Newstead is located in the northeast corner of Erie County and encompasses township twelve, range five, of the Holland Company’s survey, along with part of township thirteen. This area spans six miles east to west, with an average length of over nine miles north to south, totaling approximately fifty-five square miles. The Tonawanda Creek waters the northern part of the town, while Murder Creek runs through its center. The landscape features a limestone ledge near the center and varied soil types, including clayey loam and sandy loam. The town’s history dates back to 1798, when Joseph Ellicott of the Holland Land Company first cleared an Indian trail for wagons, marking the beginning of Newstead’s transformation from wilderness to a settled community.
Newstead is situated in the northeast corner of Erie County. It comprises township twelve, range five, of the Holland Company’s survey, and all that part of township thirteen in the same range lying south of Tonawanda Creek; being six miles wide east and west, with an average length north and south of a little over nine miles, and with a total area of about fifty-five square miles. This area embraces a small portion of the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, which is nominally included in this town, although the Indians are not subject to the ordinary civil laws. The town is watered by the Tonawanda Creek on the north, while Murder Creek 1)The ominous name of this stream is said to have been due to the murder of a white man by an Indian on its banks before the settlement of the Holland Purchase, but we have been unable to ascertain any facts in regard to the legend. The Indians are said to have called it “See-un-gut,” meaning the “Roar of distant waters.” runs northward through the central portion.
A limestone ledge, the northern outcrop of the limestone formation described in the chapter on geology, runs across the town near its center. It contains large amounts of hydraulic limestone. North of this ledge the surface is level and in many places marshy, the soil being a clayey loam intermixed with marl and sand. South of the ledge the surface is gently undulating, the soil being a sandy and clayey loam, underlaid by limestone.
The first act performed in the territory now known as Newstead, looking towards its subjection by civilized men, was done in the spring of 1798, when Joseph Ellicott, the chief surveyor of the Holland Land Company, employed men to cut out the Indian trail running across the tract in question so that it would be passable for wagons. This was the first wagon track in the territory now known as the county of Erie. The trail just mentioned was the main trail of the Six Nations between Hudson River and Lake Erie. According to Turner’s History of the Holland Purchase, it ran down Tonawanda Creek from Batavia, on the north side, crossed at or near the Indian village, ran westward across the site of Akron, and thence pursued its way by Clarence Hollow to Buffalo. A law had been passed the previous winter authorizing the construction of a State road from Conewagus (Avon) to Buffalo. This was open in 1798 or 1799. In the eastern part of Newstead it ran south of the Indian trail, so as to keep off from the reservation, but after it struck the trail in the western part of the town it followed nearly the same route to Buffalo. It has been known from that time to this as the “Buffalo road.”
During the years 1798 and 1799, the purchase was divided into townships and the lines of the reservations were determined. The Tonawanda reservation embraced (besides a large tract in Genesee County) all that part of the present town of Newstead lying north of a line running a little south of the site of Akron, and east of one running just west of the same locality. The portion of the original reservation now comprised in Newstead contained about thirteen square miles.
In the year 1800, although no part of the Holland Purchase was subdivided ready for sale, Timothy S. Hopkins and Otis Ingalls, two young men who seem to have made their headquarters at Asa Ransom’s tavern (already established as Clarence Hollow), cleared and plowed a piece of land two miles east on the Buffalo road, in what was afterwards the Vandeventer neighborhood, in Newstead, and raised the first piece of wheat on the Holland Purchase. We find no mention of either of them building a house, and we presume they selected for their wheat field one of the “openings,” or prairies, which, according to all the early settlers, were then numerous in the southern part of Newstead as well as in the rest of the region lying between the limestone ledge and the Buffalo Creek reservation. After the wheat was harvested and threshed, young Hopkins put the whole crop into a wagon, drawn by three yoke of cattle, drove to Black Rock (where there was but one family), crossed the Niagara on a ferry boat, paying $2.50 for the privilege, continued his way to Chippewa, Canada, where there was a grist mill, got his wheat ground and returned by the same route, disbursing $2.50 more at the Black Rock ferry. 2)Ingalls soon became a permanent resident of Clarence, and Hopkins of Amherst; and it is doubtful if either of them had a residence at any time within the territory of Newstead.
