by Zebulon Warner in store and tavern keeping and lumber milling. Starr Dennison settled on Spring run in March, 1818, and resided there until his death in 1844. Ebenezer Hewett came from Saratoga, N. Y., the same year, and located a large tract, four miles above Kersey run. In December he was followed by Col. Isaac Webb, of the same county, who cleared a farm two miles above Kersey run. He was a surveyor, and a man whose memory was proverbial. Consider Brockway followed his son, Chauncey, in 1819, and located north of Kersey run about four miles on the Kersey road.

Isaac Horton, Sr., who settled at Brandy Camp in 1818, died in 1873......... David Johnson, who settled at Johnsonburg prior to 1821, learning that James L. Gillis had located at Montmorenci, four miles away, determined to move west if Gillis would not. He did move, and by 1824 the Montmorenci farm of 400 acres was cleared, and a saw- and grist mill, carding-mill and several improvements were made by the new pioneer on Mill creek a little west of the farm. In 1871 O. B. Fitch, afterward proprietor of the Thayer House, carried on this farm. It was subsequently purchased by Maurice M. Schultz who set men to work to restore the farm, and under him it has reached its present productiveness.

Judge James L. Gillis, who died in Iowa in July, 1881, was born in Washington county, N. Y., in 1792. In 1812 he was commissioned lieutenant of an Ontario county cavalry company in Col. Harris' dragoons. After the affair at Lundy's Lane he was made prisoner by the British, treated in the barbarous manner of that time, and put on board a transport to be taken to England. He and several others captured a boat belonging to the transport, and reached the bank of the St. Lawrence river, but all were retaken and were said to have been subjected to cruelties, of which even Indians were ignorant, until exchanged at Salem, Mass., after the war. In 1822 he settled in what is now Elk county (within sixteen miles of a neighbor and seventy miles of a postoffice), as the agent of Jacob Ridgway, to whose niece he was married in 1816. In 1830 he moved six miles from his farm to the present town of Ridgway. Gov. Porter commissioned him associate judge of Jefferson county; in 1840 he was elected representative, again sent to the senate, became one of the first associate judges of Elk county, and in 1856 was elected congressman; later he was agent for the Pawnees. In 1858 Capt. Hall defeated him for congress. Through his efforts Elk and Forest counties were organized, the latter by joint resolution and to oblige Cyrus Blood, one of the pioneers. He was charged with complicity in the abduction of Morgan for giving away Masonic secrets, but was acquitted. Mrs. Houk, of Ridgway, C. V. Gillis, of Kane, Mary B. Porter, Augusta A. Noxon and Cecilia A. Whitney, of Chautauqua county, N. Y., Bosanquet, Henry and Robert, children of the useful pioneer are living. Enos Gillis, a brother pioneer, is referred to in this work.

W. P. Wilcox, who in 1831 came to what is now Williamsville, as agent for the Richards & Jones Land Company, later the McK. & E. L. & I. Co. In 1835 he was representative, and was re-elected three times successively, then served in the senate, was elected a representative again in 1857 and in 1859, and died at Port Allegany in April, 1868. In the winter of 1832–33, L. Wilmarth, Arthur Hughes and George Dickinson bought land of J. L. Gillis and Mr. Aylworth, and also water-power for lumbering business. There was but a handful of people in Ridgway at this time. Hughes and Dickinson began to build mills. Col. Wilcox settled here. Mail accommodations were established.

Rasselas W. Brown died June 27, 1887. He was born in 1809 in Herkimer county, N. Y., and in 1837, with his brother-in-law, W. S. Brownell, of

Smethport, went to Michigan, stopping at Wilcox en route. He returned to Williamsville in October, purchased land near by, and on March 16, 1838, brought into the wilderness his wife and two sons, J. L. Brown, of Wilcox, and W. W. Brown, of Bradford. In 1841 he moved to Rasselas, where he died.

Joseph S. Hyde settled at Caledonia in 1837, but shortly after moved to Ridgway as an employe of Enos Gillis, and operated the old Gillis mill, above the present Hyde grist-mill, until it failed to pay expenses. In 1840 he moved to Wisconsin, but returned, and in July, 1842, married Jane Gillis, a daughter of his former employer. Subsequently he resided at Montmorenci, Sharpsburg and other places until 1846, when he purchased from Gillis & McKinley a mill which stood on the site of the present Ely mills. He made this a success, and soon after engaged in lumbering. Only a few years elapsed until he became known as the lumber king. He was the most progressive citizen of Elk county until his death, June 30, 1888. Shortly after he moved to Ridgway, without money and without friends, he wanted Dickinson to sell him an ax on credit, but the merchant refused, when Hyde said to him: "Keep -d ax; your dI will see the day when I can buy and sell you.' J. S. Hyde became a millionaire and owner of 36,000 acres, a store at Little Toby, established in September, 1882, being among his enterprises.

Early in the "thirties" Irishtown was settled by Irish immigrants... Catherine (Rielly) Mohan, who died in Fox township, June 22, 1886, was married in 1836 to Larry Mohan, but both had resided in this county prior to that year. Other names given in the history of the Catholic Church of Kersey's or Centreville belong to that period.

