Class. Book Copyright^? _ COPXRIGHT DEPOSIT. OVER BLAZED TRAILS OVER BLAZED TRAILS AND COUNTRY HIGHWAYS THE STORY OF A MIDSUMMER JOURNEY By FRANK H. CLARK Lisle, N. T. 1919 Copyright. 1919, by Frank H. Clark DEC 29 1919 Printed by William M. Stcrrs Lisle, N. Y. 9 21 "Vl€ | ^ To "H. H." Are Inscribed These "Observations" by The "Observer," CONTENTS When You Were a Boy 9 The Frontier 11 Our Remote Ancestors 14 History Repeats 16 Far Call of Dudley 18 The Watering Trough 21 Dudley's Mills 22 Yorkshire of Old 24 Old Ways and New 26 A New Farm Product 27 Susquehanna Valley 28 Esther Morris 31 An Old Battle Field 33 Painted Post 35 Canisteo Valley 37 Aunt Olive's Silk Dress 39 At Chautauqua 40 The Wayside Inn 42 Horace Beat Us to It 44 An early Start 45 A Blazed Trail 47 Hot Chicken, No? 49 Lake Erie, Adios! 52 On the Maumee River 55 Slick Country Roads 57 South Bend, Indiana 59 The Fourth Day 61 Along the Illinois 63 The Fifth Day 65 Siege cf Detroit 67 Bontiae's Undoing 69 A Sabbath Day's Journey 72 Seeking a Trail 74 CONTENTS Out of the Mud 77 The Seventh Day 79 Joseph and Maroni 81 Brigham Young S3 Traversing Iowa 85 The Trail of Blood 86 A Western Hold-up 90 Omaha , 92 Lincoln 94 A Simoom 96 An Evening Drive 100 The Friend in Need 101 The Mountains 103 Cheyenne, Wyoming 104 Suspended Animation 110 All From Lisle 112 Denver 116 Colorado Springs 119 And Manitou 120 "Walt Mason" 124 Pinched? Not Us 126 Traversing Kansas 127 "Shall Auld Acquaintance" 129 Winning California 131 A Bridge to the Moon 133 In "Old Misery" 134 Mark Twain's Town 137 Crossing Illinois 13S With the Hoosiers 140 Central Ohio 141 A Road to the Moon 142 The Last Day's Drive 143 Seeing Things 145 OVER BLAZED TRAILS WHEN YOU WERE A BOY When you were a boy, did you live near a lake, or a river, or a mill-pond, or a swimming hole, big enough to float a boat, or a raft, or a plank, or a log? And didn't you buy, build or im- provise some sort of a floating craft with which to navigate immediate and communicating waters? And when you explored the islands mid main- land you had discovered, didn't your fancy populate them with strange people, principally Indians, with a sprinkling of cannibals, and pirates, and things? And when you tired of the water, didn't you fall back on good old terra firma, and answer to the call of the hills and their woodlands? Of course you did; and you made a bow and some arrows and robbed the old roos- OVER BLAZED TRAILS ter of a few of his tail feathers for four war bonnet., and then rushed off to the rendezvous in the woods to play Indian. There, in imagination, the moss covered mounds with their scarlet flames of squawberries and winter- green, were Indian graves, marking the entrance to the "happy hunting grounds/' of numerous noble red men who once called this land their own — and all that. And you built wickiups there, or went over to the pines and arranged more elaborate apartments by utilizing the enclosures already brcwn-carpeted with fallen pine nee- dles, and set off by closely standing young pine trees. Perhaps you made your armament a little more realistic by driving a nail into the head of your arrow and filing it off to a sharp point so, if the arrow should hit the target, it would stick there and quiver, indisputable evi* dehce of your marksmanship. If it did so happen that your hit was registered on the chin of one of your playfellows, it would stick and quiver just the same, and, when re- moved, would leave a scar which that boy would carry all through his years to come. And yet, you may be sure 10 THE FRONTIER tliat, in later years, whenever the mir- ror, or another's inquisitive eye, cen- tered his thought upon that little scar, a smile would break upon his lips and brighten his eyes as he recalled the old millpond and its strange craft, the wooded hill and the moss covered mounds, the wickiups and the pines. Men and women are just boys and girls grown older. Someone has said, "grown up," but they don't all grow that way. If they retain the best that was in them to begin with, and do "grow up," the joy of life will be no empty phrase, and disappointments will not be overshadowing and bitter. It is human nature and it sticks; on this half of the world at least boys, grown men, are lured by the far mys- teries of the pulsing tide, cr the stjrange whisperings of the forest primeval and trackless plains. And so, in the serious adventures of life, they have ever gone down to the sea in ships or followed the aborigines into the sunset. THE FRONTIER Just using round numbers for the ease of it, in fixing the idea— 300 years ago when our Pilgrim fathers ran their small boats up on the Massa- 11 OV£R &LAZED TRAILS diusetts sands and used Plymouth Uock physically, at least, as