Stone Houses of Amherst, NY

Introduction

The Amherst census report of 1855 tells us that, of the total of 951 dwellings in Amherst, 33 were stone, 45 were brick, 418 were frame, 341 were log, and 113 were other -- whatever that may be. Of these early stone houses, somewhat less than half have survived, but taken as a group, together with a school and a meeting house, they might tell a story. We might learn who built these houses or who lived in them, where these people came from, why they came here, where they built these houses, how they built them, why they look as they do, and why stone-house building ceased. Finally, we might also get a glimpse of the life of the early settlers who lived in these houses.

1800

Joseph Ellicott surveyed and laid out the area for the Holland Land Company, dividing it into townships, lots and tracts. It was not an easy chore: Ellicott and the 10 or 12 men who worked with him had to camp every night, carry their own food and prepare it, and during the day they had to clear sighting lines of between 50' to 60' for the transit.

Ellicott's handbill, a masterpiece of promotion, described the natural resources and the advantages of settlement in the region:

1. the great possibilities of navigation and trade (upper lakes, Saint Lawrence, to Allegheny R. (Pittsburgh & New Orleans), west branch of Susquehanna; surrounded by settlements, "renders situation of HLC Geneseo lands more eligible, desirous, and advantageous for settlers than any other unsettled tract of inland country of equal magnitude in the U.S."

2. "greater part of this tract is finely watered with never failing springs and streams, affording sufficiency of water for gristmills and other water works

3. "lands abound with limestone"

4. "those who prefer land timbered with black and white oak, hickory, poplar, chestnut, wild cherry, butternut ...may be suited."

5. "everywhere almost covered with a rich soil"

So, Amherst had water power to harness for mills -- something that Buffalo did not have -- in addition to quarries of limestone and good soil.

To accommodate purchasers and settlers, the land was divided into lots and tracts of 120 acres -- the minimum available to buy -- or more. Deeds specified that buyers had to clear the land and put up a house; the Land Company wanted settlers to populate the territory, not land speculators: A liberal discount was offered to those who paid in cash.

However, in Ellicott's letters to the Holland Land Company in 1801, he noted that land offices all along the way were offering "very advantageous terms," and realized that sales would be slow until saw and grist mills were erected and roads open. "Each acre," said Ellicott, "that is cleared, fenced and sowed, at the expense and labor of others makes the district more valuable," and he urged that a method be found to offer settlers land without their having to pay in advance, as 3/4 of the settlers had no ready cash.

Peter Hershey House, 33 Mill Street

In 1799, the first 300 acres in the territory were deeded at $2/acre to Ellicott's brother Benjamin and John Thompson. The first house was the Evans House at Main and Evans. It was not until 1802 that the 300 acres were subdivided, and sales do not seem to have begun for for another 3 years. One of the first buyers was Peter Hershey, on whose property a stone house still remains.

Who is attracted?

James Youngs [250 Youngs Road]

Bigelow House [75 Evans]

Stephen Wilson [71 Mill]

In next 30-40 years, many who bought lots were New Englanders, and a number of them had settled first in the Hudson Valley region before coming here. There was Jonas Williams, who started the first mill in operation [later named Dodge Mill], and after whom the village of Williamsville was named; the James Youngs [250 Youngs Road - ABOVE] family from Connecticut, moved first to Clarence from Schoharie County, NY, and bought land in Amherst in 1815; Harry Bigelow's father [75 Evans - ABOVE] family came via Ontario County to Williamsville in 1821 with 5 children. Stephen Wilson [71 Mill - ABOVE] family] and family came to the area from Utica.

