Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1871-09-15
Return Trip From the West.
MORE ABOUT vERMoNTERs.
Perrysburg, Cataraugus Co, n. Y. |
September 4, 1871.

September 4, 1871.
Mr. Editor ;-Since | wrote you from
Kalamazoo, have been to Chicago,
thence with friends at Rockford, ILL.,, and
then through Freeport to Dubuque. Re
turning, tarried at Detroit a day or two,
and started east via. Toledo and Cleve-
land, visiting friends at the latter place
some days, ! again moved eastward. AT
Cleveland, o., we tarried with our rela-
tives, Hon. N. b. Sherwin, U. S. assessor
for that district, and A. w. Sherwin, both
formerly of eathersfeld. What a
growth Cleveland has made in twenty
years! About one hundred thousand
people make up its population, and if |
was not so lazy / would write you of the
iron interests of that city as well as of
the half dozen rolling mills at Newburg,
six miles out, and, besides, of how every
body seems to have "strucK oil, for the
railroad from Pittsburg and the oil re-
gions bring enormous quantities Of that
article to Cleveland for preparation for
market and transportation. Huge coal
cars are constantly arriving, and down
at the outlet of the river it is a perfect
gehenna of smelling smoke and dirt.
Within ten years scores of palatial resi-
dences have sprung up all over the city,
and especially on Euclid street, which
now is paved with the Nicholson pave.
ment, and beautifully extended all the
way to East Cleveland, over five miles,
stretching out into the country delight
ful drive, About the year 1918 Calvin
Harris, the father of Judge William
! Harris of Windham in your county, with
his family moved from Brattleboro, VT,
to Newburg. At that date Cleveland
was not, and the entire country was so
subject to fever and ague that many East
ern settlers went back to New England
Among those returning was Mr.. Harris,
alter buryipg son and daughter in the
then sickly solitude. Oneson, Arial Har.
ris, Esq. now alive aud hale in years, re
NAMED at Newburg, and has ever since
cultivated in an humble manner his one
hundred acres, till to-day, he is survey
ing it all off into building lots to satisfy
the demand, and selling nearly all of il
at $1,000 an acre. Then it took eighteen
days to travel from Buffalo to New
burg. Now the journey consumes not sc
many hours. For week l have beer
stopping with friends in this farming
country. Here too, the footprints o
Vermonters are traced all over the fields
The great business of the inhabitants il
these counties, (Chatauque, Cataraugu
and Erie) seems to be the keeping o
cows. do not know how many chess
factories / have counted. The numbe
of COWS kept by the farmers range al
the way from ten to fifty and sixty each
depending upon the amount of land own
ed. This is the Holland Purchase" o
fifty and more years ago. Not like th
prairie of the West of to-day, heavy tim
Der covered the entire country, an,
thought less rocky and billy than Ver
mont, still the early settler cleared tn
land by slow and toilsome effort. At a.
early day it grew wheat readily, but nov
| am told that it is an uncertain croI
Hence, the attention of the farmer
turned 10 the dairy, which in the late
years has paid we'll but the dry weathe
has hurt that interest the present season
and the woods having been more or les
cut off the winds from the lake affet
the climate so that the people complai
it is not quite sogood country as it use
to be. Jim Fiske's railroad (sometimt
called the Erie railroad) extends throug
the interior of this region from Dunkir
to Salamanca and thence to New Yor
city but the greater railroad is the La
Shore from the State line through Dur
kirk to Buffalo, and thus by the read
railroad facilities for market, land sell
for from $40 to SIS, and in some plac,
for more per acre. CHG.