a step- ping' stone to higher things, the east" em boundary of tins strange laM they liad come to marked, for them, the western frontier of that day. Within a period of 150 years and before the American Revolution, the Pilgrims and other colonists had forc- ed the frontier beyond the boundaries of the New England colonies; and their encroachments upon the domain of the American aborigines had be- come so persistent and comprehensive that the Indians had begun to voice discontent, and Urge a determination, once for all, of a fixed line of demark* ation between white and Indian ter- ritory. A result of the Indian complaint was the conference at Fort Stattwix, (af- terwards Fort Schuyler, and located within the present limits of the city of Rome, N, Y,), which framed the treaty known as the "Treaty of Fort Stanwix/' That was 150 years ago — 1768, The treaty fixed the frontier as between the colonies and the Six Na- tions, the Delawares and the Shaw- ahese, It is a matter of interest now to re^ call that boundary line which marked 12 THE FRONTIER the western progress of the "star oi empire" during the first 150 years. It began at a point on the Allegheny riv- £r above the present city of Pittsburgh, Pa., and ran northeasterly across Pennsylvania to the head waters of Towanda creek, which stream it fol- lowed to the Susquehanna and con- tinued up that river to Oghwaga (Owe* go, N» Y.) ; theftce it ran across to a point on the Delaware river below Hancock, and up that river to the pres- ent village of Deposit, Broome County, N. Y> Thence the line ran north, pick- ing up the Susquehanna again at the mouth of the Unadilla, and cantiu* ing up the latter stream and its left branch to the head waters* North and west of this line was recognized as Indian territory. Incidentally, it may be remarked that, after the American revolution, a few years later, there was not a vestige 'of that line left. One hundred years after Sir Wil- liam Johnson of Johnson Hall, repre* sentative of the Crown, in New York, and the governors and commissioners representing Pennsylvania, New Jer- sey and Virginia, concluded the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the United States of America, through its commissioners, concluded a treaty with the chiefs and 13 OVER BLAZED TRAILS headmen of the various tribes of the Sioux Indians, at Fort Laramie — which was in Dakota at the commencement of the negotiations, but was in the newly organized Territory of Wyom- ing at the time of the final Indian sig- nature to the treaty in November. The Union Pacific rail road was be- ing built at that time, and the pri- mary object of the treaty was to elim- inate Indian troubles from the mass of engineering and other difficulties which were to be reckoned with in that great undertaking. In the occomplish- ment of this object, the aboriginees were pressed yet farther back by ad- vancing civilization. That was in April-November, 186S — fifty years ago. And where is the fron- tier now? It is not. The pressure of civilization, in 150 years, carried the frontier out of the New England col- onies into mid-New York and Pennsyl- vania. Another 100 years carried the line two-thirds of the way across the continent; and within the past fifty years it has vanished in thin air. OUR REMOTE GRANDSIRES Three hundred years are not so much in world history, not so very much measured in generations; but 14 OUR REMOTE GRANDSIRES they are sufficient, however, to make one's ancestrial grandparents so many times great, that the family relation- ship becomes a mere tabulated state- ment of almost impersonal facts. When the time is cut down to 150 years it has become altogether a different proposition. Personal rec- ollections of one's grandfather's grand- father are possible then if one's grand- father was possessed of sufficient longivity and a good memory. Under such circumstanses the grandsire of 150 years ago, despite his several de- grees of remoteness, may seem to warm up a little, and his story may take on the saving garb of human in- terest. A century and a half ago a grand- father of a grandfather of the two men who are to shift the scenes and the stage settings for the story which is to follow, had already served with the colonial troops in the French and Indian war and the stege of Quebec, and in the expedition against Cuba and the siege of Havana, in the war against Spain; and he had returned to his fields and family, in western Connecttc/iiit, and engaged himself in the quiet pursuits of peace. The lure of the frontier became 15 OVER BLAZED TRAILS compelling after a few quiet years; and the last Indian totem had hardly been traced, signatory to the Treaty of Stanwix, when this young Connects cut soldier, turned farmer, had