By EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.

To Chautauquans the name Chautauqua means one thing; and yet I believe that anything pertaining to Chautauqua county must of necessity be of interest to the thousands who know and love the beautiful lake which bears the name. To this end has this rambling sketch of the oldest town in the county been prepared. It lies only seven miles away from the Chautauqua; at just the right distance for a day’s excursion from that point, when the student’s head, bewildered by so many good things, demands and needs a day’s rest and diversion. The drive is a delightful one, passing through the pretty little village of Mayville and over the hills, from one of which one gets a view of two lakes, beautiful Chautauqua flashing and sparkling under the mid-summer sun, glorious old Erie rolling his blue waters with slow and majestic movement. Then descending these hills one comes into the pleasant valley and into the dreamy old town. It has been said of it, that one-half of it is dead and the other half gone to its funeral, but to the tired heart and brain its peaceful quiet comes as a whiff of salt air or a breeze from mountain heights. With natural advantages equal to those of many noted watering places, it is somewhat of a mystery why the sleepy old place has never awakened and found itself famous.

But it lies, sleeping beauty that it is, dreaming, shut in by a range of dark green hills on one side and by the waters of the bluest of all the great lakes on the other. There are a few factories and mills within its precincts, but somehow no whirr of machinery nor other sound ever comes from them to break the stillness, which is Sabbath-like every day. It boasts of three railroads, but each at a respectful enough distance from the town, so that the faint shriek of the locomotive alone causes the sojourner to remember that far away, somewhere, outside, there is such a thing as a busy, noisy, bustling world. It is the home of solidity, respectability, and wealth. A place in which erring human nature finds it very easy to be good; in which the old-fashioned virtues of sobriety, temperance, and hospitality hold sway; in which no more reckless amusements than lawn tennis and teas, with an occasional reception at one of the many beautiful homes, or a clam-bake on the shores of the lake are permitted; a thoroughly drowsy old town.

Westfield, the oldest town of the famous Chautauqua county, New York state, lies on the shore of Lake Erie, fifty-seven miles west from Buffalo. It is a garden of the gods on a small scale. Lying back one mile and a half from the lake, it receives its breezes at exactly the right temperature. It is never too hot in summer; rarely too cold in winter.

The town is divided by a deep picturesque gorge, through which Chautauqua Creek runs, and whose sides are now high and rocky, now a bewildering and beautiful mass of wild grapevines, chestnut and willow, and shrubs of nearly every variety and description. It is spanned at seemingly the most inaccessible places by various bridges and ah! the beauty of that deep chasm on an autumn day, when it is ablaze with the color of maple leaf and sumach and golden rod. This gorge deepens and widens, grows more wild and gloomy as it runs back among the Chautauqua hills, until it culminates in a most remarkable freak of nature, known the country round as the “Hog’s Back,” of which a description will be given further on.

The first white settlement of this town, and of the entire county as well, was commenced in 1802, at what was long known as the Cross Roads, and which is now marked by a curious stone monument. The earlier history of these regions is dim and indistinct, but all tradition and history, as well as many curious relics which have been discovered, point to the fact that after the mound builders, the Neutral nations, or as they were called by the Senecas, the Kahkwas, were the first occupants of the soil of Chautauqua. They dwelt in forty villages, some of which were near Fort Niagara; some in Erie county, but the greater part of their territory extended west along the shore of Lake Erie, through Chautauqua county into Ohio. They were a strange race of people, famous hunters, exceedingly fierce and superstitious. The first knowledge had by Europeans of the Lake Erie regions, and of the tribes which inhabited them, was obtained by the French in Canada; their enterprise in this surpassing that of the British.

Father Lalement, in a letter to the Provincial of Jesuits in France, dated at St. Mary’s Mission, May 19, 1641, speaks of the Neutrals, and also of a warlike nation named the Eries, or the Nation of the Cat, so called from the extraordinary number of wild cats which infested their section, that lived to the south of Lake Erie and west of the Neutral nation. The Eries were great warriors and were a terror to the Iroquois. They fought with poisoned arrows, having no fire-arms.