In September, 1844, the first declaration of citizenship was made by Thomas Rielly, a native of Ireland. His example was followed that year by Michael White, Thomas Fletcher, John Sullivan, Patrick Shelvy, Michael Brown, Patrick Malone and Lawrence Mohan, all natives of the Emerald Isle. In 1845 thirty natives of Germany and one of England declared their intentions. Jere miah Calahan was admitted to citizenship in September, 1845, also Robert McIntosh and Patrick Whelan (both Irish), Conrad K. Huhn (a German) and Joseph Hetzell (a Frenchman). The records for the last forty-five years tell of the remarkable immigration to this county, thousands of names, principally Germans, filling records A and B.

In 1842 the German Union Bond Society purchased 35,000 acres from the United States Land Company, or Boston Company, and in the fall thirty-one families settled a few miles north of Kersey's; thirty-three families came in the spring of 1843. The first piano was brought into Elk county (and it may be said into the territory now divided into five counties) in 1845, by Ignatius Garner. The same year he organized a brass band company at St. Mary's, the first band in the territory. The first mail carried through Elk county was that by William C. Walsh, from Milesburg to Smethport, in 1828. The first post-office was at Richard Gelott's house, where the Barr Railroad depot now is, then called Bennett's Branch. The next office was presided over by Vine S. Brockway at his home, and the third at Kersey's, where James Green was sworn to fulfill the duties of master by L. Morey, March 12, 1828. This office was kept where is now Centreville. Reuben Aylesworth was the next master, keeping the office at Ridgway. Williamsville came next, with W. P. Wilcox, master. Next came Bunker Hill and then Smethport-the end of the route. Among the successors of Walsh was a Mr. Coone (who carried a spinning. wheel from White's, near Smethport, to Ridgway on horseback) and Daniel Hyatt. Erasmus Morey was the second postmaster at Bennett's Branch, commissioned July 4, 1828. This office was changed to Caledonia, when Zebulon

Warner took charge. Erasmus Morey, born at Charlton, Mass., May 16, 1796, settled on Bennett's Branch in 1813, and on July 4, 1828, succeeded the pioneer postmaster at that point. Mr. Morey and John Brooks are two pioneers who have done the part of good citizens in preserving records of pioneer times, which would otherwise be lost forever. The latter, in his reminiscences, speaks of old-time farming and milling:

Axes and hoes were clumsily made by the rough blacksmith. Grain and hay were stacked in the fields or yard or put into round log barns. Threshing was done with flail, or trampled out with oxen or horses; the grain was separated from the chaff by winnowing it through the meshes of a riddle, made for the purpose, while the breezes would carry away the chaff; or in a calm, two persons would raise and maintain a blast by a dexterous swinging movement of a double linen bed sheet, while the third person would winnow the threshed grain from the riddle. Corn and buckwheat were sometimes ground on hand-mills, and sifted through sieves made from dressed perforated sheep or deer skins, drawn over a wide oaken hoop. The nether or bed stone in the hand-mills was fixed to a bench constructed for the purpose, and the upper or runner stone was made to revolve on its spindle by means of a pole, the upper end of which was passed into an augur hole in a board fastened overhead, and the lower end of the pole was fitted into a hole drilled in the upper surface of the runner, near the periphery. The miller would seize the pole with one hand, sweeping it around, and with the other feed the mill with grain. Another device was substituted for a hand-mill, yet more rude in construction, and was constructed by cutting down a medium-sized tree, leaving the stump with its surface even and level, into which a bowl-like excavation was made by cutting and burning, which would hold about a peck. A hard-wood pestle was then made to fit the excavation, and this was fastened by withes to the top of a small sapling bent for a spring-pole, which grew, or was planted near the stump. The operator would then place corn or buckwheat in the mortar, and seizing the pestle with both hands would, per force, thrust it into the mortar, crushing and grinding the grain therein. The spring-pole would draw up the pestle again, when released from the hand, and again would be thrust into the mortar, and thus by repeated processes the grinding would be accomplished. There were some grist mills erected, driven by water-wheels; the mill-stones were made from the fine conglomerate rock, which is found in abundance in this section. Linen or cotton bolting cloths were attached to reels and driven by machinery, by which the bran was separated from the flour and meal. Of course the flour was coarse, and contained much of the gluten, and the phosphates with the starch, and was therefore adapted to make good bread, that would maintain vigor of muscle, of bone and of brain, as well as the fat of the system. Native forest fruit was then abundant [as explained in the first chapter], game was plenty, the rivers were streams of crystal liquid. Women frequently performed a part of the farm service in that age, some, with sickle and rake in hand, doing the work of a harvest man. Others, with hoe and fork, did good work in the hay and corn field. One of them is remembered as placing her child in a sap-trough near by, when but little over a week old, while she split more rails in a day than her husband. These cases are not adverted to as exemplary, but as facts incidental to pioneer life. Oxen were generally used both for farming and for lumbering. And in one instance Major Bennett, who made an improvement on the Potter reserve, at Benezette, on Bennett's Branch, yoked his milch cows to plough his garden and his fields. Bennett afterward removed to Crawford county, where some of his descendants still reside. The attractions for farmers were greater in that section than in this.