asso- ciated himself with others under the spell of the lure, and entered upon the fateful plains of Wyoming, in the beautiful Valley of the Susquehanna, What followed is history. HISTORY REPEATS These two descendants of the Connecticut soldier were born and reared on lands watered by streams tributary to the Susquehanna, and as well on the Indian side of the frontier limits "once for all" fixed at Fort Stan- wix, On reaching man's estate, they, too, felt, and yielded to, the compell- ing lure of the frontier; and, follow* ing that same "star of empire," sought cut and found another and later Wy- oming. It was but a little time — not much more than a decade — after the treaty of Fort Laramie, that these two had pitched their tents, so to speak, within the shadow of the Rocky Moun> tains and under the most wonderful of all blue skies, 250 years and 2,500 miles from Plymouth Rock. It is a tradition of the village 19 HISTORY REPEATS that no Lisle boy, who has bared his feet to the waters of Dudley creek and thoroughly burned his unprotected legs in the hot Summer sun while a- wading in that stream, can ever wan- der so far from the valley that some- time, a call does not rise up out of his submerged youth sufficiently strong to bring him back to the willows and alders, shading the banks of the rip- pling stream. It so happened that our two young men who went into the ragged edge of civilization under the lure of the frontier, remained in the stately pres- ence of the snow-crowned Rockies, be- neath the azure vault which arches them over, until the shattered line of the aborigines' resistence broke against that granite escarpment where- in nature allied herself with the inva- ders; and the frontier became a theme of the old-timer's romance. And then they crossed over the backbone of the continent, and traveled down the west- ern slope to where the melting snows of the mountains lose their soft, cool waters in the green waves of the west- ern ocean. 17 OVER BLAZED TRAILS FAR CALL OF DUDLEY But a time came when, despite the influence of the silent mountains, tho dignified stateliness of the giant red- woods and firs, many centuries old, and a setting sun painting an opales- cent sea, they harkened back to the distant tinkling and musical murmur- ing of the waters of Dudley creek as they swirled and tumbled about the age-worn stones, arcund the exposed roots of the willows, and through the grass fringed pools. And eventually they did yield to the call of youthful memories and returned to the old home town, if only to lean over the rail of the Cortland street bridge, under the wide sweeping boughs of the ancient willow tree, am: look into the brown dcbtlis of the flashing waters there and listen for the dreams of other days. And here and hereabout they still remain, having again picked up the tangled thread of life practically at the spot where their lives began. These two men, however, having hark- ened to the call of mountain and plain. 18 THE START and to revisit the scenes of their western experiences, recently drove (in a modern way) over blazed trails and other ways, two-thirds the way across the continent and returned ; and the experiences of the Pilot and the observations of the Observer on that journey make tip the travel story which follows. THE START. There were three in the party — two who were to go through to Colorado and Wyoming; and one who wanted to goi, but couldn't. All had been there before — many years ago — and were yielding again to the call of the moun- tains and plains, and reviving their recollection of experiences and ad- ventures incident to those romantic years. The night before, Howard Franklin had driven down in his "Franklin" car — so recently from the factory that it had but 190 miles to its credit, when he arrived in Lisle. This was the car which was to carry the party through to the Rocky Mountains and return; and he was to drive it, thus becoming the "Pilot" of this story. While the Pilot and Frank Clark, his fellow traveler, to be, were eating 10 OVER BLAZED TRAILS their bacon and eggs by lamp light, preparatory to an early start, they were joined by Charlie Bliss of Killa- wog; and thus was the party com- plete for the first day out. Of course these were Lisle boys, more or less "grown up," and certainly grown old- er; not necessarily old boys, but for the time at least, just Lisle boys. Special preparations for the trip were nil. The "Franklin" touring car. just as it was run out of the factory a tew days before, eliminated the ques- tion of railroad transportation; and with that went sleeping and dining car troubles. Hotel accommodations and restaurants await the traveler along the way. Wearing apparel and incidentals, in the usual traveling