How The First Settlers Arrived

The first settlers in what was to become Cayuga County arrived in Aurora, on the shores of Cayuga Lake in 1789.  It must have been a difficult journey

The earliest inhabitants of Central New York traveled the countryside on foot or by canoe. In winter, snowshoes were an effective means of transportation. When the Jesuits arrived in Cayuga territory, they arrived via waterways and long overland treks from what is now Canada.

From Albany, the route west started overland to Schenectady, where they could travel on the Mohawk River, Wood Creek, Oneida Lake, and the Oneida River. There they could choose to go north on the Oswego river toward Lake Ontario, or west on the Seneca River to Seneca Lake.  It was not an easy trip. Rivers had shoals, rapids, and waterfalls, and portages around the obstructions were necessary.

The people who came to settle in Central New York found a slightly better way to move across the state after the Western Inland Lock and Navigation Company was founded in 1791. The company’s rights entitled them to improve navigation on waterways in New York State. The company dredged riverbeds and built short canals or locks around falls and rapids[1].

By 1793, the company had cut channels and built small rock dams to get through some of the rough spots on the Mohawk. Two years after that, they build a canal, one mile in length, with five locks, to get around Little Falls. A canal and two locks near Rome were built by 1797, so the portage there was eliminated.  Improvements continued, with obstructions at Herkimer (then called “German Flatts”) and elsewhere making a continuous waterway journey much easier by 1803.

By 1820, the lack of sufficient profits led to the company’s demise, despite government support.  And by then, of course, the Erie Canal was three years into its construction.[2] By 1822, the Erie was completed to Montezuma and became the primary route to Central New York.

The main route to Central New York from the Hudson Valley before 1825 was through the Mohawk and Seneca Turnpikes, which had replaced and/or supplemented the earlier Genesee Road.  The Genesee Road, originally an Iroquois trail, connected Fort Schuyler (Utica) with Canandaigua, and passed through Skaneateles and Auburn on its way west.  It was authorized by the State of New York in 1794.  The Genesee Road remained incomplete until 1800, when the state authorized additional construction, and it was renamed the Seneca Turnpike. [3]

At several stages of construction, the Genesee Road was reported to have been “completed”, but “completed” meant only that trees were cut down to make a pathway two rods (33 feet) wide.  It did not mean that the stumps of those trees had been removed from the roadway.[4]  When the road was swampy, logs from those trees were laid down across the road to enable travel through the area – a “corduroy” road.

Remains of a corduroy road from Auburn to Cato, built sometime around 1818, were unearthed in 2020 during excavations of a later plank road that followed the same route.[5]

Since neither the State nor the lands being settled had the wherewithal to pay for roads into the wilderness, private companies were authorized to build them.  The roads themselves were primitive, but they were better than what would otherwise have been available.  There were rarely bridges available to cross streams, so fording them was necessary.[6]

Turnpikes were so named because the road companies built a turnstile at regular intervals along their roads, at which place travelers were required to pay tolls.  Once the toll was paid, the pike was turned to permit the traveler to proceed.  These tolls paid for maintenance of the road and repaid the owners for their investment in the company.

In 1804, tolls for one Turnpike were defined as follows:

For every score of sheep or hogs, six cents; for every score of cattle, horses or mules, twelve and an half cents, and so in proration for a greater of less number; for every horse and rider, or led horse, five cents; for every sulkey, chair or chaise, with one horse and two wheels, twelve and an half cents; for every chariot, coach, coachee, curricle or phaeton, thirty-seven and an half cents; for every stage-waggon, or other four wheeled carriage or stage sleight drawn by two horses, and for every cart of wagon drawn by two oxen or two horses, twelve and an half cents, and three cents for every additional horse of ox; for every sleigh or sled, six cents if drawn by two horses or two oxen, and in like proportion if drawn by a greater or less number of horses or oxen; and it shall and may be lawful for any of the said toll-gatherers to stop and person riding, leading or driving any of the herein enumerated articles from passing through the said gates or turnpikes until they shall have respectively paid the toll, not exceeding the rates above specified; Provided always, that it shall and may be lawful for any person or persons, residing within four miles of any of the said gates or turnpikes, to be erected on the said road, to compound by the year with the resident and directors of the said corporation for the privilege of using the said road and using the said gates or turnpikes; and in case any such person or persons shall not be able to agree with the said president and directors of the said corporation for the privilege using the said road and using the said gates or turnpikes, and in case any such person or persons shall not be able to agree with the said president and directors of the said corporation upon the rate of competition, the same shall be determined in the manner provided by the fifth section of this act for ascertaining the value of lands that may be included in such road, except that it shall not be necessary for the inquisition or award of the commissioners to be acknowledged and recorded.

