Augustus Porter, before he became a wealthy and prominent personage in Niagara County, made an important friend who aided his career while he was surveying throughout New York State.
Porter wrote an account of his early years for the Young Men's Association of Buffalo, published in 1849, many years after he operated the portage, owned Goat Island and started the tourist and power industries here.
That writing chronicles his early years, when he surveyed much of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. In 1791, he met Oliver Phelps, the working half of the partnership.
Porter wrote, "I became acquainted, for the first time, with Oliver Phelps. This was an important event in my life at the west, for it led not only to my permanent and steady employment for more than 10 years (first for Phelps and Gorham, but always under the direction of Mr. P. himself) during which I became familiar with most of the transactions relating to land sales, surveys, etc., but was followed by a personal intimacy with him, from which I derived many important advantages."
While Phelps admired the skill and work ethic of the young frontiersman and surveyor, the admiration was mutual. Porter wrote, "His friendship for and confidence in me never faltered and I have consequently always retained the highest personal respect for his name and memory."
Porter recounted a shrewd negotiation Phelps pulled off with the Seneca Indians. He wanted to purchase a large tract of land, but the Senecas "were unwilling to sell any part of the country west of the Genesee River."
Phelps told them he needed the land near the Genesee River to build mills, which "would be very convenient for the Indians themselves." He said he needed a tract 12 miles wide and 28 miles long for building mills.
The Indians, Porter wrote, said this "seemed to be a good deal of land for a Mill Seat, but as they supposed the Yankees knew best what was required, they would let him have it." This tract, Porter wrote, "comprised what is now the City of Rochester."
In the spring of 1794, Porter returned to Canandaigua and spent the entire season making surveys of Phelps land, then returned to Connecticut for the winter. In the spring of 1795, he again returned to Canandaigua, "where I was joined by my brother, Peter B. Porter, who had decided to settle at Canandaigua in the practice of the law."
Augustus Porter then "acted as agent for Mr. Phelps in the management and sale of his lands and in surveying for him." Later that year, he journeyed to Presque Isle, now Erie, Pa., and passed through Buffalo, where only three settlers lived.
On the arduous trip from Buffalo to Erie, Porter witnessed a phenomenon, which seemed to impress him mightily. The party came upon a host of fish floating at the top of a portion of Lake Erie. He said the fish were alive and they pulled out as many as they wanted by hand.
"We had some of them cooked and found them perfectly good," he wrote.
Porter believed a gale had blown the fish together and, in some strange circumstance, they were unable to regulate the air bladder to remain under water. He added, "I leave to others, however, to explain this phenomenon."
Porter then decided to settle in Canandaigua and concentrate on being the land agent for the Phelps property. "As I now had a family," he wrote, "and had spent most of my time for seven years in the fatigues and hardships of a woods life," he decided to settle down.
Porter resided in Canandaigua until 1806, when he moved to this area, taking residence in the old John Stedman home at Fort Schlosser. He later built a mansion up near the rapids. He wrote, "Here except during the War of 1812, I have continuously resided."
He said all his property, along with other Niagara Frontier buildings, were burned by the infamous British and Indian scorched-earth raid from Youngstown to Buffalo in 1813. But he returned to rebuild after the war.
He lamented that, at the time of putting his recollections on paper, "My early contemporaries in western life (with so far as I can learn, two or three solitary exceptions) are all in their graves." There will be more of Porter's personal musings next time.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 26 2002 |