bags, extra wraps and lap robes, an extra bag of addi- tional tools, a camera and a pair of thermos bottles, in a case, made up the luggage of the party. There was plenty room for this !n the body of the car, between the front and rear seats. The Pilot had provided a cover, made up of "top" material, fitted to the car, to snap on the curtain fasten- ers at the back and on the two sides as far front as the driver's seat, where 20 THE WATERING TROUGH this cover could be fastened to the robe strap. When the luggage was loaded in the car, this cover, snapped and fastened in place, effectually pro- tected the load and that part of the car from dust and rain, regardless of the position of the car top. The Pilot took his place at the wheel. Charlie Bliss climbed in and settled down on the remaining por- tion of the front seat. Clark unsnap- ped the dust protector on one side, and found roomy comfort on the rear seat; then he placed hjis distance glasses on his nose and assumed the role of "Observer." Godspeeds and goodbyes were exchanged, the engine turned, and at 6:20 in the morning, Wednesday, August 24, 1918, the car rolled out onto Cortland street, its nose toward the Dudley creek bridge, and we were off for the long drive. THE WATERING TROUGH Crossing the bridge and turning westward on the "Dugway," we had to stop, of course, when we reached the spring and "watering trough," just beyond the village limits. It has been a familiar spot to about every resident in the town of Lisle in the past 50 or 75 years or more. Here we 21 OVER BLAZED TRAILS filled our thermos bottles and drank' to the success of the present adven- ture. "Trough" seems to have been some- what of a misnomer in a description of this watering place. Today there is a rather massive concrete basin or reservoir there, into which the water is conducted from the spring through afi iron pipe. When we boys were youngsters, the "trough" was made from the half of one of the big hogs- heads or casks in which raw hides were shipped to the tannery at York- shire. The water was conducted to this tub through a simple trough made of two boards nailed together. The overflow from the tub and spring, by flooding the road for the most part, found its way into the little trout brook that flowed through the field by the roadside to the mill-pond below. DUDLEY'S MILLS And then we passed Edwards' Mill where, in the continued possession of the same family and in present use, yet stands the only one remaining, of a dozen or fifteen sawmills utilizing water power along the water courses in the town of Lisle. All were once in active operation in the manufacture 22 THE YORKSHIRE OF OLD df lumber from the hemlock forests that covered these hills. As it is, an auxiliary engine has been installed in this mill, for service when there is no "head" in the mill-pond; and this is much of the time, for old Dudley has ceased to be dependable in these lat- ter days. Just a little farther up the creek we passed through Manningville, once a very busy little community, with two sawmills, a plaining mill and a wool- en mill running to capacity in those busy timber-slashing times; and not a stick or stone remains in place to Ox the sites of them. From Manningville, it was only a matter of three or four minutes to roll into Yorkshire — Center Lisle in the P. O. directory. Its Yorkshire day;s were the days of its glory. There were sawmills, plaining mills, a sash, blind and door factory, a carriage factory and a cabinet shop. Much fine, sub- stantial, old furniture was made there then. THE YORKSHIRE OF OLD The principal asset was a great tannery, employing many men and boys, year in and out. Cask after cask of raw sheep skins were received in OVER BLAZED TRAILS an almost daily procession, shipped from Australia, across two oceans to New York; transhipped by rail to Lisle, they were hauled to the tan- nery by teams. At the tannery the tanned and roughly finished product was packed in great, canvass-covered bales and sent back to New York to be further finished, so the sophisticat- ed old Australian buck would not be able to distinguish his own hide from that of the veriest kid or softest calf. These many mills have disappeared. The great tannery, long since shut down, is now being razed and sal- vaged for the useable material to be found in its structure. And yet, do you know, out of the little village of Yorkshire came the Smith boys, Le- roy, Lyman C, Wilbert, Monroe and Hurlbert. From wrestling with the choppers in the hemlock timber, the sawyers at the mill, and the raftsmen and high water in the spring drive of manufactured lumber through the three rivers to tide-water, Leroy Smith went over to Ithaca and lo- cated; and the sporting world was given