STORY OF PIONEER LIFE IN MONTOUR FALLS
Mary Quick Charles, granddaughter of Thomas
Nichols, who with his family was the fifth permanent white settler at Mills
Landing, later Havana and now Montour Falls.
[An article published in the paper ca. ?]
We begin this week the publication the early history
of Montour Falls, written by Mary Quirk Charles, whose entire life was
passed in that village, and who died there only a few years ago.
The first white man who came to his place and stayed
was George Mills probably about 1790. He came and very soon after Jennie
Murphy and her brother came. George Mills, after erected a pole house,
returned with Jennie Murphy and her brother; and George Mills was married,
to Jennie Murphy at Horseheads, her home. They commenced their married
life in the pole house situated on the corner of Main and Catherine St.
After ward, Mills built near the pole house tavern. After
white people began to settle here religious services were held on Sunday
in the bar room. Part this hotel or tavern still remains as a dwelling
house. George Mills married for his second wife a Mrs. Hamilton,
Both he and his two wives lie buried in Montour Cemetery. After Mills,
came Isaac Bower and ion after came McClure. The fifth family who settled
here was that of Thomas Nichols wit his wife, Mary -iggs Nichols and four
children, they came from Johnstown, N. Y. When they came here they
started from Schenectady, coming up the Mohawk River in a flat boat, poling
the boat until they arrived here. They found from three hundred to
four hundred Indians who were on friendly terms with the whites and desired
to exchange their venison meat for bread and salt. They never knocked
at the door of the white people, but would open the door, peek in and then
beckon with hand for them to come to the door. They did not talk, only
motion with the hand.
A singular coincidence is that the first five white
families who settled acre remained here during their lives and lie buried,
in Montour Cemetery a their several plots.
Isaac Bowers settled on the south if the present village
said resided, in. the house he built just south of Cook McClure settled
near the Indian village where Queen Catherine Montour lived in luxury in
1779 when Sullivan sent by General Washington destroyed her house; which
was of wood and was painted white with grape vines running over it and
bore marks of a cultured in mate. Catherine Montour was a half breed;
Half French, half Indian, General Sullivan ordered her house to be
burned the first as it was she who urged the Wyoming
Massacre. She was once one of the "four hundred." of Philadelphia
women, but the white killed her son and that aroused all the animosity
of her nature and she vowed vengeance on them. Queen Catherine's
intrigues and Sagayewatha or Red Jacket’s oratory was the cause of many
whites being brutally massacred. It is a matter of fact that l General
Sullivan standing on the knoll near the indian village, as the fires: were
still burning which destroyed Chequaga came near being killed by Red Jacket
in hiding, but one of Sullivan’s soldiers saved him and averted the upraised
tomahawk. General Sullivan’s men did not got Red Jacket. It is probable
as General Washington had told General Sullivan he hoped he, if possible,
could spare the life of Red Jacket for some favor he did the whites.
General Sullivan’s army remained here over night. They reported
to Washington that the red man and families left very quickly as everything
was dropped as if they were to return quickly. Even the
children's playthings were founds as if they had been playing
and were suddenly taken, any. Years after a number of
Sullivan’s men returned to the Chemung valley region and bought
land and a great number of the Indians returned as friendly
Indians. In 1797 there were three hundred to four hundred
Indians here. They were were parts of different tribes, Senecas,
Cayugas, Onondagas. The country around this village seams
to have, been more thickly settled by people coming and building
and taking up land than right here, Cayutah Lake, Catharine, Horseheads,
etc. By the strong arms of these early pioneers of our valley the forests
were cut away, the seeds of civilization were sown in this wilderness.
The church and the school house were built where once the Indian
wigwams stood. The pioneers were religious men and women. As soon
as they got houses for their families they began to want to
assemble together to sing the old songs of Zion and to pray and tell
together of the Lords doings with them. At first they met from house to
house, then in some barn, then in a log school house. When an inn or tavern
was put up for travelers they used the bar room on Sunday. There were no
wagon roads and the Indian trails were impassable for the horses
so they went on foot, the fathers carrying the smallest children
the mothers leading the others by the hand. The lndians, although
they were friendly, seemingly brought fear to, the women. They remanced
the Wyoming and Cherry Valley Massacres and they shuddered when the saw
the face of an Indian lurking near their log dwellings and thought
of what might be the fate of their family. The Indians loved this
valley too. Their favorite hunting grounds were around these lakes. There
were the graves of their father.
South of the Glen Creek bridge to, the west was their
burying ground. The Indian village was near it before it was burned.
