By EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.
To Chautauquans the name Chautauqua means one thing; and yet I believe
that anything pertaining to Chautauqua county must of necessity be of
interest to the thousands who know and love the beautiful lake which
bears the name. To this end has this rambling sketch of the oldest town
in the county been prepared. It lies only seven miles away from _the_
Chautauqua; at just the right distance for a day’s excursion from that
point, when the student’s head, bewildered by so many good things,
demands and needs a day’s rest and diversion. The drive is a delightful
one, passing through the pretty little village of Mayville and over
the hills, from one of which one gets a view of two lakes, beautiful
Chautauqua flashing and sparkling under the mid-summer sun, glorious
old Erie rolling his blue waters with slow and majestic movement. Then
descending these hills one comes into the pleasant valley and into the
dreamy old town. It has been said of it, that one-half of it is dead and
the other half gone to its funeral, but to the tired heart and brain its
peaceful quiet comes as a whiff of salt air or a breeze from mountain
heights. With natural advantages equal to those of many noted watering
places, it is somewhat of a mystery why the sleepy old place has never
awakened and found itself famous.
But it lies, sleeping beauty that it is, dreaming, shut in by a range of
dark green hills on one side and by the waters of the bluest of all the
great lakes on the other. There are a few factories and mills within its
precincts, but somehow no whirr of machinery nor other sound ever comes
from them to break the stillness, which is Sabbath-like every day. It
boasts of three railroads, but each at a respectful enough distance from
the town, so that the faint shriek of the locomotive alone causes the
sojourner to remember that far away, somewhere, outside, there is such
a thing as a busy, noisy, bustling world. It is the home of solidity,
respectability, and wealth. A place in which erring human nature finds
it very easy to be good; in which the old-fashioned virtues of sobriety,
temperance, and hospitality hold sway; in which no more reckless
amusements than lawn tennis and teas, with an occasional reception at one
of the many beautiful homes, or a clam-bake on the shores of the lake are
permitted; a thoroughly drowsy old town.
Westfield, the oldest town of the famous Chautauqua county, New York
state, lies on the shore of Lake Erie, fifty-seven miles west from
Buffalo. It is a garden of the gods on a small scale. Lying back one mile
and a half from the lake, it receives its breezes at exactly the right
temperature. It is never too hot in summer; rarely too cold in winter.
The town is divided by a deep picturesque gorge, through which Chautauqua
Creek runs, and whose sides are now high and rocky, now a bewildering
and beautiful mass of wild grapevines, chestnut and willow, and shrubs
of nearly every variety and description. It is spanned at seemingly the
most inaccessible places by various bridges and ah! the beauty of that
deep chasm on an autumn day, when it is ablaze with the color of maple
leaf and sumach and golden rod. This gorge deepens and widens, grows more
wild and gloomy as it runs back among the Chautauqua hills, until it
culminates in a most remarkable freak of nature, known the country round
as the “Hog’s Back,” of which a description will be given further on.
The first white settlement of this town, and of the entire county as
well, was commenced in 1802, at what was long known as the Cross Roads,
and which is now marked by a curious stone monument. The earlier history
of these regions is dim and indistinct, but all tradition and history,
as well as many curious relics which have been discovered, point to the
fact that after the mound builders, the Neutral nations, or as they
were called by the Senecas, the _Kahkwas_, were the first occupants of
the soil of Chautauqua. They dwelt in forty villages, some of which
were near Fort Niagara; some in Erie county, but the greater part of
their territory extended west along the shore of Lake Erie, through
Chautauqua county into Ohio. They were a strange race of people, famous
hunters, exceedingly fierce and superstitious. The first knowledge had
by Europeans of the Lake Erie regions, and of the tribes which inhabited
them, was obtained by the French in Canada; their enterprise in this
surpassing that of the British.
Father Lalement, in a letter to the Provincial of Jesuits in France,
dated at St. Mary’s Mission, May 19, 1641, speaks of the Neutrals, and
also of a warlike nation named the Eries, or the Nation of the Cat, so
called from the extraordinary number of wild cats which infested their
section, that lived to the south of Lake Erie and west of the Neutral
nation. The Eries were great warriors and were a terror to the Iroquois.
They fought with poisoned arrows, having no fire-arms.