the "Ithaca" gun. Lyman C. Smith went to Syracuse, and directly the "L # C. Smith" gun 24 THE YORKSHIRE OF OLD had achieved more than a national reputation. He interested himself (and an inventor) in typewriting machines at a time when there were but two or three sufficiently practical to be in use; and directly, the "Smith Pre- mier" appeared on the market. Then he disposed of the gun and the "Smith Premier" interests, and associated with him his brothers Wilbert, Mon- roe and Hurlbert in a new enterprise, and the "L. C. Smith & Brothers" visible writing machine came to the tore. But fifteen or twenty minutes from Lisle! And we had climbed the long hill from Yorkshire — looking back from the crest over the valley below and to the farm-marked hills to the north and to the west — and had coasted down by the old Franklin homestead, past the orchard which the Pilot had helped to set out when he was a mere boy; had passed the farms added to the original holding, and waved a morning salute to the farmer and his wife, who were evi- dently discussing the day's program on the kitchen porch of the new Franklin farm house. 25 OVER BLAZED TRAILS OLD WAYS AND NEW Fifteen or twenty minutes! To hitch up a team and "drive to town" with the butter and eggs and other farm products for barter or sale, in the good, old-fashioned days o? our fathers and grandfathers, meant the loss of the half of a long day. Farm horses generally were not racers, and the country roads were far from be- ing speedways. Transportation was always a seri- ous proposition — is now. We are likely to overlook the fact, for the monment. that the railroads we now have, were not always with us. "Uncle Gardner" Livermore, one of the first settlers, if not the earliest, in this particular sec- tion, came from Massachusetts. With oxen and sleds for a means of trans- portation, he brought his family and household effects through in mid- winter. One can hardly imagine now, what a journey of that kind under such conditions must have been. The Pilot's grandfather, accompa- nied by Mrs. Franklin and their only son, Charles R., drove across the country with his belongings from Au- 26 A NEW FARM PRODUCT rora, in Cayuga county, 85 years ago. They first made their home in a log house en Popple Hill, later to locate in Cadwell Settlement. And the boy, Charles, was sent at times with his father's team, 65 or 70 miles to Syra- cuse, to load with salt and return. Af- ter the Chenango canal was put in op- eration, the source of supply was changed to Chenango Forks, reached over "the old salt road." A NEW FARM PRODUCT These, with the stage coach, were the common methods of land trans- portation in the earlier days, and are in marked contrast with the mode of* conveyance we were enjoying that early morning in August. And the contrast came pat at that time for the reason that H. H. Franklin, the head of the company that produces the car the Pilot was driving, is also, a Lisle boy, "grown up" as well as older, and was born and reared on the farm in Cadwell Settlement, we then were passing. So, you may ob- serve with the Observer that, in ad- dition to the dairy products and the livestock which have come from the Franklin farms for so many years, it may be true in an interrelated kind 27 OVER BLAZED TRAILS of way, that this farm that produced the producer, may claim the "Frank- lin car" as one of it products. Traveling by the way of East Berk- shire, we soon came out upon the new Owego road through Newark V alley, a town once of great local rep- utation because of its "trout ponds" and adjoining grounds where the country people from many miles around were wont to gather picnick- ing — and dancing, perhaps, for which provision was made; more of the "good, old times" that are no more. Comfortably speeding over an ex- cellent macadam road, we reached Owego, (where once was an Indian town with a similar name, Oghwaga). at a reasonably early hour in the morning. Without halting we turned westward over what has, since the War, been sometimes called the Lib- erty Highway. SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY We were riding over historic ground. W3 had driven down into the valley of the Susquehanna, a valley and a river which ftave figured mucn in history and romance. We were at Owego nee Oghwaga, where the joint contributions of the Owego and Cata- 23 SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY tonk creeks are poured into the Sus- quehanna. Ancient Oghwaga was one of the many substantially built and well lo- cated Indian towns scattered over that portion of New York dominated by the Iroquois Confederacy. It suf- fered the common fate of all the In- dian settlements along the line of march taken by General Sullivan's