The Le Roy Gazette

"Pavilion Sixty Years Ago
~~~
Seth Ames Takes a Look Back — Hardy Pioneer Stock of the Early Days
~~~
Chapter 3 ... Union Corners was a little kingdom of itself, and outsiders were envious of the harmony that prevailed there, and, like little children, called names, the most noted of which was "Skin Town". At Union Corners was a Methodist Church where most of the inhabitants worshiped, through Ezra Terril, his son-in-law, Elisha Cheeney and Earl Allen attended church at Pavilion."

"Soldier's Names for the Monument...
The soldiers Monument Commission has prepared the following list of names of soldiers to be placed on the monument, and it is now published for corrections and additions, and the commission would be pleased to hear from anyone having further information....
WAR OF 1812...
Elijah Cheney (sic)...

"Worthy Tribute to the Soldiers
~~
A monument of very artistic design
~~
Some years back the question of a soldiers' monument for Le Roy had been mitigated. ...The monument is located about 150 feet east of the west point of Trigon park and is in a direct line opposite the Baptist Church. It faces towards East Main Street...total height of the monument is 20 feet, the pedestal being 13 feet in height and figure 7 feet...
On the back and both sides of the die of the monument are the bronze tablets containing the names of the soldiers from Le Roy who enlisted in the three wars, viz. Revolution, War of 1812, and the Civil War...
The following names are inscribed on the tablets of the monument... War of 1812...Elisha Cheney..."

"Settlers of Pavilion and Le Roy Who Went to War
Editor The Gazette:— I saw in last week's Gazette the list of names of the men who went out from Le Roy in the war of 1812 that of Elijah Cheney. I think it should be Elisha Cheney. The latter was near neighbor of my family for more than forty years. He was drafted into the army from Le Roy. I heard him in 1854 in my home give a stirring report of his experience in the battle of Buffalo and how he escaped being taken prisoner at the time.
He had a brother named Elijah, but I never heard that he went into the army. There was no doubt that Elisha went. And there was a Luther Douglas, whose farm joined that of my home, drafted from Le Roy. He went to the war, was taken by the British and sent to Halifax where he was cruelly treated, and with him went a brother of his wife, a Mr. Savary. (I think his first name was Ira) and they shared the same misfortunes. About 1827 Mr. Douglas sold and left here with quite a company from Le Roy and Covington in a movement to better themselves in Chautauqua. Not long after this, he told my father that he thought he had made a mistake and that Chautauqua would prove a hard place to make a living. (which was doubtless true for some years and that he was about to take a new departure for Michigan" whither he went soon afterward. The next thing that we heard was that he had been wrecked and drowned in a storm on Lake Erie, only a few rods from shore...
Mr. Cheney and his wife, too, were the very best and kindest of people, of the old time goodness, which the writer can witness in unsurpassed if it is not unequaled in our time of so many improvements. I had been told Mr. Douglas' story in my childhood but many years after they left here, his widow returned to our neighborhood for her last visit here.
It was then that I heard for the first time her story.
As she went over that year of hardship — alone with her little children, on a new farm and her suspense and terrible anxiety in regard to the fate of her husband; silent tears followed each other down her face in retrospection. I remember she said that she picked and husked the crop of corn that her husband had planted before he left and carried it in a bushel basket from the field and up a ladder into the log of her log house. I exclaimed, Oh, Mrs. Douglas, it doesn't seem possible that you could have done that. She turned to me with a calm smile, "you could not have done it, my dear — I was a strong woman, but it was dreadfully hard for me."
As she told it, as I cannot do, it was a most touching and graphic narrative of one phase of a very real life. When at last Mr. Doubls had been exchanged, she received a letter from him saying that he had reached his old home in Vermont and would stay a few days to recruit his strength. when he would take up his march it must have been for he came on foot. She said when she had read the letter the light of hope that had sustained her so long went out in a moment she felt certain that something would happen— that she would never see him again. But one day as she was sitting desolate she hard loud voices. There had been a raising of a barn for Simon Law. As the noise increased, she went to the door and saw on the hill in front of Mr. Cheney's house, now Hazelton's, a group of men swinging and tossing up their hats and hurrahing wildly for Douglas and Savary.
But none of these things had roughened her. She had the look of one who had suffered and overcome and was just a self-poised, interesting and sweet-faced old lady, an old-time matron, whom it was a privilege to have met...
Ellen Holcomb
Pavilion Center July 26, 1905"