The eastern part of the Holland Purchase, and also township twelve, range six (Clarence), was surveyed ready for sale early in 1801, but township twelve, range five (Newstead) was not ready until November following. By the system first adopted the townships were divided into sections a mile and a half square each, and then were subdivided into lots of one hundred and twenty acres each. 3)When a part of the Tonawanda reservation was bought twenty-five years later, it was subdivided in still another way; so that lands in Newstead are described according to three separate systems. Township twelve, range five, and twenty-three others were surveyed under this system, but before township thirteen in the same range was subdivided, another plan was adopted by which the townships were divided into lots three-fourths of a mile square each, these being subdivided to suit purchasers, though usually into “thirds” of one hundred and twenty acres each.
The first tract sold in the territory of Newstead was lot ten, section eight, which was purchased by Asa Chapman on the 3rd of November, 1801, at $2.75 per acre. When we say he purchased it we mean he took an “article” or agreement for a deed when the land was paid for; this being the way nearly all the land on the Holland Purchase was sold. Not one man in twenty paid cash and took a deed. If Mr. Chapman settled on his land in Newstead, he remained but a short time, as not long after he was living near Buffalo.
During the same month, Peter Vandeventer bought four lots in sections eight and nine. Timothy Jayne also made a purchase during 1801. David Cully and Orlando Hopkins bought late in 1801 or early in 1802; there is a little discrepancy about the dates. Hopkins, if he settled in Newstead, which is uncertain, soon removed to Amherst, but Cully remained a permanent resident.
Early in 1802 Peter Vandeventer cleared a little piece of ground on the Buffalo road, a mile and a half east of the west line of the township, built a log house and opened a tavern. This is the first positive account of the building of a house by a white man in Newstead, though one or two of the other persons we have mentioned may possibly have built cabins a little earlier than Vandeventer. The settlement of the township was not rapid, the only other purchasers we find recorded in 1802 being John Hill, Samuel Hill, Jr., and Wm. Deshay.
Until this year, the Holland Purchase had been a part of the town of Northampton, Ontario County. In the spring of 1802, the county of Genesee was formed with four towns, one of which, Batavia, comprised the whole Holland Purchase; it was not organized until the next spring. On the 1st day of March, 1803, the first town meeting, or election of any kind, on the Holland Purchase was held at the tavern of Peter Vandeventer in the present town of Newstead. A full description of this meeting is given in Chapter XII of this volume. Peter Vandeventer was elected supervisor (over a candidate from Batavia) and David Cully town clerk. Timothy S. and Orlando Hopkins were elected pathmasters, and there is some reason to believe, though it is not certain, that at that time they both resided in the territory of Newstead. The meeting enacted that the town should pay $5 bounty on each wolf scalp taken—”whelps half price”—and fifty cents for each scalp of fox or wildcat. State elections were then held in the spring, and in April following, the first election on the “Purchase” was also held at Vandeventer’s tavern.
Those recorded as purchasers of land that year were Samuel Beard, Wm. Chapin, Asahel Powers, Jacob Dunham, and Samuel Edsall. In 1804, they were Silas Hill, John Felton, Thos. Hill, Chas. Bennett, and Cyrus Hopkins. These names are taken from the records of the Holland Company, which do not show all who came as some did not buy land and some bought at second hand. Among others who came about this period were Samuel Miles, Chas. Barney, Aaron Beard, Robert Dunham, and T. Cole. The town meeting for Batavia was again held at Vandeventer’s tavern in 1804, and the landlord was again elected supervisor. But the Legislature of that year divided Batavia into four towns making the territory of Newstead a part of Willink, which extended, eighteen miles wide, from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, though nearly all of the inhabitants lived on or near the “Buffalo road.”
In the spring of 1805, Willink was organized by another town meeting at Vandeventer’s, and that popular landlord had the honor of being the first supervisor of Willink as well as of Batavia. Samuel Hill, Jr., was elected a Commissioner of Highways, and Aaron Beard one of the Assessors. Among the purchasers of land in 1805, were Aaron Dolph, John Beamer, Eli Hammond, Salmon Sparling, George Sparling, and Henry Russell. The most prominent one, however, was Archibald S. Clarke, who bought land on the Buffalo road, nearly opposite Vandeventer’s, and according to some accounts kept a public house. It is certain that in 1806 or 1807, he opened a store there, which was not only the first one in Newstead, but the first one in Erie County outside of Buffalo. Mr. Clarke afterwards became one of the most prominent citizens of the county. 4)By reference to the “Civil List” (Chapter XXXV), it will be seen that at various times he held nearly all the offices to which he could be elected or appointed, from postmaster up to Member of Congress. He subsequently removed to Ellicottsville, Cattaraugus County, where he died.