Both these nations were cruelly destroyed by the Iroquois in 1651 and 1655. The final overthrow of the Neutral nation is supposed to have taken place near Buffalo; the destruction of the Eries, along the shore of the beautiful lake bearing this name. The whole force of the Iroquois embarked in canoes upon the blue waters of the lake, and after assaulting the Eries at a point, the exact location of which is not now known, scenes most horrible and revolting were enacted, and the brave Eries were totally annihilated in a fearful butchery.

The accounts of the destruction of these nations are found in the written narratives of the Jesuits, who were living at that time among the Indians of New York and Canada. From the extirpation of the Neutral and Erie nations, until its settlement by pioneers, Chautauqua county, and especially the portion along the shore of Lake Erie, was the home of the Senecas, the fiercest tribe of the Iroquois nation.

In 1679, La Salle, Tonti, his Italian lieutenant, Father Louis Hennepin and several others set sail from Cayuga Creek, a small stream emptying into Niagara River, for the foot of Lake Erie, steering west-southwest. They made many leagues, passing what is now Chautauqua county. They are supposed to be the first Europeans who saw the Chautauqua hills, gloomy and rugged, covered with mighty forests. The boundary line between the French and English possessions in America had long been a cause of contention, and the territory of Chautauqua county was included in the disputed ground. Communications between the French posts on the Mississippi and French forts in Canada were made by the long and tedious routes of the Mississippi, Green Bay routes, and afterward by Lake Michigan and the Wabash. The easy communication between Canada and the Mississippi by way of Lake Erie and Chautauqua Lake was not discovered until 1752, when the Marquis Du Quesne, having been appointed Governor-General of Canada, arrived there. He at once took more aggressive and decided measures to obtain possession of the disputed territory, than any of his predecessors had done. He immediately began to construct the long line of frontier forts which La Salle had suggested, that were to unite Canada and Louisiana by way of the Ohio. This bold step is regarded as leading to the French and Indian war, which resulted in losing Canada to the French. One of Du Quesne’s first acts was to open a portage road from the mouth of the Chautauqua Creek, which empties into Lake Erie a mile and a half from the town of Westfield, to the head of Chautauqua Lake, and thus open communication between Lake Erie and the head waters of the Ohio.

In a letter which he sends to the French minister of the marine and colonies, in Paris, he states that his intention is to begin his posts near the mouth of Chataconit, or Chautauqua Creek. This portage road was cut through the wilderness more than twenty years before the battle of Lexington, and yet traces of it to this day are to be seen in and about the town. In 1761 Sir William Johnson journeyed to Detroit to establish a treaty with the Ottawa confederacy. On his return, he sailed along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and in his journal speaks thus of this portage:

In a letter from General Washington to General Irvine, dated Mount Vernon, October 31, 1788, he speaks thus of this portage:

One of Chautauqua’s earliest pioneers was William Peacock, who passed over this road in 1800. Ten years later he became the agent of the Holland Land Company. He was an eccentric and shrewd man, and in a short time became exceedingly wealthy, the hard working land owners thought at their expense. He was charged with reserving the choicest farms, best water powers and timber lands for himself and his favorites. The land holders also thought he was not giving them credit for interest which they paid from time to time upon their land, and these opinions found vent in the newspapers, and the agitation grew until on the 6th of February, 1836, a mob gathered from all parts of the county at Dewittville, a little hamlet on the shore of Chautauqua Lake.