Both these nations were cruelly destroyed by the Iroquois in 1651 and
1655. The final overthrow of the Neutral nation is supposed to have taken
place near Buffalo; the destruction of the Eries, along the shore of
the beautiful lake bearing this name. The whole force of the Iroquois
embarked in canoes upon the blue waters of the lake, and after assaulting
the Eries at a point, the exact location of which is not now known,
scenes most horrible and revolting were enacted, and the brave Eries were
totally annihilated in a fearful butchery.
The accounts of the destruction of these nations are found in the written
narratives of the Jesuits, who were living at that time among the
Indians of New York and Canada. From the extirpation of the Neutral and
Erie nations, until its settlement by pioneers, Chautauqua county, and
especially the portion along the shore of Lake Erie, was the home of the
Senecas, the fiercest tribe of the Iroquois nation.
In 1679, La Salle, Tonti, his Italian lieutenant, Father Louis Hennepin
and several others set sail from Cayuga Creek, a small stream emptying
into Niagara River, for the foot of Lake Erie, steering west-southwest.
They made many leagues, passing what is now Chautauqua county. They are
supposed to be the first Europeans who saw the Chautauqua hills, gloomy
and rugged, covered with mighty forests. The boundary line between
the French and English possessions in America had long been a cause
of contention, and the territory of Chautauqua county was included
in the disputed ground. Communications between the French posts on
the Mississippi and French forts in Canada were made by the long and
tedious routes of the Mississippi, Green Bay routes, and afterward by
Lake Michigan and the Wabash. The easy communication between Canada
and the Mississippi by way of Lake Erie and Chautauqua Lake was not
discovered until 1752, when the Marquis Du Quesne, having been appointed
Governor-General of Canada, arrived there. He at once took more
aggressive and decided measures to obtain possession of the disputed
territory, than any of his predecessors had done. He immediately began to
construct the long line of frontier forts which La Salle had suggested,
that were to unite Canada and Louisiana by way of the Ohio. This bold
step is regarded as leading to the French and Indian war, which resulted
in losing Canada to the French. One of Du Quesne’s first acts was to open
a portage road from the mouth of the Chautauqua Creek, which empties into
Lake Erie a mile and a half from the town of Westfield, to the head of
Chautauqua Lake, and thus open communication between Lake Erie and the
head waters of the Ohio.
In a letter which he sends to the French minister of the marine and
colonies, in Paris, he states that his intention is to begin his posts
near the mouth of _Chataconit_, or Chautauqua Creek. This portage road
was cut through the wilderness more than twenty years before the battle
of Lexington, and yet traces of it to this day are to be seen in and
about the town. In 1761 Sir William Johnson journeyed to Detroit to
establish a treaty with the Ottawa confederacy. On his return, he sailed
along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and in his journal speaks thus of
this portage:
“Wednesday, October 1, 1761.—Embarked at _Presque Isle_ (Erie) at
7 o’clock, with the wind strong ahead, continued so all the day,
notwithstanding it improved all day, and got to _Jadaghque Creek,
and carrying place_, which is a fine harbor and encampment.”
In a letter from General Washington to General Irvine, dated Mount
Vernon, October 31, 1788, he speaks thus of this portage:
“If the Chautauqua Lake at the head of the Connewango River
approximates Lake Erie as closely as it is laid down in the draft
you sent me, it presents a very short portage indeed between the
two, and access to all those above the latter.
“I am, etc.,
“GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
One of Chautauqua’s earliest pioneers was William Peacock, who passed
over this road in 1800. Ten years later he became the agent of the
Holland Land Company. He was an eccentric and shrewd man, and in a short
time became exceedingly wealthy, the hard working land owners thought
at their expense. He was charged with reserving the choicest farms,
best water powers and timber lands for himself and his favorites. The
land holders also thought he was not giving them credit for interest
which they paid from time to time upon their land, and these opinions
found vent in the newspapers, and the agitation grew until on the 6th
of February, 1836, a mob gathered from all parts of the county at
Dewittville, a little hamlet on the shore of Chautauqua Lake.
Word was brought to Mr. Peacock at Mayville, a village at the head of the
lake, and seven miles from Westfield, that a raid was to be made upon the
land office that night, and that mischief might be done to his person
unless he should make good his escape. Donald McKenzie, a northwestern
fur trader, and brother of the McKenzie who discovered the river of that
name, had three years previous to this come to Mayville to live, and was
in the land office that dreary February afternoon when this alarming
message was brought. The stalwart Scotchman, through whose veins flowed
some of the proudest blood of Caledonia, feared neither “mon nor de’il.”
