(From the March 2004 Historical Society Newsletter)
American history is complex, and the ways we interpret it continue to evolve. As part of our yearlong celebration of America’s 250th birthday, we will be sharing local histories written by community members. While these materials reflect the times in which they were written, they remind us that how history told is also part of history.
Sarah Bradford (1818-1913) lived in Geneva during the mid-19th century. After her husband’s death she ran a girls’ school out her home and wrote several books. Today her best-known work is the autobiography of Harriet Tubman, who dictated the story of her life to Bradford in 1869.
Bradford was the first to write a history of the City of Geneva from its days as a Seneca village to “modern” times. Her history was published in the 1862 Geneva Directory. While not comprehensive, Bradford’s history is one of the earliest accounts of the founding of Geneva. The excerpt includes reminiscences written by Col. James Bogert in 1833.
We will look for a moment at the state of Geneva in 1805. My information on this subject is obtained from a paper kindly handed me by Col. James Bogert, in which he has condensed the matter relating to this region, which was spread over the pages of the Geneva Gazette published by him for twenty-seven years.
“In 1805 then, Geneva contained but sixty-eight houses. There were thirty-five on Main Street, seven on Seneca street, five on Castle street, two on Genesee street, and one on Pulteney street. Some of the more important streets of the village were not then laid out. To this number there may have been added in 1806 from five to seven buildings, making at most but seventy-five.
“It is worthy of remark that the north side of Seneca street on which there is now (1833) a compact mass of beautiful and substantial buildings was long after we commenced the publication of our paper improved as mowing fields.
In 1806 there were three hundred and twenty-five inhabitants in the place; in 1833 the population amounted to three thousand and twenty-nine. A population” says Col. Boger, “which for morality, industry, and frugality, and all the practical virtues of life, cannot be surpassed.” In 1806 there was not a solitary church in the place and scarcely a congregation. In 1833 there were seven neat and commodious houses of worship, and an equal number of well supplied religious societies. Of the history these churches a notice will be given in another place.
“The whole quantity of wheat purchased in 1806 could not have exceeded four thousand bushels, at an average cost of about sixty-five cents making in the aggregate $2,600, and but a small quantity of other produce. Within the present year (1833), there have been purchased principally for the eastern markets, 184,000 bushels of wheat, 17,000 bushels of barley, 52,000 pounds of wool, 14,000 gallons of whisky, 15,000 bushels of dried peaches, besides large quantities of pearl and pot ashes, pork, beef, butter, flour, grass-seed, lumber, glass, etc. for which there have been paid in cash more than three hundred thousand dollars.
“Among the more prominent improvements equally useful and honorable to our village are the establishment of a steam boat on Seneca Lake, and the erection of a steam mill. They are both in successful operation and promise a rich and well-merited reward to judicious and generous public spirit.”
Col. James Boget, the author of these reminiscences, came to Geneva in 1806. He served his apprenticeship in the old office of T & J Swords, New York. In November 1806, he issued the first number of the Expositor, which continued until 1809, when he changed the title to the Geneva Gazette. He conducted the paper for over twenty-seven years, retiring from it in 1833 and is the oldest survivor of a the conductors of the press in Western New York. He was a good printer, and editor, and in all respects a worthy member of the “craft.” He was upon the frontier in the war of 1812, bearing the commission of Captain in the regiment of Col. Peter Allen, and was afterwards commissioned as Colonel. After retiring from the Gazette he was for five years Collector of Canal tolls at Geneva.
Col. Bogert still lives on Main Street and though feeble from long illness, has kindly interested himself in placing in my hands such information as I have requested from him.
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Sarah Bradford’s History of Geneva, Part 1
Sarah Bradford’s History of Geneva, Part 2
Sarah Bradford’s History of Geneva, Part 3
2 Responses
Excellent.
Any record of the Axtell family settling in Geneva?
Our family lore tells of the Axtells, (descending from Thomas Axtell, a Puritan settler in Massachussets (1637)). starting a Presbyterian seminary in Geneva in the mid 19th century. Can you confirm an Axtell family and a Protestant seminary in Geneva during the middle of the 19th century?
Spencer Axtell (born in Seneca/Geneva in June 1848) was my great grandfather He married an Irish Catholic woman from Oswego, Anna Garahan, and raised all their nine children Catholic. The marriage certificate gives her name as Anna Graham, perhaps trying to conceal her heritage from their Presbyterian family/neighbors, but later census reports have her correct name as Garahan. Spencer Axtell and family moved to Oswego sometime after 1875. Spencer gave his profession as ‘boilermaker.’ and became the senior engineering officer on lake freighters on the Great Lakes. One time he won a lake freighter race and was awarded a large ugly silver cup. We was usually absent during the seven month summer shipping season, and home for five months during the winter. He passed in Oswego in 1915.
I will send your request on to our archivist who can tell you what we have on the Axtells.