Word was brought to Mr. Peacock at Mayville, a village at the head of the lake, and seven miles from Westfield, that a raid was to be made upon the land office that night, and that mischief might be done to his person unless he should make good his escape. Donald McKenzie, a northwestern fur trader, and brother of the McKenzie who discovered the river of that name, had three years previous to this come to Mayville to live, and was in the land office that dreary February afternoon when this alarming message was brought. The stalwart Scotchman, through whose veins flowed some of the proudest blood of Caledonia, feared neither “mon nor de’il.” It was his custom to wear a very long black coat which fell in ample folds around his massive frame. Mr. Peacock was an undersized man. Donald McKenzie cast the drapery of his inky cloak about the frightened little man and thus shielded and shrouded from sight, he hurried him up the hill to his home, whence he was soon taken in a covered sleigh to Westfield, and down the lake shore road to Buffalo as fast as horses could carry him, and none too soon was he out of the way, for at dusk a crowd of infuriated men, numbering two or three hundred, made a raid upon the land office, demolished it, and after working until near morning succeeded in forcing open the vault and seized the books, records and contracts and carried them two miles away, and heaping them up made a goodly bonfire of them. The ruins of the land office are yet to be seen in Mayville. The land holders by this mad proceeding brought only “confusion worse than death” upon themselves, while the prudent Peacock accumulated a wonderful property, and was afterward made judge. He left to one heir alone the whole village of Barcelona, the harbor of Westfield, situated just east of the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, the starting point of the French portage road. This harbor was made a port of entry by the general government. In 1828 a lighthouse was erected by a citizen at his own expense; a steamer named the “William Peacock,” for the hero of the land office story, was built; all craft on the lake stopped at the little port; a company was formed called the Barcelona Company; the village was enlarged, the streets being laid out in city fashion; corner lots sold for fabulous sums; men lost their heads; the place was to be a great port; when suddenly the railroad came creeping along the shore; the bubble broke; the mushroom town was a failure; fortunes were lost, and to-day Barcelona harbor is a deserted village with grass-grown streets, gaunt houses, whose windows stare reproachfully at the gay carriage loads passing by, and an old white lighthouse, which, like the ghostly finger of the past, seems to beckon to all to come and look upon the desolation around it. A few sad faced women who might have ridden in their carriages; brawny fishermen who might have owned their blocks and wharves and shipping, are the only inhabitants. Down on the beach of a bright autumn afternoon the nets are spread a-drying; little huts, whose half open doors reveal the hauls of herring and bass, are here and there; ruddy faced boys lie sprawling on the sand, sunning themselves; the trees have grown thick and tall about the lighthouse upon the cliff; no sound is heard save the hiss of the waves as they tumble in; the quaint little harbor wears a disappointed look. Old “Groats’ Inn,” though time has used it roughly, alone seems to try and hold its ancient smartness, like an antiquated spinster who wishes it understood that the reason she has never married is not that she never had an offer. Summer and winter for many long years has it stood there on the edge of the cliff, waiting for the rush of travel which never came; ready to give hospitality to man and beast, but no wayfarer ever knocks for admission and entertainment. There is nothing sadder than a deserted village. What a mockery it seems of all human hopes and ambitions. In these old houses that look as if they were weary waiting through so many long years, what homely, uneventful lives have been spent; what tired eyes have closed for the last time; what aching and disappointed hearts have ceased to beat, thankful, no doubt, that the worry and fret were all over.

When old Judge Peacock died, his heirs each received one thirteenth of his vast estate. One grand-nephew, whose father and mother had been cousins, fell heir to two-thirteenths, and from being a poor lad living among the fishermen, found himself the possessor of this entire harbor and nearly all the land lying between it and Westfield.

In June, 1836, four months after the land office at Mayville had been destroyed, William H. Seward having been appointed to the agency, and also having an interest in the purchase, established the land office in Westfield and lived there until his election as governor of New York. The Seward mansion is one of the attractions to visitors. It is a “brave old house,” with a beautiful lawn, fronting on the village green. Its trees are trimmed in a peculiar old-fashioned way. Its iron gates stand open, as if inviting the passer to enter and look upon its quaint surroundings. Another stately old-time mansion is that of the Patterson family. It was originally occupied by a brother of Seward’s, and when a member of the family died its front door was painted black! A superb lawn shaded by grand old trees sweeps away on one side; a garden of grapevines lies on the other; in front great beds of scarlet geranium blaze, and the trees and shrubs are out in the same quaint pattern as those upon the Seward estate. The fashion of other days is plainly to be seen in everything pertaining to both these rare old places.