troops on the expedition of 1779. In fact, it was the purpose of the expe- dition to seek out these villages to destroy them and their stores of food and fields of corn and vegetables. So Oghwaga was burned and the corn and potatoes, cucumbers and melons, squash and turnips in the fields were destroyed — 139 years, less five days, before the Pilot and his party arrived on the scene and took up the west- ward trail. The splendid stretch of macadam we called a "trail," by easy grades and swinging curves, along the south- ern slope of the hills on the north err side of the valley, soon reached ar. altitude much above the town and the river flats. We rushed by a club house and park, poised on the verge of the dangerously steep hillside hedged in a tangle of trees and 29 OVER BLAZED TRAILS shrubbery, and came out into an un- obstructed view of the scene. Farms dotted with buildings, were marked off in great, rectangular fields by their fences; intersecting roadways afforded them communication; and farm teams and some early travelers were on their way. Glistening parallels marked lines of railroad traversing the length of the valley. The Erie and the Lehigh crowded the hill and one another, almost beneath us. Section hands were working on the roadbed, and among them were women, suitably dressed for the employment, and do- ing the work of men. These were war times. Through the valley the Susque- hanna traveled its sinuous course, collecting tribute from its tributa- ries all the way from Otsego Lake, and poured its flood into Chesapeake bay at the end of its 400 miles of meand- ering. Beyond the river a trail of smoke and steam marked the line of the Lackawanna, and back of all rose the distant background of mountain- ous hills. 30 "MOTHER OF SUFFRAGE' ESTHER MORRIS Observing a -woman in overalls, working in the section gang with the men, "doing a man's work for a man's pay," quickened a memory of Esther Morris. You have not heard of her? Out in Wyoming where the women have enjoyed the franchise and civil rights equally with men since 1869, Esther Morris is sometimes referred to as the "Mother of Woman's Suf- frage." She was almost born an Owe- go girl, somewhat more than WO years ago. Her grandfather was an officer under General Sullivan in the expedition of 1779. At the close of the war he was granted a tract of land near Owego. His granddaughter was born in the little village of Spen- cer, Tioga county, 12 or 15 miles northwest from Owego, and not much farther from ancient "Catharines- town." She was an orphan at 11 years. Esther was married at 28 to a civil engineer named Slack, employed on the Erie railroad, then under con- struction. Later he went to the Illi- nois Central, acquired some interests in Illinois, died and was survived by 31 OVER BLAZED TRAILS Mrs. Slack and their one son. In 1845 Mrs. Slack married John Morris, a merchant in Peru, Ills. There were two tens by the second marriage. In 18 GD, Mr. and Mrs. Morris and the three boys went out to the frontier and settled at South Pass City, a mining town over in the middle western por- tion of the new Territory of Wyoming. In the first legislative assembly of Wyoming, in the fall of 1S69, John Bright, a member of the council, from South Pass City, fathered a woman's suffrage bill, which Esther Morris "mothered" in the lobby; and his work was so insistent and hers so persistent and effective, that the bill became an act, was approved by Gov- ernor Campbell and became a law. Mrs. Morris was one Billy Ftortune would describe as "an able minded lady." She lived to see the provision she had "mothered" in the first legis- lative assembly of a new territory, in- corporated in its constitution when that territory was admited to state- hood 20 years afterward. The panorama rushing past as the wheels of our car took the smooth road without a jar, was a swiftly changing one. Almost before we were aware of it, we had left the Susque- 32 ESTHER MORRIS hanna and its valley behind and were entering the valley through which the Chemung was flowing to its junc- tion with the larger stream at Tioga Point. AN OLD BATTLE FIELD As we were approaching Elmira, yet several miles distant, there sud- denly flashed into view a tall, grace- ful obelisk, glistening white in the sun and silhouetted high against the blue summer sky above a prominent hill at our right. This monument was erected, commemorative of the first battle fought by Sullivan's army in force, en its march against the In- dians in 1779. Butler's Rangers and His Indians to the number of about 700, of whom 500 were aborigines, had chosen their po- sition at this point, erected breast* works of logs, dug rifle pits and loop- holed a log house standing here in the woods, for