Charles Knight and his son-in-law, Lemuel Osborne, settled in the territory of Newstead in the early part of 1807. A Methodist Church or class was organized at Mr. Knight’s house in July after his arrival, he being the class leader. This was the first church organized in Erie County, unless we classify as a church a “Friends’ Meeting” in East Hamburg. Even the village of Buffalo, which had several hundred inhabitants, had no church organization until at least two years later. The one in Newstead was formed under the direction of the Reverends Jenks and Van Ness, two Methodist missionaries recently sent out from Philadelphia to the wilds of the Holland Purchase. In the same year in which the first church was formed, it is said that the first school in Newstead was kept by a Mr. Keith.
In the spring of 1808, there was a total reorganization of the Holland Purchase (fully described in Chapter XII of this volume) by which the territory of Newstead became a part of the town of Clarence and the county of Niagara. The same spring, Archibald S. Clarke was elected a Member of Assembly from Niagara County, being the first member of that body who was a resident of the present county of Erie; he was re-elected in 1809 and 1810. James Cronk, afterwards a very prominent citizen, was already a resident of the county, as he was elected poormaster after the organization of Clarence in 1808.
Samuel Hill, Jr., was elected supervisor of Clarence (which comprised all the north part of the present county of Erie) in 1809, 1810, and 1811. About the same time, he was appointed major of a regiment of militia organized in Clarence. Soon after the formation of the town of Clarence—at least as early as 1811—a post office named Clarence was established, and Archibald S. Clarke was appointed the first postmaster. He kept the office at the store in what is now Newstead, it being the first in Erie County, outside of Buffalo. It seems to have been the custom that letters from the East directed to “Willink,” (which, after the reorganization of 1808, comprised all of Erie County south of the Buffalo Creek reservation, but contained no post office), should be stopped at Clarke’s store and be sent thence across the county by private hands, for in one of the first issues of the Buffalo Gazette, in the autumn of 1811, Postmaster Clarke advertised seven unclaimed letters at his office for persons in the town of Clarence, and fifty for people in Willink. 5)We cannot learn exactly when the “Clarence” post office was removed from the Clarke and Vandeventer neighborhood to Clarence Hollow, but think it was in 1816. In 1812, Judge Clarke was elected State Senator — the first from the territory of Erie County. James Cronk was supervisor of Clarence in 1812 and 1813. At an election in the former year, there were two hundred and forty-nine votes cast for Member of Assembly in Clarence. As Amherst and Buffalo had been taken off two years before, probably about half of those votes were in what is now Newstead, which would indicate a population of at least six hundred.
We have been furnished by Mitchell Osborne with the following list of the first settlers on the Buffalo road, before the war of 1812, beginning on the east side of the town and going through to the west side. Some of them have already been mentioned, but we give them here in a body: Solomon Bates, William Hall, Samuel Anderson, Samuel Strickland, Isaac Denio, Jacob Pratt, Joseph Barney, Joel Parmely, Charles Knight, Lemuel Osborne, John S. Ball, Martin Lewis, James H. Case, Luther Barney, Archibald S. Clarke, Peter Vandeventer, William Mills, Stephen Osborne, 6)Probably Mr. Osborne came somewhat later than the others. James Cronk, John Boyer, and a Mr. Chamberlain, who lived on the township line, now the east line of Newstead.
During the war of 1812, the people of Newstead were kept in constant excitement but suffered no serious harm. A skeleton regiment of militia under Major Samuel Hill, Jr., was frequently in service on the frontier, as recounted in the general history, and took part in the battle at Black Rock which preceded the burning of Buffalo. After that event, some of the citizens fled eastward but returned on the appearance of an American army in the spring of 1814. The Buffalo road was a great military thoroughfare throughout the war, and there was hardly a week when regulars, militia or recruits, invalids, prisoners or supplies were not seen passing over it.
After the war, emigration recommenced, and the improvement of the country was pushed rapidly forward. Settlers were soon scattered over the whole tract south of the Tonawanda reservation, and many invaded the region west of the reservation.
