Rambling Mina
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/ RAMBLING COPYRIGHT ALONG the CHAUTAUQUAROADS of MINA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETYWESTFIELD, Meeting at Memorial Hall, Sherman, N. Y. May 4th, 1940. 12;30 P. M. NY 2012 ~-' 1. There's a magic in highways. Much of the change from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth century is character ized by improvement in transportation. Sometimes we do not even appreciate how far we have advanced. During one ten day vacation a year or two ago, I visitedCOPYRIGHTDolbeau. Now Dolbeau is above the Labrador, two hundred miles north of Quebec, on the Mistassini River, high above LakeCHAUTAUQUASt. John. That lake lies in a level plain like a gigantic saucer stretching back ten miles from the water. And to the north beyond that plain, there is no COUNTY habitation save a few lumber camps and a very few Eskimo huts - clear to the North Pole,HISTORICALand you can with ordinary driving reach Dolbeau from Sherman in three days. You can leave Sherman in theSOCIETYmorning, drive through Toronto, past the Muskoka country to North Bay. Then next day through the beautiful Timagami oountry,WESTFIELD,through the silver region at Cobalt, past the gold mines at Kirkland +-ake and Tinunins, through the homesteading countryNY and to , 2012 ,Cochrane on the Transcontinental. From there the Polar Bear Express will take you down across the Muskeg and you will be at Moosonee and Moose Factory on Hudson's Bay the next morn- ing - just forty-eight hours from home. I know it's possible for I've taken both these trips within recent years. All this is with an ordinary auto. There is no limit to speedy travel with fast train and airplane. 2. Now in what striking contrast is all this with those days a hundred years past when this part of the State of New York was changing from Indian to white domination. It of course is not accurate for us to say that the early white settlers drove the Indians from what are now the Townships of Mina and Sherman. The fact seems to be COPYRIGHT that from that fateful day when the Iroquois conquered,the Erie Indians, who possessed this land, almost no Indians CHAUTAUQUA lived hereabouts. Father Hennepin, the Jesuit Priest who tells the story of that terrible battle and who says that at its termination oneCOUNTYthousand fierce fires lit the evening .. sky and in each fire an Erie Brave was burned at the stake'~",-' is authority also'for furtherHISTORICALinformation that the few remaining Erie Indians before they were driven westward deprived the victors of the enjoymentSOCIETYof this territory by placing on the land the most terrible curse. The result was WESTFIELD, that the superstitious Iroquois for the most part avoided this section and would not live here. They only passed through this section in hunting parties or whenNYbent on war 2012 , and sudden raid. This did not become their permanent abode. In spite of this, however, or perhaps because of it, the Indian roads became important. Now an Indian road, as everyone knows, was always a trail, due perhaps in part to the fact that they had no wheeled vehicles and perhaps further to the fact that they usually travelled in single file. 3. These Indian Trails had their effect on white settle- mente The most important trail was without doubt the trail east and west along Lake Erie. This was the important passageway by land from the Iroquois country in the east to the land of the Sioux near the Great Father of Waters in the Central Plains. Geologists tell us that the waters of Lake COPYRIGHT Erie receded in successive waves, leaving well defined beaches of shore-washed gravel at each successive step. Some of CHAUTAUQUA these are plainly visible now as you drive across Chautauqua County on either Route 5 or Route 20. One of them is fol- lowed by the Main RoadCOUNTYfor some miles east of Westfield. These beaches, our Geologists tell us, were the easy HISTORICAL route east and west from prehistoric times and evidence exists in abundance that they were so used by animals, by SOCIETY prehistoric man, and later by the Indians. The second most important Indian Trail was the one WESTFIELD, commencing with the Grand Portage from Lake Erie to Chautauqua Lake, and continuing thence down the Chadakoin River toward NY I the great Gulf of Mexico. 