"How Mr. Miller Shot The Indian
~~~
R. Jacobs Relates More Boyhood Experiences
~~~
"Though Beaver medow brook was my principal trapping ground, yet I made frequent excursions through the swamps and woods that then lay in almost unbroken extant to Caledonia and York. I think I must have been a boy tramp, for I succeeded in making the acquaintance of every family in the region of my trapping and hunting excursions.
...The whole region of country toward which I am now headed, was called South woods, how far south it extended I don't know...
Ashley Townsend lived in this neighborhood — a poor farmer. His mind was laboring with his great invention that made him famous and wealthy in after years. His trials at this time were such as are common to genius, and his subsequent success was richly deserved.
Elisha Cheney was a neighbor of Townsend and could not for the life of him 'see why he should so neglect his land to dream over those old wheels.'
Mr. Stevens, Mr. Rigg, and Stephen Russel lived near neighbors to the celebrated trapper Miller. This is historic ground. Mr. Stevens took me over the ground where, it is said, Miller shot the Indian. ...for some cause, Mr. Miller had incurred the enmity of the Oneida Indians, and one of the number was sent to kill him... "

"South Leroy as I remember It
(The following article was written by the late Nicholas B. Keeney of Le Roy and was published in the issue of the Le Roy news for February 27, 1903.)
In 1832 when twelve years of age, I went to South Leroy to live with my sister, whose husband, Marshfield Parsons, carried on a small store and the post office was also kept there. Most of the people for two miles around came there for their mail...it was not necessary to prepay the postage, so a large amount of letters would accumulate for the want of money to take them out, and the quarterly reports of letters on hand would often be several times as many as are advertised here at Le Roy this time.
Will mention some of the more prominent men that were within two miles of that place: ... Ashley Townsend, grandfather of E. and H.E. Townsend; Elisha Cheney, father of Daniel Cheney; ...Ezra Tyrell, father of Mrs. Cheney...
Ashley Townsend was the inventor of one of the first threshing machines used in this country. He commenced to their manufacture on his farm near Law's corners...."

"In the Pavilion Center Cemetery lie two Revolutionary War soldiers...In the same cemetery are the bodies of the following soldiers or the War of 1812: Asa Higgins, Chauncey Tillotson, Aaron Tufts, Leman Bradley, Elisha Cheney and John Hendee. Simon Law is also said to be buried there but there is no marker.
At the Maplewood Cemetery is known to be one soldier of the Revolutionary War — Amasa Allen ...Veterans of the War of 1812 buried there are:.... Ezra Terrill..."

"A brief sketch here of some of the early happenings will be found interesting. Ezra Terrill, who died in 1885, aged 97 years, came from Vermont in 1809, and first went to Byron with Roswell Newell. He later returned to the East and induced his father, Zebulon, to accompany him to the Genesee country. He purchased three-quarters of a section - 360 acres - near Union Corners, and built a log house near Edward Cheney's present residence. He married Roxanna Elliott, who made flour sacks of flax with which to purchase glass for windows. His father was a shoemaker...Elijah (sic*), father of Ezra Cheney, and who lived where Mr. Hazelton now resides, was a prisoner of War of 1812. He was taken to Halifax, discharged at Boston, and begged his way home to his family."
(*Elishua)

"A brief sketch here of some of the early happenings will be found interesting. ... Union Corners... Elijah (*sic), father of Ezra Cheney, and who lived where Mr. Hazelton now resides, was a prisoner of War of 1812. He was taken to Halifax, discharged at Boston, and begged his way home to his family." (*correct name was Elisha Cheney)