January
Seth Pease leaves the Holland Land Office survey team.

Jan 7
U. S. President Millard Fillmore is born in Summerhill.

Feb 4
John P. Fish is born in Ebenezer Allan's old mill at the Falls of the Genesee, the first known white child born within the city limits of today's Rochester.

Mar 25
Greene County, named for Revolutionary general Nathaniel Greene, is created from parts of Albany and Ulster counties.

Apr 28
An English ship arrives in New York after a 28-day voyage.

Aug 2
Alexander Hamilton buys land for a house in northern Manhattan.

October
Batavia's Holland Land Company surveyor Joseph Ellicott completes the two-and-a half-year survey of their holdings, at a total cost of $70,291.69.

November
Paolo Busti is named General Agent of the Holland Land Company and hires surveyor Joseph Ellicott as Land Agent.

December
Joseph Ellicott arrives on the site of the future Buffalo to begin operations.

Dec 3
Aaron Burr carries New York. Jefferson and Burr are elected President and Vice-President of the U. S.

Dec 5
Arabella Granger is born to Eli Granger and his wife at King's Landing, the first known white girl born within limits of today's Rochester.

Dec 13
Charles Williamson has the Pulteney lands ready to transfer back to the associates as soon as he receives $275,000 from them.

City
John McComb, Jr.'s Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in lower Manhattan is completed. ** The approximate date Governor's Island is ceded to the U. S. Government. ** Stewart Dean, an in-law of John Jacob Astor, becomes captain of the China trader Severn, sails to Canton with a shipment of furs and pelts, cochineal and ginseng root, returns the following year. ** The Huguenot Church du St. Esprit on Pine Street is demolished.

State
Charles Williamson is named as a state representative for the third year in a row. ** James Wadsworth sells Genesee Valley land to the painter Benjamin West. ** The first printing press in Tioga County. ** Onondaga County area's white population is eight people per square mile. ** Eben Eaton begins publishing the short-lived Impartial Observer and Seneca Museum. ** The cow belonging to the recently widowed Mrs. William Wickham, wife of the Hector pioneer, is killed by a falling tree. ** Hagerstown, Maryland, businessman Colonel Nathaniel Rochester visits western New York, along with Colonel W. Fitzhugh and Major Charles Carroll. Fitzhugh and Carroll purchase land in the Mount Morris area, while Rochester buys land at Dannsville. ** The state constructs the Mohawk Turnpike, across the eastern part of the state. ** A bridge is built across the northern end of Cayuga Lake. ** Eli Lyon builds a flour mill on Irondequoit Creek for Daniel Penfield. Abram Bronson builds a triphammer nearby. ** Watertown is founded. ** The Steuben County board of supervisors does not meet, for this one year only. ** Major Isaac Smith opens an inn halfway between Caledonia and the Genesee River. ** Naturalist Amos Eaton publishes Art Without Science . He moves to New York City to study law under state attorney general Josiah O. Hoffman. ** French land agent James Donatien LeRay de Chaumont purchases 220,000 acres of land in northern New York from proprietor Alexander Macomb. ** The approximate date gypsum is first mined in Madison County. ** Sir William Pulteney, worried by expenses occurred by Charles Williamson, refuses to honor further drafts for money and requests the land agent withdraw, dividing the holdings among himself, and associates William Hornby and Patrick Colquhoun. ** Vermont-born future inventor-publisher H. G. Spafford moves into the state. ** The first settlement in the Steuben County town of Avoca is made by Michael Buchanan. ** The total amount spent for improvements at Williamson's Mile Point house is $11,625.43. ** The approximate date the Wayne County town of Walworth is settled. ** A road is opened westward out of East Mendon.

Cayuga County
William Stevens of Massachusetts becomes the first settler in Brutus. ** Samson Lawrence begins a settlement that will become Cato. George Snyder of Schoharie County and Israel Wolverton from Tompkins County become the first settlers in the town of Conquest.

January
The Holland Land Company opens for business at Asa Ransom's house in Clarence, selling land at approximately $2 an acre.

Jan 5
New York City merchant James Griffiths dies.