Samuel Schenck farm at the corner of Main and Bailey

John Fogelsonger [219 Park Club Lane]

Schenck House-Park School, 4635 Harlem Road

Isaac Bowman [71 N. Ellicott]

Many others came from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, including several members of the Hershey family [chocolate bar]. Others from Pennsylvania had German-sounding names, such as Samuel Schenck, who had a farm at the corner of Main and Bailey; John Fogelsonger [219 Park Club Lane], who with his sons ran a very successful quarry in the area just north of Main at what is now the Expressway; John Schenck, who owned much of the land and had several businesses at Main and Harlem and whose son lived in the Park School house on Harlem Road; John Metz, who had a large farm tract on both sides of Main toward Transit [Metz House - DEMOLISHED]; or Isaac Bowman, who lived on Ellicott Street, just north of Main [71 N. Ellicott].

The large group that came from Pennsylvania were Mennonites, whose ancestors had been attracted to Pennsylvania by William Penn, a wealthy English Quaker who had suffered religious persecution. Penn's colony, based on religious and personal freedom and a liberal land policy, appealed to many settlers from England, Wales, Holland, and Germany.

Ellicott himself was from a Pennsylvania family and a Quaker, and actively promoted the sale of land here to Mennonites in Pennsylvania. He even had his handbill circulated in Germany. John Metz and his wife Elizabeth Martin [Metz house - DEMOLISHED], descendants of William Penn, originally from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, went to Cayuga County, NY, in 1826 and then came to Erie County in 1829.

Peter Hershey [38 Richfield]

Mennonites were pacifists, and it may be that they were heading north towards Canada following the Revolutionary War, and surely the War of 1812. We know, for example, that Peter Hershey [38 Richfield house] first went to Canada, where the youngest of his eight children was born, before coming to Amherst, where he was one of the first to buy land from Benjamin Ellicott in 1805. There was a large immigration of Pennsylvania Mennonites heading toward Fort Erie in 1819, possibly motivated by the Alien and Sedition Act.

While the Mennonites were pacifists and did not wish to join in the fighting, many of the New Englanders were active patriots engaged in the wars: James Youngs' father had been a minute man in the Revolution; and James Youngs [Youngs Road house -ABOVE] who saw the smoke of the burning of Buffalo in 1813 as he was taking his oats to be milled. Youngs rushed to send his family to safe haven in Canandaigua, and then volunteered for the cause, patrolling along the Niagara River on horseback. Later, Stephen Wilson [71 Mill] served in the Civil War.

Conestoga wagon

Most of these early settlers arrived by Conestoga wagon. Michael Schenck [Park School house] came from Pennsylvania by way of Pittsburgh in 1821 in 2 large wagons, drawn by 4 horses. The roads were so bad, he and his family had to stop 8 miles from Buffalo, and hitch all 8 horses to one wagon to pull it out of the mud. Before long, the Holland Land Company did undertake the widening of the major east-west road along the escarpment, the Great Iroquois Trail of the Indians, known as the Great Road in the old deeds, later known as the Buffalo-Batavia Macadam Road -- Main Street to us --thereby facilitating travel for new settlers and commerce.

Some of the families who came later, such as the Stephen Wilsons [71 Mill -ABOVE], arrived from Utica via the Erie Canal in 1831.

Kibler House on N. Forest

And, then there was George Kibler, who came directly from Germany a little later. Kibler's parents, who may have seen Ellicott's handbill offering land here, indentured young George and his sister to a local grocer in order to help pay for the boat trip over [Kibler house on N. Forest]. Kibler was also a Mennonite.

Settlement and Getting Down to Business

Remember the 1855 statistics -- there were 33 stone houses, and 341 log structures. The first houses put up by the early settlers were log. Those who came first cleared some of the land, as required by the Holland Land Company, prepared the logs and used them to put up a home for shelter. They had neither the time nor the tools necessary to erect more refined houses, and these log houses were usually considered temporary. John Fogelsonger [stone house on 219 Park Club Lane -ABOVE] built a log cabin on his property when he arrived here with his family in 1808. And James Youngs [Youngs Road stone house -ABOVE] also first lived in a log cabin. Often they continued to live in the log cabins, or they replaced or added on to these simple structures with something more substantial, such as stone or frame or brick.