It was his custom to wear a very long black coat which fell in ample
folds around his massive frame. Mr. Peacock was an undersized man. Donald
McKenzie cast the drapery of his inky cloak about the frightened little
man and thus shielded and shrouded from sight, he hurried him up the hill
to his home, whence he was soon taken in a covered sleigh to Westfield,
and down the lake shore road to Buffalo as fast as horses could carry
him, and none too soon was he out of the way, for at dusk a crowd of
infuriated men, numbering two or three hundred, made a raid upon the land
office, demolished it, and after working until near morning succeeded in
forcing open the vault and seized the books, records and contracts and
carried them two miles away, and heaping them up made a goodly bonfire
of them. The ruins of the land office are yet to be seen in Mayville.
The land holders by this mad proceeding brought only “confusion worse
than death” upon themselves, while the prudent Peacock accumulated a
wonderful property, and was afterward made judge. He left to one heir
alone the whole village of Barcelona, the harbor of Westfield, situated
just east of the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, the starting point of the
French portage road. This harbor was made a port of entry by the general
government. In 1828 a lighthouse was erected by a citizen at his own
expense; a steamer named the “William Peacock,” for the hero of the land
office story, was built; all craft on the lake stopped at the little
port; a company was formed called the Barcelona Company; the village was
enlarged, the streets being laid out in city fashion; corner lots sold
for fabulous sums; men lost their heads; the place was to be a great
port; when suddenly the railroad came creeping along the shore; the
bubble broke; the mushroom town was a failure; fortunes were lost, and
to-day Barcelona harbor is a deserted village with grass-grown streets,
gaunt houses, whose windows stare reproachfully at the gay carriage
loads passing by, and an old white lighthouse, which, like the ghostly
finger of the past, seems to beckon to all to come and look upon the
desolation around it. A few sad faced women who might have ridden in
their carriages; brawny fishermen who might have owned their blocks and
wharves and shipping, are the only inhabitants. Down on the beach of a
bright autumn afternoon the nets are spread a-drying; little huts, whose
half open doors reveal the hauls of herring and bass, are here and there;
ruddy faced boys lie sprawling on the sand, sunning themselves; the trees
have grown thick and tall about the lighthouse upon the cliff; no sound
is heard save the hiss of the waves as they tumble in; the quaint little
harbor wears a disappointed look. Old “Groats’ Inn,” though time has
used it roughly, alone seems to try and hold its ancient smartness, like
an antiquated spinster who wishes it understood that the reason she has
never married is not that she never had an offer. Summer and winter for
many long years has it stood there on the edge of the cliff, waiting for
the rush of travel which never came; ready to give hospitality to man and
beast, but no wayfarer ever knocks for admission and entertainment. There
is nothing sadder than a deserted village. What a mockery it seems of all
human hopes and ambitions. In these old houses that look as if they were
weary waiting through so many long years, what homely, uneventful lives
have been spent; what tired eyes have closed for the last time; what
aching and disappointed hearts have ceased to beat, thankful, no doubt,
that the worry and fret were all over.
When old Judge Peacock died, his heirs each received one thirteenth of
his vast estate. One grand-nephew, whose father and mother had been
cousins, fell heir to two-thirteenths, and from being a poor lad living
among the fishermen, found himself the possessor of this entire harbor
and nearly all the land lying between it and Westfield.
In June, 1836, four months after the land office at Mayville had been
destroyed, William H. Seward having been appointed to the agency, and
also having an interest in the purchase, established the land office in
Westfield and lived there until his election as governor of New York. The
Seward mansion is one of the attractions to visitors. It is a “brave old
house,” with a beautiful lawn, fronting on the village green. Its trees
are trimmed in a peculiar old-fashioned way. Its iron gates stand open,
as if inviting the passer to enter and look upon its quaint surroundings.
Another stately old-time mansion is that of the Patterson family. It was
originally occupied by a brother of Seward’s, and when a member of the
family died its front door was painted black! A superb lawn shaded by
grand old trees sweeps away on one side; a garden of grapevines lies on
the other; in front great beds of scarlet geranium blaze, and the trees
and shrubs are out in the same quaint pattern as those upon the Seward
estate. The fashion of other days is plainly to be seen in everything
pertaining to both these rare old places.
