Part 2
During the summer of 1789, Caleb Walker moved into the township, bringing with him Glover Perrin and his wife. Walker died, and was the first death of a white settler in Ontario. Glover Perrin was the first settler with a family in the town of Perrinton. The original log cabin stood a mile south of Fairport. The township first formed, as Northfield was known as Boyle, and then, in honor of the Perrins, took its present name. A year elapsed and Jesse Perrin came, and residing with his brother, cleared what is now the "Centre burying-ground." In 1792, Jesse Perrin brought on his family, and for two years these families alone occupied the town. To those accustomed to society, this loneliness was depressing, and the record says Mrs. Glover Perrin became "partially deranged." What wonder that a sensitive nature should shrink from the solitary and laborious life, or that reason should be finally overborne? The utter despair with which many a mother first entered her log cabin and by night listened to the unearthly howl of the wolf prowling in the clearing, or by day, her husband absent to mill or raising, encountered the sullen and vindictive, Senecas, cannot be realized. The sparseness of population is denoted by the fact that when it was required to raise the weather - worn house yet standing on the north part of the farm of Bruce Hamilton, all the available help of Perrinton, Brighton, Pittsford, and Penfield was required, and two days of hard labor were employed to conclude the undertaking.
Orange Stone settled in what is now Brighton, four miles from the Genesee, in 1790, and having opened a house of entertainment for such as came that way, became well know to traveler, hunter, and Indian trader. Young men preparing homes in the country boarded with him. Enos Stone, Jr., was one of those who drove through stock, cattle, and swine, in the spring of 1790. Various trips to and from his eastern home were made, until 1810, when he became the pioneer settler of Rochester, and the owner of a farm now of the most densely populated portions of the city. He has written the following; "In an early year, while stopping with my brother Orange, Chauncey Hyde and myself were out one day hunting cattle. We saw a smoke rising at Irondequoit landing and approaching found it came from a camp in which were two Indians, who rose from a couch as, we drew near. One of the men was dressed partly as an Indian and partly as a white, was provided with a gold watch, and introduced himself as Joseph Brandt, on the way to Canandaigua. He had arrived in a boat, sent runners to the county seat for horses, and waited their return. Accepting an invitation, he came up and visited at the house of Orange Stone. Familiar in conversation, gentlemanly in manners, it was difficult to conceive him the leader of savages in a cruel war upon the borders. He manifested an interest in settlements, and gave assurance that the Senecas would act 'in good faith and give no trouble.'"
John Lusk, of Berkshire, Massachusetts, brought the first family to the lands of Monroe, and during the progress of survey had set off to him a tract of fifteen hundred acres, near the head of Irondequoit bay. As the first in improvement and original settlement, the name of Lusk should be linked with that of the county whose lands became his home. Contemporary with the foundings of Canandaigua he was the first settler in all Monroe, and one of the first drops in that shower of settlers whose combined labor has resulted in so great changes. John Lusk, his son Stephen, a youth of fifteen, and Seely Peet, a hired man, came west during the summer of 1789. At Schenectady the father set out by boat with provisions; the son and hired hand came by land to bring out cattle. The three met at Canandaigua, made an ox sled, loaded it, and cut their road to their location. The log cabin was built, and during the intermissions of fever and ague, land to the extent of twelve acres was cleared and sowed in wheat obtained of Allen. The wheat was brought by canoe down to the mouth of Red creek, whence it was taken along a track cut through the woods. In the spring of 1790 Lusk returned from Massachusetts, where he had passed the winter and came from Schenectady to the head of the Irondequoit bay, by water, bringing with him his family. Two sons, Erastus and Stephen, were of the party engaged in bringing out stock. The family settled in their new home, and Monroe County of today was occupied by its first white family of pioneers. Others speedily followed, some of whom disheartened returned.
Allen, Shaeffer, the Stones and Lusks, have been named as the pioneers of Monroe. A name recurs which has no merit save the fact that it belonged to the first white man who inhabited the present county of Monroe. When Butler's Rangers, failing to check the advance of Sullivan, were taken by boats to Canada, one named Walker remained behind. A log cabin was built at the mouth of the Genesee, and two stepdaughters became his housekeepers. This refugee adhered to British interests, and found delight in alarming the settlers with tales of Indian hostility. With the effrontery of his class , he boasted of his evil deeds, and one day, at Canandaigua, was attacked by Horatio Jones, axe in hand, and but for assistance would have paid the penalty of his crimes. He finally removed to Canada.
