was not simply economic in nature. There is also the role played by technology and its part in sustaining the optimism evident in Genesee County history. Once again, the part played by the Holland Land Company was crucial. Joseph Ellicott, the Company’s chief surveyor, employed some of the more advanced survey instruments of his time. In order to ensure accurate astronomical measurements as they applied to meridians, Joseph’s younger brother, Benjamin, built portable transit instruments – a telescope placed atop a tripod. This guaranteed the stability and accuracy needed by the land surveyor, who no longer had to rely upon a standard compass. Here the opportunity perceived by the trustees and investors of the Holland Land Company produced a technological innovation – the portable transit instrument – which itself symbolized the boundless optimism of early Genesee County. The subsequent history of the County is replete with new and innovative technologies exuding the cherished ideal of individuals free to pursue their dreams. The Colt Clamp Company, the designer of a clamp utilized by construction firms a century after its invention, is but one example of innovators whose daring rests upon a belief that life can improve – and that improvement demands a development tempered by tradition and public spiritedness. This brings us to my next point. While progress and optimism rear their heads time and again throughout the history of our County, so too does a public spiritedness which had once been called voluntarism. Here as well Genesee County both reflects, and diverges from, wider American patterns. In his seminal work of 1922 entitled American Individualism , President Herbert Hoover spoke of the role played by civic minded Americans in their communities. While unprecedented governmental intervention from the New Deal on tended to undermine some of this voluntarism, Genesee County nonetheless retained much of this tradition of public service to an extent not seen throughout the country to the same degree. Even a cursory examination of one part of the County after another reveals the public role played by private institutions and private individuals – religious bodies, service organizations ranging from Kiwanis through Lions to study groups and volunteer fire fighters, all of which offer a view of life in which liberty and the natural optimism and assumption of continued progress that goes along with this means a society demanding a high level of civic involvement. Prior to becoming president, then General Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke of this “bundling of freedoms:” All our freedoms – personal, economic, social, political – freedom to buy, to work, to hire, to bargain, to save, to vote, to worship, to gather in a convention or join in mutual association; all these freedoms are in a single bundle. Each is an indispensable part of a single whole. Destruction of any inevitably leads to the destruction of all. At the risk of overstating the point, Genesee County’s history is one in which this “bundle of freedoms” reigns as a beacon of light in an America that increasingly falls short of that ideal.
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