The drives about the town are picturesque and delightful. From nearly
every street and road you get enchanting views of the lake on one hand
and the range of hills on the other. The streets are laid in curves, and
you are continually sweeping rounded corners and coming upon unexpected
beauties. Old trees meet above your head; you cross and recross the gorge
dividing the town; far below you rushes the stream; down a shaded street
you go past old-fashioned homes and modern villas in sharp contrast,
and suddenly through overhanging boughs you catch the glory of the blue
waters of old Erie; you are soon in Barcelona harbor; from there you
can drive for miles along the beach, now on the cliff, with the waves
thundering in many feet below you, now further back from the shore
past finely cultivated farms, vineyards, orchards, fields “afoam with
sweetness,” and never failing to catch through grove, across fields of
waving corn and grain, wooded hollows through which clear waters run,
glimpses of the lake’s witchery.
Or you can drive into Peacock’s Grove at Barcelona—a lovely little forest
of tall graceful trees, with a velvet turf from which all annoying brush
has been removed. Leave your carriage, throw yourself upon the ground and
drink in the ever changing beauty of the magic view; the turquoise blue
of the water, of a sunny morning; the sapphire blue of a drowsy summer
afternoon; the molten glory of sky and water at sunset; the slow oncoming
of the solemn moon. How the trees seem to whisper to the waters as if
they were talking over all they have witnessed in common; faintly comes
the tinkle of a cow bell from a neighboring copse; the crows are calling
to each other in the tree-tops; across the path scamper the squirrels;
the bay is dotted with the boats of the fishermen; there is scarcely a
ripple on the vast stretch of water before you; a heavenly peace lies on
lake and shore.
Or take the drive to the wonderful “Hog’s Back.” Leaving the town behind
you, commence the gradual ascent of the dark and rugged hills. Up and
up, higher and higher you go, now pause and look back. The valley lies
smiling before you—a lovely jewel with its setting of the marvelously
blue waters behind it. You leave your carriage and horses in a hospitable
farm yard and set out on foot for the “Hog’s Back.” Across a meadow or
two and you come into a forest of pines and hemlocks. The wind sighs
through the trees as it only sighs through such a wood; far, far off you
hear the rushing of water. You go on a few steps further and suddenly
you find yourself on the edge of a most frightful precipice, the descent
into which is over a narrow ledge of earth thrown up by some tremendous
eruption into the shape of the back of a giant hog. And such an abyss!
Words can not express the awful stillness which reigns over this mighty
gorge whose sides are lined with gloomy forests. Primeval solitudes
could not have been more desolate. The descent is terrible, but nothing
in comparison with the dizzy ascent. One draws a breath of relief when
safely up once more and out from the shade of the mysterious pines into
the gladness of sunlight and an open sky.
Having heard that a mile or so from the town were still to be seen traces
of an old French fort, built either at the time Du Quesne cut the portage
road, or during the French and Indian war, the writer drove with a friend
one morning in search of the place. After many questions, directions and
counter-directions, we finally found the farm upon which it was said to
be located. The genial farmer to whom we stated our errand laughed and
answered:
“O, yes, I’ve got all there is left of it, which ain’t much.”
He told us we could drive nearly to the spot, and led the way, walking by
the carriage, while a joyful dog leaped on before. Past the farm house,
barns, the orchard flaunting its magnificent red fruit, through the “back
lot,” across a field perfumed with its “second crop” of red clover, we
came to a rail fence almost hidden from view by young chestnut trees
and the rioting wild grapevine. Thus far, and no farther, could we go
in the carriage, and leaving it, we stepped over the fence chivalrously
lowered by our guide, and soon saw “all there’s left of it.” Only an
immense circular breastwork, with tall straight trees many, many years
old growing on its top, is left of what may have been simply a supply
station, a fort erected by the French against the Indians, possibly the
fort where the brave Eries were massacred by the Iroquois, or going
further back, it may have been the work of the mound builders.
“I can’t tell you anything about it,” said our obliging guide, “but
if you want to take the trouble to go there, old Uncle Dave Cochrane
will tell you all about it. He’s ninety years old, but he remembers
everything, and he’ll be glad to see you and tell you all he knows.”
Being directed to Uncle Dave’s, we left the farm and drove in the
opposite direction toward the lake. When about half way to Barcelona, we
turned aside from the main road, and in a hollow, close by Chautauqua
Creek, found an old-fashioned stuccoed house, over which the scarlet
woodbine crept and clung lovingly. We could bring no one to the front
door, and so the Adventurous One commenced to explore the rear of the
house, and was rewarded by seeing peering over the top of the coal bin in
the woodshed, an old, old man with a chisel in his hand.