Jan 11
Aaron Burr's friend, New York senator Samuel Smith, writes to him that 8 of the 9 required states would vote for Jefferson in case of a tie.

Jan 12
16-year-old Catherine Laverty, wife of New York merchant Henry Laferty, dies.

Jan 14
New York City armourer's mate John Burnham, of the USS Portsmouth, dies in Norfolk, Virginia, after a lingering illness.

Jan 17
Catherine Le Roy dies in New York City at the age of 62.

Jan 31
New York City sea captain Zachariah Henshaw dies in Ramsgate, England, at the age of 50.

February
Land speculator James Wadsworth gets into a dispute with Schenectady merchant Oliver Kane, wounds him in a duel. ** Wadsworth is given foreign membership in Russia's Imperial Moscow Society of Agricultural Husbandry, under the aegis of Czar Alexander II.

Feb 1
Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole is born in Bolton-le-Moors, England.

March
Settler Abel Rowe builds a cabin in Batavia. Joseph Ellicott moves his Holland Land Company office into Rowe's cabin. ** Wadsworth and Kane duel again. Wadsworth is wounded.

Mar 4
Jefferson and Burr are inaugurated. The Cabinet consists of James Madison, State; Samuel Dexter, Treasury; Henry Dearborn, War; Benjamin Stoddert, Navy; Gideon Granger, Postmaster General and Levi Lincoln, Attorney General.

Mar 5
The state legislature passes a resolution to revise and amend the 1795 "act for the encouragement of schools", to permit $50,000 for the further expansion of schools over the next five years.

Mar 13
The Russian ship Fortune, after being boarded and released by a British frigate, arrives in New York harbor.

Mar 14
Margaret Schuyler Van Rensselaer, wife of lieutenant governor Stephen Van Rensselaer, dies in Albany at the age of 42, leaving three children.

Mar 30
Colonie is re-incorporated. ** A violent windstorm strikes New York. ** Austrian-born Rachel Myers, widow of former Loyalist Benjamin Myers and mother of future Schenectady mayor Mordecai Myers, dies in New York City.

Mar 31
New York City merchant Andrew D. Barclay, of the firm of McEvers and Barclay, dies in the Bahamas.

April
Chauncey Rust of La Fayette moves to Onondaga County, where he and his family pioneer Maple Grove, in the Town of Otisco. ** Joseph Ellicott begins clearing trees for the new land office at Batavia.

Apr 2
Rebecca Michaels Hays, widow of shipping merchant Judah Hays (both Dutch-born Jews) dies in New York City at the age of 92.

Apr 7
The Delaware County town of Sidney is formed from the Town of Franklin. ** The Fulton County Town of Northampton is formed from the Town of Broadalbin.

Apr 16
Ann Griswold Hitchcock, wife of Doctor Daniel Marvin Hitchcock, dies in New York City at the age of 23, after a long illness.

Apr 18
29-year-old New York City jeweler and silversmith George Alexander dies at the Pearl Street home of his partner Henry Riker, near their shop at 350 Pearl.

Apr 21
Philemon Hunt, son of New York City merchant Abraham Hunt, dies at the age of 20.

Apr 23
New York City distiller John C. Ehinger dies of burns suffered during a fire in his Cross Street plant.

Apr 25
Maiden Lane merchant Charles Holmes and six other New York City passengers drown when a Brooklyn Ferry is overturned during a storm, which also drowns fisherman Jacob Fornell.

Apr 26
The body of a tailor named Farlane is found off a dock at New York's Pine Street. Farlane, who presumably had fallen in while drunk, had been in the water for some weeks.

May 5
Results of the 1800 U. S. Census show New York City, with a population of 60,482 people, is the largest in the nation.

May 11
Aaron Burr lieutenant William P. Van Ness is proposed for membership in the Republican political club, the Society of St. Tammany. ** Pennsylvania land speculator (Binghamton) William Bingham's wife Anne Willing Bingham dies in Bermuda at the age of 36.

May 16
Secretary of State William Henry Seward is born in Florida, in Orange County.