…nothing in this act shall be construed to entitle the said corporation to demand toll of or from any person passing to or from public worship, his farm, a funeral or to or from any mill or mills or to or from any blacksmith's shop within three miles to which he usually resorts or for a physician…[7]

Some of the first settlers arrived in the Meridian area after a journey over such roads. The Ferris family set out on foot from Galway in Saratoga County, New York in the spring of 1803,  They then left the turnpike and crossed the Seneca River at a trading post at what is now Baldwinsville.[8] The trader, John McHarrie, had come to the ford at the shallows below the falls in 1794 and became Baldwinsville’s first permanent settler[9].  There he helped other travelers cross the river on their way north and west.

 

Approximate route of the Seneca Turnpike through Central New York, imposed on a current map.

 

From there, the trip to the Ferris’ land north of Meridian (at the top of the hill on what is now Ferris Road) was a wilderness trail through the woods. The trips of the Ferris family were about 150 miles each way.

In 1831, Alexis De Tocqueville traveled through many parts of America.  Although he traveled later than the period of Central New York’s early settlement, his description of a trip on a frontier further west gives the flavor of what travel must have been like in Meridian’s earliest days.

I travelled along a portion of the frontier of the United States in a sort of cart which was termed the mail. We passed day and night with great rapidity along the roads which were scarcely marked out through immense forests. When the gloom of the woods became impenetrable, the driver lighted branches of pine and we journeyed along by the light they cast. From time to time, we came to a hut in the midst of the forest; this was a post office. The mail dropped an enormous bundle of letters at the door of this isolated dwelling and we pursued our way at full gallop, leaving the inhabitants of the neighboring log-houses to send for their share of the treasure.^[10]

On an 1829 map of Cayuga County there is a stage road that linked Auburn and Oswego via Jakway’s Corners.  From Jakway’s Corners, the road appeared to go east to what is now Bradt Road, then traveled north through Ira to its termination at Oswego.  That road would have been about forty miles long.

That map also shows a county road through Meridian (then known as “Cato Four Corners”) that appears to follow the route of the current NY Route 370 eastward.

Elsewhere on the map, another county road travels south from Cato Four Corners, roughly traveling the route of the current Bonta Bridge Road, but ending about even with the southern end of Otter Lake. Another road seems to be indicated traveling northeast from this road toward the east road, but no such road ever appears on later maps. East of the village, a road heads north, apparently following the route of the current NY Route 176.  It stops somewhere in Ira, where it connects with a stage route west connecting with the stage road north to Oswego.

Other sources tell of another state road, originating in Chenango County.  The so-called “Chenango Road” ran west toward Auburn, and then veered north toward Meridian, following the path of the current Bonta Bridge Road. [11] That road extended northward to Oswego, giving Jesse Elwell’s tavern a position on an important crossroads.[12]

Stage and County Roads 1829

Before 1850 Oswego was mostly accessible via water routes. Highways were merely places a little more level and twice as muddy as the surrounding country. It is recorded that the first road from Oswego went to Oswego Falls, and that in about 1827 residents of Oswego raised $40, a considerable sum in those days, for a highway from Oswego to Cato. It is even more remarkable that two men built the alleged road and collected the fee.[13]

For that particular road of about twenty miles in length, that works out to two dollars per mile, each worker receiving one dollar per mile for their labor and the use of their horses and whatever equipment was required.

Not all roads were private, however.  As settlement increased, many public roads were built, with money raised by taxation or lotteries.  Throughout New York State, “pathmasters” were elected to supervise these local roads.  Citizens were required to provide labor to maintain the roads, and were assessed fines by their local pathmaster if they didn’t meet their obligations. Edwin Dudley, who farmed south of the village of Cato Four Corners, recorded working on a road in his diary in June of 1853[14].   The pathmasters supervised the work and collected any fines.   They also served as animal control officials, and could assess fines if animals were allowed to run loose. [15]

One public road across the region was authorized in 1818. Abner Hollister, of Cato Four Corners, was appointed by the New York State legislature to improve this road:

 

Notice.