A second refugee to the Monroe shore of Lake Ontario was William Hencher, of Brookfield, Massachusetts, a Revolutionary soldier, and a supporter of Shay during the Massachusetts rebellion. He was conveying supplies to the rebels when overtaken by the military, and abandoning his teams, fled to the seclusion and safety of the western forests. He was joined by his family, and lived at Big Flats till August, 1791, when , with a son aged eleven, he went to the mouth of the Genesee. The father and son cut grass at Long Pond, as a provision for stock, and building a hut on the west side of the river, returned to the Flats.
The family set out in February, 1792, for their new abode. They were ten in number, parents, a son, and seven daughters. Two teams were used with ox sleds, and the route was by way of Seneca Lake. Reaching Irondequoit, the roadway terminated. A road was then cut by Hencher westward till the river was reached above the falls, when; the journey was continued down the east side to Walker's , where a month was passed. The family then crossed the river and took possession of the hut built the previous fall. Not even the primitive clapboard covered the rafters, simply the dried wild grass. This is claimed to have been the first hut of legitimate white settlement on the lake shore between the Genesee and Fort Niagara. Upon a clearing, made by Walker, a summer crop was raised while other land was improved, a log house supplanted the hut and the frequent visits of emigrants and boatmen, who came to camp on shore, showed the location wisely made. To a traffic which sprang up was added a trade in fish. Father and son, crossing the lake, caught fish, which were traded in the settlements for dairy products, and these in turn sold in Canada with profit. Six hundred acres of land were brought , and when the first title was shown to be defective the tract was once more paid for in full. All seven of the Hencher girls were married to pioneers, lived long, and saw their families grow up about them.
Augustus Porter, the surveyor of many towns of Ontario, thus reviews the past, and accounts for pioneer settlers. The next spring 1799, I again came to Bloomfield, where I built a saw mill on Mud Creek. The latter part of the season I was employed by Jonathan Fasset to survey township No. 13, fourth range (Penfield). This I ran into large farm lots, except some twenty or thirty acres lying on Irondequoit creek, which were run into twelve hundred so called city lots. At this time Simon and Israel Stone were living where the village of Pittsford stands. They were original purchasers of the township from Phelps and Gorham, and selected this spot to commence their settlement from its being directly on the Indian path leading both from the Irondequoit landing and the Falls to Canewagus (Avon), and from the existence there of a fine spring. Among other residents of the town were a Mr. Nye and Paul Richardson, who later, married the widow of Israel Stone. John Lusk lived near the landing; Allen on the north side of the west branch of the creek at the crossing of the Rochester and Pittsford road. Orange Stone was a resident of No. 13, seventh range (Brighton), by the handsome elm tree and the big rock, and just to the west of him was the cabin of Chauncey Hyde. The town was surveyed by Captain John Gilbert, one of a company who purchased during the year 1789. The presence of swamp land at the southwest and the great marsh of the bay disappointed the proprietors, who mostly resold to Phelps. The survey of township No. 12. Fourth range (Perrinton), into lots, was made by Caleb Walker, who with his brother William were proprietors of the town. Colonel William Walker sold the township to Daniel Penfield, who, in 1797, sold to Mr. Duncan, a Scotchman, who left it to his son, a later resident of Canandaigua. In 1790, Ebenezer Hunt and others purchased of Phelps and Gorham twenty thousand acres in township 1, short range. The first settler between Shaeffer's and the Falls was Colonel Josiah Fish, who settled at the mouth of Black creek, and was for years supervisor of the town of Northampton, which included all of the present State lying west of the river. The mill site tract was surveyed into townships by Hugh Maxwell, in 1789. He erred by running his west line due north, and conformed the outline of the township to accord with it. The corrected line, which is N. 22 degrees E., was run by me in 1792, and corresponds with the course of the Genesee, and gives the obliquity seen in the township lines. In 1797, I surveyed the twenty thousand acre tract into lots, and laid out village lots at Hanford's landing. Settlement was then commenced there by Gideon King, Zadoc Granger, and others. At the same time I laid out the Allen hundred acres, conformable to the description given by Phelps and Gorham's deed to E. Hunt and others. This directed that the centre of the tract up and down the stream should be the centre of Allen's mill, and laid out in as near a square form as river windings would admit."
Transcribed from History of Monroe County- Chapter VI