De Witt Clinton visits the Tavern in 1810

July 31. Tuesday. The people at Stuart's have migrated from Washington county, and are decent and well behaved. There is an abundance of bears in this country; one of our servants saw one near the house. We breakfasted here, and on our departure the landlord missed his razor strop, when it appeared that the commodore, after shaving himself, had put it up accidentally in his trunk. The commodore's mistake afforded considerable merriment, in which he heartily participated.
​         We halted at Brown's tavern, three miles from Stuart's, seven miles from the great slope, and seven from the lake. Six years ago Brown gave fourteen shillings per acre for his farm. He says he would not sell it now for ten dollars.
​          We travelled ten miles on the Ridge Road without seeing but a very few houses. Here, to our great mortification, a heavy rain came on, and we found an interruption of the road on the ridge. For four miles we travelled through the worst road we ever encountered, it being off the ridge, and about two miles from each other passed two considerable streams, braches of the Eighteen Miles Creek. About a mile from Forsyth's tavern we regained the ridge road; and just before we arrived there, which was at two o'clock, the road from Batavia to Lewiston joins the Ridge Road, and from this place to the latter the travelling is good.
​          Forsyth keeps a good house; we dined here. He lives fourteen miles from Stuart's, seven from the lake, fifteen from Lewiston, thirty-five from Batavia, and sixty-two and a  half from the Genesee river. So that the Ridge Road, when completed, which it is intended to do, will be seventy-seven and a-half miles long. Forsyth gave for his land twenty-two shillings per acre, five years ago, and being an intelligent man and an old settler, was asked his opinion as to the formation of this ridge. He is of the decided opinion that it was the bank of a lake, and besides assigning the reasons before mentioned to support his opinion, he stated the following facts:
          1st. That the fish-banks, being heaps of gravel before mentioned, and commonly called bass-banks, are, on digging, found in a complete state at the foot of the ridge.
​          2nd. That all steams which enter the lake from the east have their mouths filled up with sand in a particular way, arising from the prevalence and power of the westerly winds, and that the points of the creek which break through this ridge correspond precisely with the entrance of the streams into the lakes.
​          The road from Forsyth's is excellent, and through a thick settles country. We stopped at Howell's Tavern, ten miles from Lewiston, where we saw the Columbian Land here sells for three dollars per acre. At this place we were told that in digging a well twenty-six feet, strata of different kinds were penetrated, and among others, one of lake sand and another of gravel. In digging a dam for a saw mill, several lake shells were found at the depth of four feet. As shells can be found in particular situations.
​         

Read More