2012 But these were not by any means the only trails. I cannot stop here to speak of the many others; some well defined, some only used a little. However, let me speak of one of which we may not have too substantial evidence but of which legend and tradition give us rather satisfactory assurance. It is believed that 4. this Trail started from the head of Chautauqua Lake and continued westward, touching here at Sherman the head- waters of French Creek. From this point it stretched away to the west through what is now Mina Corners, to the two ponds which later became a lake when Alexander Findley threw up a twelve foot dam to create water power. From this point the trail I speak of continued cross-country to Fort Le Boeuf COPYRIGHT where now stands the hamlet of Waterford, Pa. This tradition is linked with the further legend that during the year of CHAUTAUQUA when George Washington wintered at Fort La Boeuf, he came out over this trail and visited Chautauqua Lake. ---~ Tradition has itCOUNTYthat this Indian Trail was used by explorers, hunters and surveyors. That it grew from blazed HISTORICAL trail to narrow-gauge passageway, and from this narrow way to clearing through which could be constructed a corduroy SOCIETY road, and from corduroy road to public thorofare. At all events, it was over this road that most of WESTFIELD, the settlers of Mina and Sherman came. This was the artery over which they maintained their contact with public affairs NY through the land office and the County Seat at Mayville.2012 This was the route by which came their infrequent mail, over which came new settlers from the old Countries, and along which eventually rolled that convenience of the past century, the stage-coach. We catch our deepest sense of the different life of that day by contrasting pictures. A friend of mine visited 5. London and Paris and was only away from Jamestown six days. From New York he was only gone four days. He took the Northern Atlantic Clipper and was in London in twenty-one hours. He flew to Paris and transacted his business there; returned to London and had nearly a day in London before he caught the same Clipper on its return trip. My great-grandfather, James Ottaway, took his goods COPYRIGHT and family and drove from Headcorn, Maidstone and Smarden in Kent County, up to London. I have no record of how long CHAUTAUQUA that took him. He sailed from London on May 1st, 1823 and landed in New York on June 23, 1823 - fifty-three days in crossing. He took a sloopCOUNTY to Newburg. There he purchased a team of oxen and drove across the State over the same route, HISTORICAL roughly speaking, as was followed by those who constructed the Erie Canal a few years later. He stopped in Buffalo, SOCIETY looked briefly for land in the Niagara Penninsula of Canada, and drove to Westfield. From Westfield he prospected for WESTFIELD, land and finally located what he sought out over this very trail. NY In Kent County, England, before reverses in2012fortune, he had been an owner of grain mills and the farmers who brought grist to his mills had told him grain would thrive where ever nettles grew. Much of his search for land was involved in a search for nettles and it is a family tradition that he found them along this road from Mayville, N. Y. to Waterford, Pa. at the place where he built his log capin. 6. He had reached Buffalo on August 4th, 1823. By September he had located this land and on September 6th, 1823 he bought one hundred and eighty-three acres for two dollars an acre. My great-uncle 's diary has the interesting connnent that it was "in the state of nature". He innnediately set to work to build his log home and had'the same completed so that his family moved in on October 4th, 1823. Later the COPYRIGHT adjoining farm was taken up by his brother, William Horatio Ottaway, who accompanied him to this country. I have CHAUTAUQUAalways been much interested in this great-great uncle of mine. He lived a different sort of life than most of those about him. In my office at Jamestown is the heavy COUNTY muzzle loading deer rifle he brought with him from England. He seems to have had a keen HISTORICALappreciation of flowers and the remnants of his English garden filled with such flowers as roses, myrtle, laurel, foxgloves, narcissus,SOCIETY larkspur, prim roses, daffodils and phlox, continued to my day, long after his early home was gone and there was nothingWESTFIELD,else left to mark the spot save the cellar in which he had so carefully p~otected bulbs and plants through the long coldNYwinters. 2012 He was also the "Johnny Appleseed" of this region, for soon after his arrival he started a nurse~ for fruit trees - particularly apples and pears. And from this nursery came many of the settings for the fine apple orchards which a generation ago characterized the town of Mina. He was a great walker and it is said that he would often start off on foot along the new highways for Westfield 7.