May 17
Thomas Jefferson writes to New York governor George Clinton, explaining his decision to remove some federal appointees due to their violent character.

June
James Wadsworth's brother William drives a herd of cattle from Geneseo to Baltimore, Maryland, returns five weeks later with oxen.

Jun 1
New York City's Captain Robert Richard Randall bequeaths his property north of Greenwich Lane, formerly the Eliot Estate, for the Sailors' Snug Harbor home.

Jun 22
The U. S. Army announces plans to build a road from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

Jun 28
Vice-president Aaron Burr writes to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin to discuss the appointment of New York naval officers.

July
Former Army captain Philip Church begins a survey of New York State's Morris Reserve (today's Allegany County), takes Moses Van Campen as a guide. Later in the year he will return to the Genesee Valley and begins surveying the future Angelica. ** New York City's common council contacts the Manhattan Water Company seeking compensation for paving displaced when water mains were run. The case will be in the courts for the next three years.

Jul 7
The Franklin Typographical Association meets in New York City to celebrate 26 years of U. S. Independence.

Jul 20
The Boston Gazette reports that the four largest U. S. cities are Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Boston.

August
A republican political coup in the state turns out many Federalist office holders.

Aug 4
The ratification of the secret treaty ending the quasi-war between France and the U. S. is published.

Aug 25
Congressmen William Edmond of Connecticut and Thomas Tillotson of New York resign.

September
The first religious service in Maple Grove is held at the Rust home.

Sep 1
New York's Sailors' Snug Harbor is established.

Sep 10
Governor George Clinton has New York City mayor Richard Varick replaced by Edward Livingston.

Oct 7
A copy of the French treaty ratification arrives in New York and is forwarded to Washington.

Oct 13
The New York State Constitution Revision Committee meets, elects Aaron Burr as its president.

Oct 14
Burr travels to Albany to work on the constitution.

Oct 21
Charles Williamson's holdings are conveyed by deed to his principals, England's Pulteney Associates.

Nov 7
Joseph Ellicott gives the settlement of Batavia its name, honoring his employers' country.

Nov 16
The New York Evening Post is first published, by Alexander Hamilton, with William Coleman as editor.

City
Christian Brown becomes a bookbinder. ** Edward Livingston is appointed mayor for each of the next two one-year terms. ** Elizabeth Ann Seton resides at the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in lower Manhattan. ** Author, educator and Michigan pioneer Caroline Matilda Stansbury (Kirkland) is born to a socially prominent family. ** Eliza Astor is born to John Jacob and Sarah Astor, their youngest daughter. ** Washington Irving leaves the law office of Henry Masterson to work for attorney Brockholst Livingston. ** The Manhattan Company's Chambers Street reservoir is completed, at a cost of $17,428, and filled.It's second half revenues total nearly $100,000 and it pays stockholders $2.50 a share. ** Kinderhook lawyer Martin Van Buren arrives to begin practicing here. ** The Zion English Lutheran Church at 25 Mott Street is completed. It will become the Church of the Transfiguration in 1853. ** Art patrons establish the Columbian Academy of Painting.

State
The western section's first school opens at Ganson's (Le Roy). A log cabin is built at Buttermilk Falls nearby. ** Samuel Lincoln becomes the first settler in the future Bergen. ** Former U. S. Board of War secretary and Board of the Congressional Treasury member Robert Troup succeeds Charles Williamson, dismissed for extravagance as Pulteney land agent in western New York. Williamson quits rather than be demoted from chief agent. ** The English horse Thoroughbred Messenger spends a year performing stud duty in Goshen. ** A Federal-style home is built at 562 South Main Street in Geneva. ** Naturalist Charles Willson Peale organizes the search for a mastodon skeleton on the farm of John Masten, near Newburgh. Later in the year he begins displaying it in his Philadelphia museum. ** Dunham's Grove (the future Oakfield) is founded. ** The state repeals an act that had required the superintendent of the Onondaga salt works to keep a minimum supply on hand. A one cent duty is also repealed. ** Amos Sottle returns to the future Chautauqua County where he had settled in 1797, bringing a Mr. Sidney and a Captain Rosecrantz with him. ** The state highway commissioners levy a tax on the town of Bath for road maintenance. ** Moravian missionary John Heckewelder interviews a Long Island Indian, who passes along a native version of the 1609 encounter with Henry Hudson. ** The Adirondack iron manufacturing industry begins at Willsborough Falls in Essex County. ** Augustus Griswold builds an ashery at Indian Landing, on Irondequoit Bay, the first one in the area of the future Rochester. ** Charles Williamson's Springfield Farm residence at Bath is completed. ** The Oneida County town of Lisbon is annexed to Clinton County. ** John Davison, future maternal grandfather of John D. Rockefeller, acquires 150 acres in Cayuga County. ** The Schoharie County town of Middletown changes its name to Middleburgh. ** Albany jurist John Lansing replaces Chancellor Livingston as chancellor. ** Governor John Jay retires.