The drives about the town are picturesque and delightful. From nearly every street and road you get enchanting views of the lake on one hand and the range of hills on the other. The streets are laid in curves, and you are continually sweeping rounded corners and coming upon unexpected beauties. Old trees meet above your head; you cross and recross the gorge dividing the town; far below you rushes the stream; down a shaded street you go past old-fashioned homes and modern villas in sharp contrast, and suddenly through overhanging boughs you catch the glory of the blue waters of old Erie; you are soon in Barcelona harbor; from there you can drive for miles along the beach, now on the cliff, with the waves thundering in many feet below you, now further back from the shore past finely cultivated farms, vineyards, orchards, fields “afoam with sweetness,” and never failing to catch through grove, across fields of waving corn and grain, wooded hollows through which clear waters run, glimpses of the lake’s witchery.

Or you can drive into Peacock’s Grove at Barcelona—a lovely little forest of tall graceful trees, with a velvet turf from which all annoying brush has been removed. Leave your carriage, throw yourself upon the ground and drink in the ever changing beauty of the magic view; the turquoise blue of the water, of a sunny morning; the sapphire blue of a drowsy summer afternoon; the molten glory of sky and water at sunset; the slow oncoming of the solemn moon. How the trees seem to whisper to the waters as if they were talking over all they have witnessed in common; faintly comes the tinkle of a cow bell from a neighboring copse; the crows are calling to each other in the tree-tops; across the path scamper the squirrels; the bay is dotted with the boats of the fishermen; there is scarcely a ripple on the vast stretch of water before you; a heavenly peace lies on lake and shore.

Or take the drive to the wonderful “Hog’s Back.” Leaving the town behind you, commence the gradual ascent of the dark and rugged hills. Up and up, higher and higher you go, now pause and look back. The valley lies smiling before you—a lovely jewel with its setting of the marvelously blue waters behind it. You leave your carriage and horses in a hospitable farm yard and set out on foot for the “Hog’s Back.” Across a meadow or two and you come into a forest of pines and hemlocks. The wind sighs through the trees as it only sighs through such a wood; far, far off you hear the rushing of water. You go on a few steps further and suddenly you find yourself on the edge of a most frightful precipice, the descent into which is over a narrow ledge of earth thrown up by some tremendous eruption into the shape of the back of a giant hog. And such an abyss! Words can not express the awful stillness which reigns over this mighty gorge whose sides are lined with gloomy forests. Primeval solitudes could not have been more desolate. The descent is terrible, but nothing in comparison with the dizzy ascent. One draws a breath of relief when safely up once more and out from the shade of the mysterious pines into the gladness of sunlight and an open sky.

Having heard that a mile or so from the town were still to be seen traces of an old French fort, built either at the time Du Quesne cut the portage road, or during the French and Indian war, the writer drove with a friend one morning in search of the place. After many questions, directions and counter-directions, we finally found the farm upon which it was said to be located. The genial farmer to whom we stated our errand laughed and answered:

“O, yes, I’ve got all there is left of it, which ain’t much.”

He told us we could drive nearly to the spot, and led the way, walking by the carriage, while a joyful dog leaped on before. Past the farm house, barns, the orchard flaunting its magnificent red fruit, through the “back lot,” across a field perfumed with its “second crop” of red clover, we came to a rail fence almost hidden from view by young chestnut trees and the rioting wild grapevine. Thus far, and no farther, could we go in the carriage, and leaving it, we stepped over the fence chivalrously lowered by our guide, and soon saw “all there’s left of it.” Only an immense circular breastwork, with tall straight trees many, many years old growing on its top, is left of what may have been simply a supply station, a fort erected by the French against the Indians, possibly the fort where the brave Eries were massacred by the Iroquois, or going further back, it may have been the work of the mound builders.

“I can’t tell you anything about it,” said our obliging guide, “but if you want to take the trouble to go there, old Uncle Dave Cochrane will tell you all about it. He’s ninety years old, but he remembers everything, and he’ll be glad to see you and tell you all he knows.”

Being directed to Uncle Dave’s, we left the farm and drove in the opposite direction toward the lake. When about half way to Barcelona, we turned aside from the main road, and in a hollow, close by Chautauqua Creek, found an old-fashioned stuccoed house, over which the scarlet woodbine crept and clung lovingly. We could bring no one to the front door, and so the Adventurous One commenced to explore the rear of the house, and was rewarded by seeing peering over the top of the coal bin in the woodshed, an old, old man with a chisel in his hand.