 

The Commissioners appointed by an act of the Legislature of the state of New-York, to open and improve a ROAD in the counties of Cayuga, Seneca and Ontario, passed the 21st April, 1818 hereby give Notice, that they have completed an Assessment of the Taxes to be paid on the Land, and shall proceed to collect the same after the 30th day of December next.

 

ABNER HOLLISTER

J. W. HALLETT

G. L. NICHOLAS

Commissioners

September 30th, 1818. [16]

 

As time went on, pathmasters continued to be in charge of road districts. Meridian, after its incorporation in 1854, became its own separate road district.[17]  Eventually, instead of requiring citizens to work on the highways, there were taxes assessed for road maintenance.   The pathmaster system was eliminated completely in 1908, replaced by road or highway commissioners who had overall responsibility for local roads within their district.

In 1896, the Cato Citizen reported,

The village of Meridian has voted $400 for the purpose of graveling the street. This was much needed and if the money is properly expended will go a long to making the village one of the handsomest inland towns in the country. It certainly is as handsome a home town as we ever saw.[18]

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[1] Cayuga Country Historical Society,  History of Cayuga County, Auburn (NY): 1908

[2] “Early New York State Waterways & the Inland Lock & Navigation Company,” Fort Stanwix National Monument, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/early-new-york-state-waterways-the-inland-lock-navigation-company.htm accessed 26 February 2022.

[3] Seneca Turnpike, Wikipedia, 23 April 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Turnpike

 

[4] Gable, Walter, Miscellaneous Information about Seneca County, 26 April 2010, http://www.co.seneca.ny.us/history/Misc.%20Info%20About%20Seneca%20County%20rev%203-4-04.doc

 

[5] Wilcox, David, “In Weedsport, state museum trying to locate more of 200-year-old wooden road,” Auburn, (NY) Citizen, 8 September 2020, updated 13 October 2020.  https://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/in-weedsport-state-museum-trying-to-locate-more-of-200-year-old-wooden-road/article_143b97a1-db1f-5357-be18-8f8919c5f0ed.html

 

[6] Flick, Alexander C., editor, History of the State of New York in Ten Volumes, New York: Columbia University Press, 1933.

 

[7] State of New York, Laws of the State of New York, Containing All the Acts Passed from the Revision of 1801, to the End of the 27^th Session of the Legislature, 1804, Albany (NY): Charles R. and George Webster, Printers, 1804.,

 

[8] Ferris, Newton C., Father, Uncle Jim & Some Others, Ira: Self-published, 1979, rev. 1987.

 

[9] McManus, Sue, “The History of Baldwinsville,” The Village of Baldwinsville, 23 April 2010, http://www.baldwinsville.org/history.html

 

[10] De Tocqueville, Alexis, Henry Reeve, translator, Democracy in America, Third Edition, Cambridge, MA:  Sever and Francis: 1863.

 

[11] Finley, Howard J., "Weedsport-Brutus:  A Brief History," Weedsport Library website, 23 April 2010, http://www.flls.org/Weedsport/titlefinley3.html

 

[12] Meacham, Anna M., “The First White Settlers in Cayuga County,” Auburn (NY) Citizen-Advertiser, 30 August 1974.

 

[13] “Development and Resource Review of Oswego, New York,” Oswego Palladium-Times, unknown issue, 1934.

 

[14] Dudley, Edwin E., Book of Acts and Deeds, Manuscript, 1853-54.

 

[15] Thompson, Bryan, “Town Government Bicentennial, DeKalb, New York,” DeKalb, New York Town Historian, 23 April 2020, http://dekalbnyhistorian.org/LocalHistoryArticles/Bicentennial/gouvernmentbicent.html

 

[16] “Notice,” Geneva (NY) Gazette, December 1818.

 

[17] “State Affairs – Legislative Proceedings,” New York Times, 12 April 1855,

 

[18] “Local Briefs,” Cato (NY) Citizen, 20 June 1896.