Batavia
Holland Land Office field agent Joseph Ellicott builds a two-story log cabin office. He has a dam and a sawmill built on the site - a bend in Tonawanda Creek. ** Abel Rowe purchases the first lot, erects a tavern across from the land office. ** School teacher Thomas Layton settles here.

Rochester
A trading center opens at the mouth of the Genesee River; it is named Charlotte.

Steuben County
Overseers of the poor request levies on the towns for relief. Painted Post is charged the most - $1800. ** The board of supervisors conducts its first audit. ** The county is placed in the Seventh judicial district.

Jan 15
Lawyer and philanthropist Charles Butler is born in Kinderhook Landing to Medad and Hannah (Tylee) Butler.

Jan 17
President Thomas Jefferson requests that New York American Critic editor James Cheetham provide him with a copy of John Wood's History of the Administration of John Adams.

Jan 30
Cheetham and editor David Denniston, the latter a cousin of De Witt Clinton, give Jefferson a copy of the Wood's history.

February
De Witt Clinton is elected to the U. S. Senate.

Feb 17
The Oneida County town of Verona is formed from Westmoreland.

Feb 20
The Essex County town of Chesterfield is formed from Wiillsborough.

Mar 3
St. Lawrence County is formed from Clinton County and parts of Herkimer and Montgomery counties. ** The Saratoga County town of Malta is formed from Stillwater.

Mar 16
West Point Military Academy is established by Congress.

Mar 30
Genesee County is formed from Ontario County and its first elections are held. In later years the counties of Niagara, Orleans, Monroe, Wyoming, Livingston, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany will be created out of the new county. The town of Batavia is formed. ** The Livingston County town of Leister (later Leicester) is formed. ** The Cayuga County towns of Brutus, Cato, Owasco, and Jefferson (now named Mentz) are split off of the town of Aurelius.

Apr 1
The Jefferson County town of Brownville, named for founder Jacob Brown, is formed out of the town of Leyden.

Jun 1
The first book fair is held, in New York City.

Jul 4
The first class of cadets enters West Point.

Jul 21
James Brisbane becomes Batavia's first postmaster.

Jul 31
John Swartwout, believing De Witt Clinton to be plotting against his crony Aaron Burr, challenges Clinton to a duel, which is held in Hoboken, New Jersey. After five rounds, in which Swartwout is wounded in the thigh and ankle, and neither man will concede, Clinton leaves the field.

Nov 15
The first of Washington Irving's Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle Gent appear in his brother Peter's Morning Chronicle.

Nov 20
The second of Irving's Oldstyle letters appears in the Morning Chronicle.

Nov 24
George Colman the Younger's English romantic comedy The Battle of Hexham is performed at New York's Park Theatre. Washington Irving will attend an early performance.

December
Burr is removed from the Manhattan Water Company board, along with crony John Swartwout. Swartwout, believing De Witt Clinton to be behind the ouster, challenges him to a duel, which is held in New Jersey. After five rounds, in which Swartwout is wounded in the thigh and ankle, and still neither man will concede, Clinton leaves the field.

Dec 1
The third of Irving's Oldstyle letters appears in the Morning Chronicle.

Dec 4
The fourth of Irving's Oldstyle letters appears in the Morning Chronicle.