The territory of Newstead, especially the old Vandeventer neighborhood, was at this time a center of great political influence. Judge Clarke (for Mr. Clarke had been appointed a Judge of the Common Pleas) was the leading spirit, but he was ably seconded by his neighbors, James Cronk, William Mills, and others. On the resignation of his seat in Congress by General Peter B. Porter in 1816, Judge Clarke was elected in his place and served the remainder of the term; his district comprising nearly all western New York. Newstead is the only town in the county outside the present territory of Buffalo, except Amherst, which has had a representative in Congress. After his return from Congress, Judge Clarke became the head of that portion of the Democratic party (the only party in existence) which opposed the leadership of Albert H. Tracy and other Buffalonians, who were known as the “Kremlin Junta.” James Cronk was appointed sheriff in 1818, 7)He commanded the invading forces in the “conquest of Grand Island” narrated in Chapter XIX. and around the same time, William Mills was made a Judge of the Common Pleas. Tracy and his friends, however, secured supremacy over their opponents, and thereafter, the Newstead politicians became less powerful.
It was not until 1823 that the territory of Newstead ceased to be a part of the town of Clarence. On the 27th day of March, in that year, the Legislature passed an act forming the towns of Erie and Alden from Clarence. The first named town comprised the same territory now known as Newstead. The county of Erie had been formed two years before, and the leading men of the new town probably thought it would be a fine thing to have their town bear the same name as the county. 8)Owing to the fact that there had been a town of Erie formed from Batavia in 1804, (see Chapters XII and XIII,) several statistical works have asserted that Newstead was formed from Batavia as Erie, in 1804, and some citizens of the town have made the same mistake. Erie was organized at a town meeting held in May 1823, but as the records have unfortunately been destroyed by fire, we are unable to give any details in regard to the organization.
By this time there was a large amount of travel between the East and the West, and as the passengers generally went by stage to Buffalo and there took steamboats up the lakes, the “Buffalo road” became, especially in the summer, one of the most crowded thoroughfares in the country. Several stages crowded with passengers were often seen bowling over the hills and dales of “Erie” in a single day. John S. Ball succeeded Archibald S. Clarke as a storekeeper on the Buffalo road, and probably kept the largest assortment of goods in the county outside of Buffalo. Soon after the formation of the town of Erie, a post office of the same name was established, and Mr. Ball was made postmaster. With a large store, a post office, and one or two hotels, it seemed as if the settlement on the Buffalo road must develop into a flourishing village and become the capital of the town of Erie. But there was no waterpower there, and an event which occurred in 1826 soon changed the balance of power.
For many years the association called the Ogden Company, who had bought the pre-emption 9)That is, the right of first purchase. By the laws of this State the Indians could keep their lands as long as they pleased but could only sell them to the Holland Company or its assigns. right of the Holland Company to the Indian reservations of the Holland Purchase, had made frequent efforts to induce the red owners to sell the whole or a portion of their lands. These efforts had been bitterly opposed by Red Jacket and other influential chiefs, and hitherto with success; but in August 1826, a majority of the chiefs agreed to a treaty by which they sold, besides a considerable portion of the Buffalo Creek and Cattaraugus reservations, 33,409 acres off from the south side of the Tonawanda reservation. Of this tract, about 7,000 acres were in the town of Erie, now Newstead. In fact, the part of the reservation remaining in that town was only about two miles and a half long from east to west, with an average width of a mile and a quarter, containing about 2,000 acres.
The lands thus purchased were divided among the members of the Ogden Company and were speedily offered to the public. Numerous purchasers were soon found. Hezekiah Cummings bought a part of lot 29 of the reservation, about 1828. Among the new settlers in the north part of the town were Nathan L. Barney, James McMullen, and Robert Benedict. In 1829, Jonathan Russell bought lot 26, built a house, and opened a store; this was the beginning of the village of Akron.
Gradually at first, but afterwards more rapidly, the business of the town abandoned its old focus on the Buffalo road and transferred itself to the new center on Murder Creek. This latter locality had no special name of its own, but was jestingly called “The Corporation.” Meanwhile, the people of Newstead found themselves subjected to a good deal of annoyance on account of their mail matter going to Erie, Pennsylvania. The people generally agreed that it would be best to change the name not only of the post office but of the town. According to local tradition, however, they were unable to unite on a name, and after much unsatisfactory debate, they sent a petition to Hon. Millard Fillmore, then one of the representatives of Erie County in the Assembly, requesting him to procure the passage of an act changing the name of the town and leaving the new appellation to his judgment. This being a matter of taste, he consulted his wife. Mrs. Fillmore happened to be reading Byron at the time and she suggested the name of his ancient home, Newstead Abbey, as a good one for the new town. Mr. Fillmore adopted the suggestion, and in April 1831, a law was passed changing the name of the town from Erie to Newstead. Soon afterward, the name of the post office was similarly changed. It still, however, remained at the old location. As late as 1833, according to a register published in that year, there was a post office called Newstead, located on the Buffalo road, with John S. Ball as postmaster.