their defense. In course of the battle, Sullivan's men turned their enemy's flank on the hill above them and severely punished and routed, them. That night, after the battle, the Americans encamped on. the broad fiat near by, where the Indians had 33 OVER BLAZED TRAILS planted and cultivated 120 acres to corn, beans, potatoes, tutrnips" and other vegetables, and remained in camp until August 31st. when they left Newtown and marched on "Cath- arinestown," having first entirely de- stroyed the field of corn and vege- tables. The present Newtown lies at the foot of the hill surmounted by the sightly monument, and on the trail we were traveling. A granite marker at the roadside in the village, reminds the passer-by of the historical char- acter of the locality he has invaded. A fine driveway has been built from the highway up the sodded slope of the hill to a millitary park surround- ing the monument. On the first cen- tennial anniversary of the battle of Newtown, August 29, 1879, this mon- ument was dedicated with appropri- ate ceremonies. We more nearly passed by Elmira than passed through it, on our way; and that, without stopping. However, in passing, the Observer (observed that this city, also, draws on Revolu- tionary history and Indian romance for its beginning. Where Newtown creek pours its waters into the Che- mung river, once was Kanawlshalla; 34 PAINTED POST. where Kanawlshalla was Capt. John Reed built a fort in September, 1779, and it was called Fort Reed; and the site of old Fort Reed is the site of later Elmira. PAINTED POST. From Elmira the Pilot laid a route by Horseheads through Corning to Painted Post, in Steuben county. "The Man from Painted Post," was not a product of this town; but the origin if its name harks back to the Revo- lution and the Indian activities of that time. In the summer of 1779, we are as- sured, a detachment of Butler's Rang- ers under the Doyalist, McDonnel, and a considerable party of Indians under the Seneca, Chief Hiakatoo, returning from some serious encount- er, brought the young chieftain, Ron- ald Montour, son of the Indian Queen Catharine, of Catharinestown, so des- perately wounded that he presently died; and they buried him under the elms at the confluence of the Tioga and Cohocton rivers. Over this young chief's grave was planted a post, painted with various Indian symbols and devices, which stood undisturbed long after the coun- 35 OVER BLAZED TRAILS try had been settled by the whites. This monument was known through- out the Genesee country, and to this spot many chieftains and braves of the Six Nations made frequent pil- grimages. The white settlement lo- cated at this place, naturally took on the name by which the locality had long been known — Painted Post. Roland Montour was leader of the band of 40 Indians who fired upon General Sullivan's soldiers, from am- bush, near Chemung, August 13, 1779, wounding 12 and killing 8 officers and privates. McDonnel was with the Ran- gers at the battle of Newtown, on August 29, in whic*h both Rangers and Indians suffered defeat and rout. Instead of following the main Iro- quois trail up the Cohocton to Bath and across to Hornell, we went out over the highway through Addison to Jasper, and thence down to Canisteo and on to Hornell. Shortly before en- tering Canisteo, the car side-tracked to a shaded position on the bank of a shallow stream which, at one time or another, had been appropriated by some doughty millitary hero; or our road map was misleading. So be it, at noon we paused on the 36 CAN1STE0 VALLEY bank of "Col. Bill's creek," and ap- propriated to our own use a lunch prepared and boxed that morning for emergencies (the emergency having arisen) and washed it down with pure, cold water from the spring at the watering trough in the "Dugway" at Lisle, from our thermos bottles. And Shen to Canisteo. CANISTEO VALLEY. In the valley of the Canisteo, in the midst of its open flats and ancient meadows, once was an Indian village. Canisteo Castle. Here for a time and before she took up her abode at "Catharinestown," near the head of Seneca lake, was the home of Queen Catharine. Dong after that, and prior to the Revolution, Canisteo Castle fell into such bad repute that Sir William Johnson ordered its destruc- tion. This duty was assigned to Cap- tain (Andre) Montour, a brother of Queen Catharine, and his work was done so thoroughly well that the lo- cation was utterly abandoned and nev- er rebuilt by the Indians. In 1788,) Solomon Bennet, Uriah Stephens and others launched an ex- pedition for the exploration of the Canisteo with the view of effecting a 37 OVER BLAZED TRAILS settlement in its valley if the pros- pects were favorable. On September 17, 1790, as a result of these