Dec 11
The fifth of Irving's Oldstyle letters appears in the Morning Chronicle.

City
Brooklyn-to-Manhattan ferry operator Richard Woodhull hires Benjamin Franklin's grandnephew Jonathan Williams, an engineer, to lay out streets in 13 acres in what will become the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn. ** Washington Irving begins clerking in the office of former state attorney general Josiah Hoffman. In addition to his Jonathan Oldstyle letters for his brother Peter's newspaper, he begins writing for Peter's pro-Burr paper The Corrector. ** New street commissioner Joseph Browne recommends that Manhattan's Collect Pond be filled in, using dirt from nearby Bunker Hill. His proposal is rejected. He has retained his job as Manhattan Water Company superintendent while also gaining his city position. ** Robert McQueen's factory begins replacing the Manhattan Water Company's horse pumps with steam-driven models. By year's end 21 miles of pipe have ben laid by the water company, at a cost of close to $45,000.. The bank has invested $132,000 in its waterworks, supplying 1,683 customers. Annual expenses are $11,500; revenues $12,000. ** Burr's 1800 loan of $48,000 from the Manhattan Water Company bank has grown to $120,000 by mid-year. He is removed from the bank's board by year's end. ** Burr is removed from the Manhattan Water Company board, along with John Swartwout.

State
The town of Southampton is formed out of Northampton to form the village of Caledonia. ** The state authorizes the incorporation of the Utica Aqueduct Company. ** Middletown is founded. ** Captain Philip Church pioneers Allegany County's Angelica, naming it after his mother. ** Ganson's Tavern is built in Le Roy. ** Lucius Carey sells the Geneva Gazette and Genesee Advertiser to a company of Canandaigua federalists, who employ John K. Gould as editor of the new paper. ** Colonel James McMahan pioneers Westfield, the first settlement in Chautauqua County. ** The state purchases a mile-wide strip of land along the Niagara River from the Senecas, calling it the Mile Strip. ** Virginia native Robert Selden Rose moves to central New York State. ** Twice-monthly postal service out of Canandaigua begins, delivering mail as far away as Batavia. ** The Catskill Turnpike is completed. ** Future governor John Young is born in Chelsea, Vermont, to Thomas and Mary Gale Young. ** The approximate year Benjamin Corey begins publishing the Herkimer Telescope . ** Joseph Ellicott warns Holland Land Company General Agent Paolo Busti that if the land around New Amsterdam (Buffalo) is not opened to development quickly, the state will beat them to the punch by opening the Mile Strip and establishing a town there. He's given permission to survey the company's land and sell lots. ** Connecticut agent General Paine opens a wagon road from Buffalo to Chautauqua Creek, to ease travel to Ohio's Connecticut Reserve lands. ** Amos Eaton passes the New York Bar exam. He settles in Catskill and goes into business as a lawyer and land agent. He continues his study of the sciences. ** Avon lawyer George Hosmer begins practicing, in Canandaigua. ** Saratoga County resident Thomas Sprague and his sons, of Milton, settle the Hannibal area of Oswego County. ** Vermonters William Barber, John Tolles and Jacob Wright settle the Genesee (later Wyoming) County town of Bennington. ** Painter John Vanderlyn visits the falls of the Genesee. ** Urged by Sir William Pulteney, anxious to liquidate his New York holdings, an inventory is made appraising the One-Hundred Acre millsite on the Genesee at $1,040.27. ** James Hutchinson of Connecticut settles the Onondaga Hill area west of today's Syracuse. ** The first Broome County Courthouse is built, in Binghamton. ** Elmira's Baptist Burying Ground (Wisner Burial Ground) opens. ** Northampton elects Le Royan Richard M. Stoddard a commissioner of highways and Batavian Isaac Sutherland a constable. The following pathmasters are also elected: Abel Rowe (Greece); Asa Utley (Scottsville); Daniel Buell (Le Roy); James McNaughton (Caledonia); Ezekial Lane (Buffalo), Joseph Howell (Niagara Falls); and Lemuel Cooke (Lewiston). ** Future ornithologist Alexander Wilson teaches school in Seneca Falls. ** Construction begins on an east-west Military Road across the northern section of western New York.