A little earlier than that, however, the people of “The Corporation” had adopted the name of “Akron” for their growing village, and had procured the establishment of a new post office there bearing that name. For a few years, both offices were maintained; but with the completion of a line of railroad from Albany to Buffalo, a large part of the travel left the old “Buffalo road” and it was deemed unnecessary to have a post office there. The Newstead office was therefore discontinued. For over twenty years there was no post office in Newstead except at Akron, but soon after the close of the war for the Union, one was established in the southern part of the town by the name of South Newstead.
To go back a little, we will give a sketch of the horse railroad of 1835. Probably few people out of Newstead are aware that the first railroad in Erie County (except the three-mile one from Buffalo to Black Rock) was built through Newstead, and there are doubtless some residents of that town who are not aware of the fact. The road in question was built in 1835, from Medina, Orleans County, to the locality now known as Akron, and thence to Richville, Genesee County. Medina being a flourishing village on the newly constructed Erie Canal, some of its leading citizens believed that they could largely increase its business and wealth, besides profiting themselves by opening this road through the fertile fields of southern Orleans, northeastern Erie, and northwestern Genesee, and they accordingly formed a stock company for that purpose. A few persons along the line owned some stock, but the bulk of it was owned at Medina.
The road ran from that village southwestwardly across the Tonawanda swamp by way of the old “half-way house” to “The Corporation,” where it bore to the eastward, passing by the locality afterwards known as Fallkirk and continuing thence to Richville. The total length was about twenty miles. L. D. Covey, Major Huffcut, and Major Long were prominent contractors in building the road and owned about $500 worth of the stock. The “rails” were six-inch white oak scantlings, laid on cross-ties, the space between being filled with dirt. On low ground, logs were often used for ties which are still to be seen. The cars were each drawn by two horses, one ahead of the other. We cannot learn that there was more than one passenger car and one freight car. The former made one trip over the road and back each day; the freight car seems to have run whenever it could get a load. Mr. Elisha Wickwire was for a time a “conductor” on this singular road. The fare from Akron to Medina was sixty-four cents.
The scheme was found entirely impracticable. After the first excitement was over, there was little passenger traffic and less freight. A little casual freight was sent now and then, but the farmers soon found that they could transport their wheat to the canal much more cheaply with their own teams than by means of a wooden-rail and horse-power railroad, and as the wheat freight was the main dependence of the company, the latter soon found their investment a bad one. In two or three years the company dissolved and the road was abandoned.
The highway from “The Corporation” northward was early called the Bloomingdale Road. Annual picnics were held in the reservation in which the people of Akron and in fact a great part of Newstead were accustomed to join. Hon. C. B. Rich was generally prominent in these gatherings, and on the occasion of one of them, he declared that the beautiful road over which they traveled ought to have a special designation, and named it the Bloomingdale Road, an appellation which was generally adopted by the people.
About 1840, Julius Swift located himself on a tract of five hundred acres of land on Murder Creek, where he speedily erected a sawmill and gristmill and opened a store. For many years, a large part of the business of the northern portion of Newstead was done at “Swift’s Mills.” On the completion of the Niagara Falls & Canandaigua railroad, however, through Newstead, in 1854, with a depot at Akron, business was naturally drawn thither, and the importance of Swift’s Mills was somewhat diminished. Yet there is still a store, a gristmill, and sawmill there, carried on respectively by Julius, Luman P., and James Swift, the three sons of the original proprietor.
Akron, however, since the development of the vast stores of water-lime within its borders, has no rival in the town, and substantially all of the business interests of Newstead have centered there. A sketch of the village and of those interests will be given a little further on.
Outside of Akron, since the land was cleared of its primeval forests and the log houses of the pioneers gave place to the substantial framed dwellings, the years have passed in the usual quietude of farm life, from which the people have only once been thoroughly aroused—when a causeless rebellion compelled the patriotic youth of America to rise in defense of their imperiled country. The sons of Newstead were scattered among a score of regiments and batteries whose story is told in the general history of the county to which the reader is referred.