“Are you Uncle David Cochrane?”
“Hey?” shouted the old gentleman.
The question was repeated, and the answer was literally bawled:
“Yes; who be you?”
The Adventurous One was obliged to state her name and errand before the
old man would move one step from behind the coal bin.
“I’ll come around to the front of the house,” announced this tremendous
voice, coming with startling effect from this little bundle of humanity
to which it belonged, “for I’m hard o’ hearin’.”
And so Uncle Dave and the Adventurous One sat down on a bench by the old
stone wall around the little garden, and while the autumn sun smiled down
on the waters of the pretty stream that flowed by the old man’s door,
this voice from the past spoke freely and at length.
Uncle Dave was a remarkable old gentleman, possessing an astounding
memory, of which faculty he was well aware, and of which he was very
proud. He had dates, incidents, historical events at his tongue’s end. On
being asked, who in his opinion had built the fortifications we had that
morning seen, he said emphatically:
“It was some of them ten foot fellers that lived here long before the
Injuns. Injuns never done it, they didn’t know enough, and they are too
old for the French to have built ’em.”
Did he mean the mound builders?
“Yes, I reckin that’s what ye call ’em.”
Did he ever see any traces of the old portage road?
“O, yes,” he trumpeted forth, “the French under _Du Quizney_ built that
road from the mouth of this here very creek to the head of Chautauqua
Lake.”
“Do you remember, Mr. Cochrane, when Lafayette visited Westfield in 1823?”
“Yes, sir,” he shouted, and his withered old face was suddenly
transfigured by some nameless light, “indeed I do. Word was brought to
us that Lafayette was in Erie, and Judge Peacock had a splendid span of
greys and a nice carriage, and he sent them to the State line to bring
him to Westfield. I got a six-pounder all ready, and when the runner came
ahead to let us know them grays was in sight, I jest teched her off. He
drove over the bridge and up on the village square, and got out of the
carriage and took off his hat.” Here the old man reverently uncovered his
head, straightened himself and became unconsciously dramatic. “He was a
sandy haired feller, a reg’lar Frenchman, and he spoke to everybody that
crowded up to shake hands with him. And I tell ye it was a sight to see
them Revolutioners crowd around him. Alec Wilson, he was a Revolutioner,
an Irishman, says he, ‘God bless yez, Markis, how air yez;’ and the
Markis says just as pleasant and affable like, ‘Very well, my friend, but
you have the advantage of me.’ ‘Why, Markis,’ says Alec, ‘I wuz one of
General Washington’s body-guard, I wuz. Many a time have I seen you and
the Gineral together, Lord love ye.’ ‘Is that so, Alec,’ says the Markis,
‘then I must shake hands again,’ and he did shake again with that air
Irishman!”
When we came away his parting shout was to this effect:
“When ye find a man of my age with a better memory, s’posen ye let me
know.”
Good by, brave old pioneer, we shall never see you again; but the picture
you made as you stood there “in the pleasant autumn weather,” the breeze
playing with your white hair, your little cottage, its cream tint
contrasting so well with the vivid red of the woodbine which wantoned
over it, for a back-ground, will not soon be forgotten.
Westfield is admirably adapted for a summer resort. Aside from its
beautiful scenery, its hills, its lake with its inducements in the way
of fishing, sailing and rowing, its charming drives, and equally as
charming walks, it is undeniably a healthy place. Its air is pure and
bracing. Every breath you draw seems to put new life into your frame.
There are mineral springs near the town which might be utilized. There
are many points near by suitable for excursions. Van Buren’s Harbor, a
delightful picnic ground, and the best beach along shore for bathing, is
within a short drive. Peacock’s Grove offers inducements for camping and
clam baking. There are many other beautiful villages easy of access; the
remarkable “Hog’s Back” furnishes a day’s diversion; twenty miles away
is a wonderful geological attraction known as Panama Rocks, which well
deserves and repays attention. In point of fact, the sleepy old place has
more than its share of surrounding attractions and only needs a magic
touch to waken it, and yet it would be a pity to transform this little
Arcadia into a fashionable watering place. One would not care to see
its primitive beauty sullied and its peace broken in upon by the world.
Rather let it remain one of those places fast dying out before the march
of so-called civilization, a dreamy old town.