At the same time, those early settlers put up mills along the creek, saw mills, and then grist mills to grind wheat for flour. Businessman Jonas Williams had his mill [later named Dodge Mill] along Ellicott Creek operating to process wheat as early as 1808, and a second mill -- which we know as Williamsville Water Mill by 1811. Other businesses, including a tannery, taverns and stage coach stops were established along Main Street.

While we don't know where all of the stone houses were, many of the remaining ones are along the line of the outcropping of the Onondaga escarpment. Stone was readily available here, and didn't have to be carried long distances. The escarpment ran parallel to Main Street, so many of the houses clustered around the small commercial centers on Main and the north-south travel routes, such as Mill Street, Cayuga [41 Cayuga], a wide strip of land cleared by the Indians for safe travel between their villages, Youngs, Harlem Road in Snydersville [Schenck-Park School - ABOVE], Bailey [Schenck-Grover Cleveland - ABOVE] or toward Transit [Metz or house across the street], which would become an important rural intersection.

George Kibler's house on N. Forest (ABOVE) may seen to be off the beaten track. While the southern part of Amherst was limestone and elevated because of the escarpment, the northern portion was swamp, flooded regularly by the spring rains, and little of this portion of town was settled until after the War of 1812, most of it by German farmers, who industriously worked the soil to make it arable. But difficulties remained: a dam across the mouth of Tonawanda Creek meant that the creek overflowed regularly, making nearby land nearly worthless.

But Ellicott's report of 1802 suggests why this was an important spot: Ellicott Creek, which followed a slightly different course then, touching Kibler's and other properties to the south, "was navigable for boats from the Niagara River to a landing about four miles below the intersection of Buffalo Road; with a boat, the creek which was of great importance to settlers in transport of their hay and other movables from Canada."

Kibler didn't purchase his land until 1836. Stone for his house might have been moved by boat along the creek from one of the quarries to the south, either in times of high water, or perhaps skidded over ice. A creek would have been a great roadway in those days -- no large ruts or mud to get stuck in. Beginning sometime in the mid-1830s, the corner of Heim and N. Forest, known as Amherst Center, had a busy tavern, later known as Center House Tavern (and demolished in the late 1980s).

Religion

Mennonite Meeting House

When John Herr, a Mennonite minister arrived in 1828, services were held in the homes of the congregation members, until 1834, when their simple unadorned meeting house was completed. [meeting house]. Two years later, the congregation published a list of 28 names, including that of John Fogelsonger [stone house on 219 Park Club Lane] and George Kibler [house on N. Forest - ABOVE], who helped with the debt on the meeting house. Sheds in the U-shaped area to the north provided room for the horses and black buggies of the worshipers, who entered through a door on that side. The rectangular structure contained a single room with a pulpit in the middle of the north wall. Men sat on one side on simple benches, women and children on the other.

Mennonites were encouraged to marry within the sect, and today many residents in Williamsville can trace their ancestors to this group.

Farming

The early census reports, including the earliest --1820 -- list the occupation of most of these early settlers as agriculture. In his will, Peter Hershey [38 Richfield - ABOVE] who appears to have been a very wealthy farmer, leaves "his beloved wife Mary" the dwelling house and half an acre of land around it, the furniture, plus 1 horse, 2 cows, and 8 sheep, to be cared for by his sons, who were also to provide their mother with 8 barrels of good marketable wheat flour per year, 20 bushels of good marketable Indian corn, and 100 lbs. of good marketable beef, and "as many potatoes as she wants for her own use."

Sold at public auction at his death in 1819 were, among other things: a dung fork, a plough, a wagon, as well as a large bull, a white-faced heifer, a brindle cow, a yoke of steers, as well as numerous other cows, sheep and hogs. By the late 1820s, there were a total of almost 4,000 head of cattle here.

Youngs speaking of the family farm said the "land was good and produced large crops, especially wheat." Lists of crops from the 1860s include -- in addition to grain and hay -- potatoes, apples, butter, cheese, pork, and wool.