Owing to the destruction of the records of Newstead by fire and the loss of some of those belonging to the Board of Supervisors, we are unable to give a full list of the supervisors of the town; the following is as complete as we can make it and is in addition to the residents of Newstead already mentioned, some of whom were supervisors of Batavia, Willink, and Clarence. John Boyer, 1825;10)It is said by some that Mr. Boyer held through all the intervening years, but for this we cannot vouch. 1831 and 1832; Wm. Jackson, 1833; Cyrus Hopkins, 1835 and ’37; John Rogers, 1838; Hezekiah Cummings, 1839, ’40; A. S. Hawkins, 1850; Lorenzo D. Covey, 1851; Edward Long, 1852 and ’53; H. S. Hawkins, 1854; B. K. Adams, 1855; L. D. Covey, 1856; E. J. Newman, 1857 and ’58; Ezra P. Goslin, 1859 to 1861; Henry Atwood, 1862; Ezra P. Goslin, 1863, ’64 and ’65; Marcus Lusk, 1866 to 1872 inclusive; W. T. Magoffin, 1873; D. B. Howe, 1874; H. H. Newton, 1875; W. T. Magoffin, 1876; Timothy W. Jackson, 1877 to 1883 inclusive.
There have been an unusual number of Members of Assembly from Newstead, which with their years of service are as follows: Archibald S. Clarke, 1808, ’09 and ’10; Wm. Mills, 1832 and ’33; Stephen Osborne, 1840 and ’41; Marcus McNeal, 1849; Lorenzo D. Covey, 1855; Ezra P. Goslin, 1862; Alpheus Prince, 1867 and ’68; C. B. Rich, 1869; Timothy W. Jackson, 1882 and ’83—a total of fifteen years, the longest enjoyment of that dignity accorded to any town in Erie County.
The officers of Newstead for 1883 are as follows: — T. W. Jackson, supervisor; G. R. Miller, town clerk; L. P. Wiltse, Alexander Goslin and Fletcher Montgomery, justices of the peace; Geo. H. Butler, John T. Wilkinson and Alexander H. Swift, assessors; Levi A. Swift, commissioner of highways; Charles Ainsworth and Geo. W. Schworm, overseers of the poor; Dexter Denio, M. H. Buell and John Dorst, inspectors of election, first district; W. M. Covey, L. G. Hull and Moses Kyser, inspectors, second district; Chas. J. Bostwick, Henry Croup, J. M. Mapes, and B. S. Higgins, constables; Geo. Leip, Clark Pardee and Jeptha Baker, commissioners of excise.
See Further:
- History of Akron and Vicinity
- Biography of Wilbur N. Hoag of Akron NY
- Personal Sketches of Newstead, New York
Footnotes:
| ↑1 | The ominous name of this stream is said to have been due to the murder of a white man by an Indian on its banks before the settlement of the Holland Purchase, but we have been unable to ascertain any facts in regard to the legend. The Indians are said to have called it “See-un-gut,” meaning the “Roar of distant waters.” |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Ingalls soon became a permanent resident of Clarence, and Hopkins of Amherst; and it is doubtful if either of them had a residence at any time within the territory of Newstead. |
| ↑3 | When a part of the Tonawanda reservation was bought twenty-five years later, it was subdivided in still another way; so that lands in Newstead are described according to three separate systems. |
| ↑4 | By reference to the “Civil List” (Chapter XXXV), it will be seen that at various times he held nearly all the offices to which he could be elected or appointed, from postmaster up to Member of Congress. He subsequently removed to Ellicottsville, Cattaraugus County, where he died. |
| ↑5 | We cannot learn exactly when the “Clarence” post office was removed from the Clarke and Vandeventer neighborhood to Clarence Hollow, but think it was in 1816. |
| ↑6 | Probably Mr. Osborne came somewhat later than the others. |
| ↑7 | He commanded the invading forces in the “conquest of Grand Island” narrated in Chapter XIX. |
| ↑8 | Owing to the fact that there had been a town of Erie formed from Batavia in 1804, (see Chapters XII and XIII,) several statistical works have asserted that Newstead was formed from Batavia as Erie, in 1804, and some citizens of the town have made the same mistake. |
| ↑9 | That is, the right of first purchase. By the laws of this State the Indians could keep their lands as long as they pleased but could only sell them to the Holland Company or its assigns. |
| ↑10 | It is said by some that Mr. Boyer held through all the intervening years, but for this we cannot vouch. |