Year: 1872

Early Days in Pittsford.
BY REV. SIMEON PARMELEE, d. d.
| My business is to tell what PittsforC


was eighty years ago. When compar


ing the two extremes, / ask, is this
my Pittsford where | used to sport when


a child? 1t must be so, for the same
Cox Mountain, Nickwackett, Bald Peak
| and Long Hill, which | used to see, are
here,


Here then, my father brought me. in


January 1887, and in the opening spring


he placed his family in a lOg-hOuse, part
ly prepared the summer before. The


town was a wilderness where all pas


tured their COWS and oxen with bells
/ that we might find them, but still we


often failed to get our milk for supper,


which was sad disappointment.


Women, as well as men, learned to


walk, for few had horses. Oxen were


trained to travel, and did better than


lazy horses. Sleds were prepared with


boxes and seats, or chairs could be set


in the boxes, or a few bundles of straw


would meet the call.


New settlers did not come 10 be dandled


and feasted, but TO remove mountains,


clear the way for future generations


They did not expect to find good roads


and carriages, and horses harnessed


waiting for them in desOlate wilder
ness. But with all their Inconvenience
the first thirty years of their pilgrimage


was the happicst period of their lives.
All alike are dependent. / hOvel can
not hc built without help. They take
an interest in each others prosperity,
and delight to help one another. Neigh
bOrly kindness abounds in sickness and
misfortune. In cities they are ignorant
of those within a few rods, not even
knowing their names, while in our new
settlements they will go from one to
three miles in a cold winters night and
feast together upon dainties as rich as
city can produce, and the delightful
scenes are often repeated. Sympathy
dies and friendship with it, in old coun-
tries where all are independent. There
is, perhaps, no quarreling, but little
love. There were a few framed houses
in town when | was brought here, but
most of them small ana unfinished.
Plank or logs constituted the material
for the most of them. Some of them
had two rooms, but many had but one
lOOl4l olil VI IdJllti lllAl a INlllillN VI
six children, and he ventured to build
large enough for two rooms. One con-
tanned our family room. where a bed for
my parents and one for children under
it were placed in one corner, in another
was a cupboard, and on the side there
were shelves, by boring into the logs and
driving in long pins and placing planed
boards upon those pins, one above an
other, we got two or three shelves,
where pans for milk could be placed
with many other things, and ! can as
sure you that those shelves were never
forgotten while we resided in the house.
1t may be thought that we had little use
for the other room. We will see. There
were two chambers and the way to them,
which we must have, was through that
room and the ladder with rounds stood
there, and one other bed must find a
place in the second room on the floor,
aud now for the rest Mother was a
weaver, and there was no other place for
her loom and warping bars, swifts,
skeins and quill wheel. with a large and
small wheel for flax and tow. | have
forgotten where the two frying pans
were kept, the long handled one in
which father fried his pancakes, and the
short handled one in which mother used
to bake her good short cakes.


Since | have begun to give history of
our condition at our first start in Pitts
ford, | must tell you little about the
chambers. There were two Just the
same size of the lower rooms. We had
one bed for each chamber, and father
had boxes in which to store his grain of
all kind, and until cribs were built our
corn was stored in the chambers, and
roads were made through the corn to
our beds and binns Now, when have
told yOu that, for a season, our hearth
was clay spread out and dried, | have
done with the description of one family
and their inconveniences.


Pittsford people may feel themselves
dishonored if | say that a large part of
the first settlers passed through just
about such a beginning. But | thought
when | was n boy and went into other
peoples houses that they lived just about
as we did


SCHOOLS.


Many of the inhabitants of this place,
am told, left in time of the war to find
a safer place. | came here but four
years after they returned. OF course it
could not be expected that much ad-
vance would be made in that time. But
the good people had laid up log school
house made of dry pines which, | sup
pose, were killed by fire. In that | went
to school two summers, the first of my
education. The first to Abigail Morse.
and the next to her sister Polly. This
house was on the hill North of Drurys


If there was any other school or
in town at that time, can
give no account of it, for | have no
knowledge or remembrance of any.
Soon after that there was a plank house
on the top Of the hill, north of General
Kellogg's, of some bigness, where VIM
Frisbie kept school three years in success
sion, where | went to school and to
but in the summer the house
would not contain the people, and many
must set around the house outdoors,
and the youth and children, for some
reason, were always willing to give their
fathers and mothers the house, and they
would sit in the shade of the house and
take care of themselves. We rather
chose that than to trouble our parents to
look after us. There was also a small
plank house built on the hill, east of the
furnace, not far from Mr. Elisha Adams
But this was smaller, much more than the
other, but both were finished about alike.
Dutch chimneys and windows, lighted
with old newspapers pasted upon sticks
whitfield out, and the paper oiled with a
feather after it is on, to cause it to be-
come more luminous. And such was
the method of lighting the most of the
first generation of houses that existed in
Pittsford. 1t would make the people
stare for man to light his house with
glass. Do you think that strange of
your fathers? / remember that there
were quite number of young people
together at one time, and by no means
the least reputable of the town, and the
subject that seemed to be introduced to
cause little fun was to talk over the
poverty of our fathers when they came
to Pittsford.


One young lady, that stood as high as
any in town, with laugh said, ''Well,
l have heard my mother say that when