The Indians told the first settlers that a pot of gold was buried
by the cold spring. This spring is at the home of Mr. Vedder near
the west Hill south of this village. The settlers first homes
here were of logs, unhewn, loosely fitted together, the openings
plastered with mortar or oftener with mud. The roof was of heavy
bark held down by, heavy poles. The house having no chimney.
the smoke escaped through an opening on the roof. The fireplace
was same of flat stones. Usually the house was about eight logs or
eight feet, high. Door and windows were cut out afterwards. The door
I was often a blanket, but to be protected from wild beasts and the
winds. A heavy hewn plank door open
stove and below like an old mill, had to be made. The door
latches had to be made. This was hung on wooden hinges and
unless greased would squeak in a terrible manner. The
door latches were made of wood and opened on the inside.
It was raised by a leather string which passed through a gimlet hole in
the door and was drawn in at night. The windows
were a cut hole and coarse paper supplied the place of glass. This
paper was well oiled to better the light going through it and to
shed the rain. The one room was about ten feet square. The writers
mother, Armenia Quick, daughter of Thomas Nickols was born
so the only log house with two rooms. This log house was without
doubt left by Indians in 1779 and not being, near
the Indian village was not burned, as
it is presumed, the log house on the farm that was owned by Hull
Fanton and still remains a relic of Fanton.
------ times east of the village was left a hewn stump
served and it was stationary for the table for the family. The children
stood while eating. Small logs for seating purposes. the bedstead was a
rough wife shelf fastened to the wall by wooden pins and supported by post
on the outside and peeled bark was used for the cord. The beds were made
of bags, tufted with dried cat tail cut on the marsh. The fireplace was
of stone, large and open, and supplied with fuel, the men and toys of the
family bringing into the house an immense log to heat up with. Also they
gatherer pine knots for lights for the children to study by and for
the good mothers to use to see to spin. In some instances they drew the
logs in with horse. The family lived upon potatoes, boiled nettles, Indian
meal. The corn for the meal was pounded in wooden mortars. The drink
was bread crust coffee and water. Venison and bear meat was gotten, but
not plenty. Crab apples and wild plums were used as condiments. sassafras
tea was for great occasions. Wooden and pewter, spoons were used which
the settlers either brought with them or made out of wood. The parents
only used plates. The children would lay their food on table and tear off
pieces. Yet the same children, many of them, when grown up. were as cultured
at the table as some of our college bred. The spinning wheel was as common
as the sewing machine in today. Butternut bark was the coloring material.
The. school books as late as 1818 here were Webster’s spelling book and
Daboll’a Arithmetic, which only went to the single rule of three or single
proportion. The Bible and the Hymn book made up the library. Yet the writer
has in mind, a woman born in 1806 who had no more advantages in books
than this, who in her womanhood and older age was conversant on all subjects
and appeared to have had a higher education. Her name was Armenia Nickols
Quick.
The places of worship had no heaters, only as each
family brought their foot stove. A beef was killed in the fall
after the country became better settled. shoes for the family out
of the hide. Those shoes had to be cared for, for when they were gone
they had to go barefooted until the next falls beef was killed. In going
to school the boys of the family or neighborhood went on ahead of the girls
to kill the snakes and drive away the wild animals. Until crops could he
raised, fields cleared of the timber, the settlers had to hunt and fish
for a greet part of their food. the heavy forest and the lakes and outlets
and inlets made good places for game and fish. Near Rock Cabin the lndians
said there were salt springs for the deer came there for salt. Large
salt wells are now in full blast near there. Logs were felled to fill up
the roads, making the roads wholly of logs. While putting in water works
in this village in 1900 those old log roads were found four or five feet
down. Montour Falls was called Chequaga and Sageyewatha used, to come and
try his voice beside them. From 1816 there was a large number of people
coming here. The Dickens, Jackson's and David Lee, Anson Hall, Peter Tracy
and Rulon, Chapin, Parks, Bunyan, Minor Broderick, William Jackson,
George and Hiram Jackson, (brothers) came here and for many years
the name of Jackson was on some business place in this village. Simon Decker
and Sidney Decker also were business men here for many years.
Sidney Decker helped to organize the Presbyterian Church in 1829 and although
he never was a member, what his influence and money could do for its support,
he did. He was said to be a pillar of the church, by an old resident. Sidney
Decker died in 1849 with cholera. He left two children, Sara and
Sidney Decker. His wife Maria Jones, Decker daughter of Dr.
Jones, one of the first school teachers here and also a physician here
for many years living at the same site which his grandson, Sidney Decker
now occupies and uses for a residence. . Miss. Decker, sister of
Simon and Sidney Decker, married William T. Jackson and to them were
born eleven children. Mr. Jackson was married four times and lived to be
an old man. Miss Anna Decker was his first wife. William Skellinger and
wife came from Pennsylvania and settled here accumulating a good deal
of wealth, and they were among the best families of the village.