investi- gations, Bennet and Stephens together with nine others associated with them, purchased a tract of 46,080 acres of land, surveyed into two town- ships, each containing 23,040 acres, from Oliver Phelps of Canandaigua. This sale was "in consideration of Two thousand six hundred and sixty- six pounds, thirteen shillings and four pence, current money" of the State of New York. These townships were each divided into 12 parcels of equal area, and were distributed by lot to the asso- ciates, one parcel in each township to each man except Bennet, who, for satisfactory reasons, was given two in each township. One of the associates was John Stephens, latterly known as Col. John Stephens, a son of Uriah Stephens. His wife, Olive, was a sister of the father of the grandfather of the Pilot and the Observer. Col. John Stephen's lot in the "upper" or township 4, was lot 7; and did not particularly appeal to him as a farming proposition. 38 THE LADY'S GOWN AUNT OLIVE'S SILK DRESS. On the 9th of July, 1793, Col. John sold 1,600 acres of lot 7 to George Hornell, "in consideration of one hun- dred and eleven pounds lawful mon- ey of the State of New York" together with a silk dress for his wife, Aunt Olive! He retained his interest in the lower township, wherein was after- wards located the town of Canisteo, and made his home there. He lived to be 71 and died March 19, 1837; and his wife survived him and died Nov. 6, 1848, at the age of 82 years and six months. Both were buried in the ceme- tery at the little village of Greenwood in the hills a few miles south of Can- isteo. On the day we passed through Can- isteo, the Stephens family annual re- union was on, and we were invited to tarry and join the party, but our schedule would not permit. Much of the town of Hornell, in- cluding railroad property, churches, schools, Federal building, Armory, Court house.and other public and pri- vate buildings, including one or two silk mills, was located on the 1,600 39 OVER BLAZED TRAILS acres sold to George Hornell for Aunt Olive's silk dress and 111 pounds in money. Can there be any psychological connection between the silk dress of 125 years ago and the silk mills there today, A passing shower of but a few mo- ments' duration, laid the dust for us as we were taking on gas at Hornell; and from there we struck out over the hills by Wellsville, Belvidere and Friendship in Allegany county, and Cuba to Olean in Cattaraugus county. Great tanneries were established in Olean years ago before the mountain- ous hills and ridges among which we had been traveling, had been robbea of their forests; and hemlock bark was then corded up in great piles more noticeable than the buildings of the town, as viewed from passing trains. Now the forests have disap- peared, the bark has vanished, but the tanneries are here — and running. AT CHAUTAUQUA. Prom Olean we followed the trail to Salamanca, a town which the Ob- server recalls as the place where he was compelled to "change cars" for Kent, Ohio, from the Erie train on which lie had left Binghamton the 40 AT CHAUTAUQUA. midnight before, on his way to the western frontier forty years ago. From Salamanca we continued across the Allegany Indian reservation to the Randolphs, and thence over into Chautauqua county and down to Jamestown at the foot of the lake. And there we dined. The sun was nearing the western horizon as we drove out from James- town, along the eastern shore of Chautauqua lake, enjoying the in- creasing splendors of a growing sun- set, the beauties of the flashing gleams of light and color reflected from the wind^rippled surface of th,e water, nnd the delight of a moving picture of the western shore line with its little communities and villages and the Chautauqua in the midst of trees and shrubberj r , blending in the back- ground of undulating hills and illu- minated sky. And we rounded the head of the lake to Mayville. From Mayville the Pilot rushed us along through the growing twilight over the low divide which lies be- tween Chautauqua lake and Lake Erie, and brought us into Westfield at S o'clock, 13 hours and 40 minutes and 293 miles and a half from Dudley 41 OVER BLAZED TRAILS creek bridge in Lisle, that day. Here we lost very much of the Bliss of a splendid day by his very regretful, if not tearfully sad, farewell and de- parture for Dunkirk — by Trolley. THE WAYSIDE INN After Charlie Bliss had boarded his trolley car and rushed off to Dunkirk, and the Pilot had housed our car, and we had be^u assured bv the local inn Keeper tttai iie would 1&Re cure" ol us, we left our bags in the office and stepped out onto the streets to find our legs, after a day's non-use of them, and to have a glance at the town which the unserpented and de-adder- ized red juice