Albany
The Albany Water-works Company is incorporated. ** The first home of St. Peter's Church is demolished.

Batavia
Holland Land Company field agent Joseph Ellicott replaces his log field office with a frame structure. Sales are hampered by the inconvenience of having the county seat at Canandaigua, and by prohibitive taxes. ** Complying with the Holland Land Company's act of organization, Joseph Ellicott sets aside one acre of land for a county seat. Besides Ellicott as First Judge, other company officers are District Attorney Daniel D. Brown, Company Clerk James W. Stevens, Sheriff Richard M. Stoddard, and Surrogate Jeremiah R. Manson. The first county courthouse west of the Genesee River is completed, located in the same one-story building as a tavern, at the site.

Cooperstown
The village has a population of 342 whites and 7 blacks. ** Hatter Ralph Worthington builds a house at 13 Main Street.

Steuben County
The county treasurer is required to post its first official bond - $2,000. ** It is decided that the Board of Supervisors will be compensated for time spent on county work, at $3.00 per day. The total audited for the year is $89.69. ** The Pulteney land firm donates the land parcels on Bath's town square where the courthouse and jail are located, to the county.

Feb 26
Guilderland is formed from the Albany County town of Watervvliet.

May 9
Edwin Scrantom is born to Rochester pioneer Hamlet Scrantom, in Durham, Connecticut.

Sep 26
The foundation stone for New York City's third (and current) City Hall is laid.

Nov 8
The Hundred-Acre-Tract, on the Genesee River, site of Ebenezer "Indian" Allan's mill and the future site of Rochester, New York, is bought from Pulteney Associates by Major Charles Carroll, Colonel William Fitzhugh and Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, for $1750.

City
Mayor Edward Livingston pledges his fortune to cover the theft of house bonds by a subordinate. ** Merchant John Jacob Astor begins buying Manhattan real estate with his China trade profits.

State
Scots pioneers build the first schoolhouse west of the Genesee, in the newly-formed Southampton (later Caledonia). ** John J. Gould begins publishing the Western Repository and Genesee Advertiser. ** Isaac Tiffnay begins publishing the Ontario Freeman. ** Three Pennsylvania pioneers found Fredonia. ** Three Quaker missionaries buy 609 acres of land that later give birth to Salamanca. ** Triangle Tract land agent Richard Stoddard persuades some settlers from Killingsworth, Connecticut, to settle in the Le Roy area, rather than proceeding on to Ohio's Western Reserve. ** De Witt Clinton resigns from the U. S. Senate, to become Mayor of New York City. He will be reappointed annually through 1815, except for 1807 and 1810. ** Martin Van Buren is named to the New York State Bar. ** Elizur Webster settles the future site of Warsaw. ** Elihu Phinney, publisher of Cooperstown's Otsego Herald and Western Advertiser, dies. His sons, E. and H. Phinney take over the business. ** An extra half-story is added to the courthouse in Bath as well as a steeple, and windows are replaced. Total cost - $215. Six staffs are purchased, at $3 a piece, to be used by constables acting as court attendants. ** Joseph and Andrew Ellicott begin their survey of the future site of New Amsterdam (Buffalo). ** Land agent Appleton Foote first settles the Franklin County town of Moira. ** Vermonter Orange Carter settles the Genesee County town of Darien. ** Brothers James and William Walsworth first settle the Carlton area of Orleans County. ** The Painted Post Tavern's innkeeper Benjamin Patterson quits and buys a farm in Irwin. ** Abner Sheldon settles the Monroe County town of Mendon, on the site once occupied by the Seneca Indian town of Totiakton.

Albany
Construction begins on the State House, jointly financed by the city, the county and the state. ** The Albany Presbyterian Synod is established with congregations at Albany, Mohawk and Troy.

Batavia
Adam Hoops and three business partners make the first purchase from the Holland Land Company. Joseph Ellicott has the log office torn down and moves business into a frame building on the site. ** Batavia is named county seat of Genesee County.

© 2001 David Minor / Eagles Byte

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