Mills

Settlers were quick to harness the power of the creek. Before 1829, there were 2 grist mills, 5 saw mills, 2 fulling mills (to process cloth), and 4 carding machines (cleaned fibers prior to spinning) here.

As early as 1808, Jonas Williams ran a crude mill [later Dodge Mill] on the east side of the creek, using water directly from the falls. This changed hands several times, and in early 1830, Benjamin Hershey [33 Mill - ABOVE] became the proprietor. After first farming, John Fogelsonger [219 Park Club Lane - ABOVE], made use of a sulphur spring on his property to provide water power to run mills and later, his lime and quarry operation.

A flaxwheel and flax mentioned in Peter Hershey's list of belongings suggest that the women made linen from the grain, and wool from the sheep was processed in the fulling mills and carding machines mentioned in the 1829 atlas. That atlas also list 5 distilleries in Amherst -- the importance of taverns should not be under-estimated.

Quarrying

Fogelsonger Quarry workers, c. 1890 ... On display at the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village Museum in November 2017

Fogelsonger had one of the most well-known quarries in the region. His property included a geologically significant portion of the Onondaga escarpment, one of several large quarries between Buffalo and Rochester. The Onondaga escarpment was the remains of a large coral reef. Many fossils are represented in great numbers here. You can still see the strata of limestone rock on the walls of the underpass of the Expressway under Main Street. It was discovered that a special layer of the stone could be burned down to produce "hydraulic cement," a waterproof mortar that would harden under water and remain waterproof. The value of the local limestone deposits were so important in the building of the Erie Canal in the early 1820s that many of the grist mills, such as that belonging to John Fogelsonger, were converted to cement mills. This quarry was run by the Fogelsonger family for over 50 years until it was sold in 1887; in 1855, four Fogelsonger families lived on the property, all in stone houses, of course [219 Park Club Lane - ABOVE].

The quarry on James Youngs' property, known as "Lime Ledge," covered 220 acres and according to a report from one of Young's sons, the "quarry produced the strongest and whitest of lime." There were four lime kilns on the property, and some of the remains can still be seen.

A quarry and lime kilns were also located near Glen Park, where the Duck Pond is now. It is quite possible that the stone for many of the houses we know today came from a small quarry near each one.

Family Structure

Some families, such as the Hersheys and the Schencks, owned land all over the town. But these large ownings got smaller as the original owners died. Instead of the oldest son inheriting the property, the land was divided, upon the death of the head of family, among all the children, or at least among all the sons [Peter Hershey's will or Richfield]. Since the daughters married, it was assumed that their husbands would take care of them. Michael Schenck first bought a half-section of heavily timbered property, and continued to accumulate land so that each of his eleven children could have a farm. [Park School house - ABOVE]. Actually, the house was most likely built for his daughter and son-in-law, as he continued to live in a large log cabin at the northeast corner of Main and Getzville.

Wendell Fogelsonger, typically, also had a large family -- 12 children. Children helped with the farming or in the quarry. Youngs talked of his childhood in around 1810 as days full of chores: he spent most of his time drawing saw-logs, helping butcher, thresh the grain (done by making the horses tread on it on barn floor), chop wood, and other chores. One winter, which was typical, he ended up going to school only 30 days. He said he had a Webster's spelling book, a geography of some kind, and Dayball's arithmetic.

One-room school house on Cayuga Road

Dr. Luther Spaulding, 41 S. Cayuga

In the one-room school house on Cayuga Road, which was built in 1840, arithmetic was taught by inserting pegs into boards. There was a long table in the center of the room, marked out with squares where the pupils sat. This was probably the third school in Amherst, but it is not certain, because anyone could set up a school. Fridays were singing and oration days, and the children were let out early. The first teacher was a Mr. Johnson, but Miss Spaulding, who played a pump organ to accompany the singing, taught there for so many years, it came to be known as Miss Spaulding's School. Miss Spaulding's grandfather, one of the first physicians in Amherst, was the first occupant of the house across the street , 41 S. Cayuga.