“Are you Uncle David Cochrane?”

“Hey?” shouted the old gentleman.

The question was repeated, and the answer was literally bawled:

“Yes; who be you?”

The Adventurous One was obliged to state her name and errand before the old man would move one step from behind the coal bin.

“I’ll come around to the front of the house,” announced this tremendous voice, coming with startling effect from this little bundle of humanity to which it belonged, “for I’m hard o’ hearin’.”

And so Uncle Dave and the Adventurous One sat down on a bench by the old stone wall around the little garden, and while the autumn sun smiled down on the waters of the pretty stream that flowed by the old man’s door, this voice from the past spoke freely and at length.

Uncle Dave was a remarkable old gentleman, possessing an astounding memory, of which faculty he was well aware, and of which he was very proud. He had dates, incidents, historical events at his tongue’s end. On being asked, who in his opinion had built the fortifications we had that morning seen, he said emphatically:

“It was some of them ten foot fellers that lived here long before the Injuns. Injuns never done it, they didn’t know enough, and they are too old for the French to have built ’em.”

Did he mean the mound builders?

“Yes, I reckin that’s what ye call ’em.”

Did he ever see any traces of the old portage road?

“O, yes,” he trumpeted forth, “the French under Du Quizney built that road from the mouth of this here very creek to the head of Chautauqua Lake.”

“Do you remember, Mr. Cochrane, when Lafayette visited Westfield in 1823?”

“Yes, sir,” he shouted, and his withered old face was suddenly transfigured by some nameless light, “indeed I do. Word was brought to us that Lafayette was in Erie, and Judge Peacock had a splendid span of greys and a nice carriage, and he sent them to the State line to bring him to Westfield. I got a six-pounder all ready, and when the runner came ahead to let us know them grays was in sight, I jest teched her off. He drove over the bridge and up on the village square, and got out of the carriage and took off his hat.” Here the old man reverently uncovered his head, straightened himself and became unconsciously dramatic. “He was a sandy haired feller, a reg’lar Frenchman, and he spoke to everybody that crowded up to shake hands with him. And I tell ye it was a sight to see them Revolutioners crowd around him. Alec Wilson, he was a Revolutioner, an Irishman, says he, ‘God bless yez, Markis, how air yez;’ and the Markis says just as pleasant and affable like, ‘Very well, my friend, but you have the advantage of me.’ ‘Why, Markis,’ says Alec, ‘I wuz one of General Washington’s body-guard, I wuz. Many a time have I seen you and the Gineral together, Lord love ye.’ ‘Is that so, Alec,’ says the Markis, ‘then I must shake hands again,’ and he did shake again with that air Irishman!”

When we came away his parting shout was to this effect:

“When ye find a man of my age with a better memory, s’posen ye let me know.”

Good by, brave old pioneer, we shall never see you again; but the picture you made as you stood there “in the pleasant autumn weather,” the breeze playing with your white hair, your little cottage, its cream tint contrasting so well with the vivid red of the woodbine which wantoned over it, for a back-ground, will not soon be forgotten.

Westfield is admirably adapted for a summer resort. Aside from its beautiful scenery, its hills, its lake with its inducements in the way of fishing, sailing and rowing, its charming drives, and equally as charming walks, it is undeniably a healthy place. Its air is pure and bracing. Every breath you draw seems to put new life into your frame. There are mineral springs near the town which might be utilized. There are many points near by suitable for excursions. Van Buren’s Harbor, a delightful picnic ground, and the best beach along shore for bathing, is within a short drive. Peacock’s Grove offers inducements for camping and clam baking. There are many other beautiful villages easy of access; the remarkable “Hog’s Back” furnishes a day’s diversion; twenty miles away is a wonderful geological attraction known as Panama Rocks, which well deserves and repays attention. In point of fact, the sleepy old place has more than its share of surrounding attractions and only needs a magic touch to waken it, and yet it would be a pity to transform this little Arcadia into a fashionable watering place. One would not care to see its primitive beauty sullied and its peace broken in upon by the world. Rather let it remain one of those places fast dying out before the march of so-called civilization, a dreamy old town.