This essay was originally published in the 1944 OCHS Yearbook. Please note that this essay was published over 80 years ago. While still useful for general education, language may be outdated and at times offensive. The Oswego County Historical Society does not stand by the language used in this essay. All photos were added in 2026 when this article was uploaded to the web. To view the original document, please visit NYHeritage.org.
Paper Read Before Oswego County Historical Society at Oswego, November 21, 1944, by Miss Elizabeth Simpson, Town Historian of Mexico, and a Former Vice President Of This Society.
At the extreme northern end of the Scriba road, cut through the primeval woods by George Scriba to lead from Rotterdam (Constantia) to Mexico Bay, Lake Ontario, through the heart of Scriba’s purchase of more than 500,000 acres of land from the State of New York in 1793, lay the “panhandle” of the 19th town of Scriba Patent and there Scriba proposed to build the northern terminal of his axis, the City of Mexico. In Scriba’s earliest correspondence ‘this development was referred to merely as “Little Salmon Creek”; but on various maps it was labeled “Mexico”, “Town of Mexico Harbour”, or “Town of Mexico”, which must not be confused with either the political town of Mexico or the survey town number 20 of the same name. The latter distinction is made clear on the 1795 map labeled “Map of the XIX and XX towns and the Town of Mexico.” But in legal documents both Mr. Scriba and his surveyor, Benjamin Wright, designated the settlement as “the City of Mexico.” In the survey of the 19th town in 1795 lots 24, 25, 26 and 27, making up the panhandle, each has this notation: “This is reserved from the town of Mexico” i. e. for the City of Mexico. The surveyor reported on the quality of each of the reserved lots, employing each time his favorite descriptive word “tolerable”: “Lot 24. This is a tolerable good lot, except where there is marsh cr swamp. Lot 25. This lot is tolerable good in general. The N. E. corner is marshy. Lot 26. This is a tolerable good lot. A little marsh on the N. W. corner. Lot 27. This is a tolerable good lot, timbered with beech, hemlock, and some white oak.”
Four Lots For City Site
On December 31, 1798 the following entry was made in the Scriba records: “Sold to the Town of Mexico”, i. e. to the City of Mexico:
Lot 24 991/2a $5 $497.50
Lot 25 120 a $5 600.00
Lot 26 121 a $5 605.00
Lot 27 1111/4a $5 556.25
4513/4 $2256.75
These lots were bounded on the North by Lake Ontario, on the East by a line a little east of Salmon Creek, on the South by a line extending through the present hamlet of Texas, a little north of the east and west stretch of the creek, and on the West by the present town line between Mexico and New Haven.
In the survey of the 20th town in 1794, lot 3 was marked “village of Mexico reserved.”, i. e. reserved for the proposed city. This lot was described by the surveyor as “a stony lot in general. Hemlocky -there are some good spots of land and very well timbered with maple, Beech and Ash. Best mill seats on Salmon Creek.” It was for the sake of these good mill seats that Mr. Scriba reserved lot 3 from the 20th town for his city and on it he intended to build a dam and saw-and-grist mills.
Plan of 1796
By 1796 plans for the city took form on paper, at least, and an engraved map was issued for a part of the area, lying entirely on the west side of Salmon creek. On the map is shown a wharf, extending out some distance into the lake, close to the mouth of the creek. Near the land end of the wharf a camp store is shown in the north east corner of block 4 at the foot of Adams street. Up stream at the head of Bridge Mill street is a bridge* crossing the creek via a small island. Near the bridge at its south end is shown a saw mill and at its north end a grist mill. Fifty seven numbered city blocks are separated by north and south streets eighty feet wide and east and west streets sixty feet in width. The ultimate plan called for the extension of the city toward the west and the opening of a great central avenue one hundred and twenty feet wide to be named for General George Washington. Foot notes on the map call for three public squares, each of six and one quarter acres, to be named respectively Adams, Hamilton, Washington; but the last named, a thickly wooded block, is the only one shown on the map of 1798. On a map of about 1812 Hamilton Public Square is shown not far north of Salmon Creek where it flows east through Texas. One of these proposed parks, evidently Adams, was said to have been near ‘Squire Parker’s farm (Ward Ramsey’s). Local tradition also says that Mr. Scriba intended the civic center with public buildings to be located on an island, now a peninsula, but known as “Spy Island.” Building lots were marked off, in the majority of the blocks, 66 feet by 163. 2061/4, or 264 feet deep. Fifty acres near the city were to be given for the support of a school and a church. Navigation was said to be rood and the harbor (in Mexico Bay) fine for vessels.
*The location of this bridge should not be confused with that of the present concrete bridge over Little Salmon Creek as the earlier bridge lay further downstream between the location of the present Texas bridge and the lake.
Growth—Mills
It is not to be thought that, when the city map was published, stores and mills were already built and operating, and the inhabitants thronging the streets in front of their newly erected homes or even that the streets were cut through and cleared of trees. The work of felling trees, burning logs, and making potash from the ashes was just beginning. Mr. Wirth wrote on October 19, 1796: “Just now Mr. Ferguson tells me he wants 4 Potash kettles provided he can get them by Sleigh to Mexico. I have wrote to Mr. Meyer about it. I have offered the 4 kettles at 100 pounds.” Plans, to be sure, had been made for a grist mill. It was to be 30 by 40 feet, three stories high, well furnished with doors and window “sheters”, and floors and bolts, one run of stone completed and room for two more, the floors excepted. The plank and boards, shingles and all iron work that “was wanting” were to be furnished by the “Imployer”, the timber “drawed” to the place. The work was to be completed for 780 pounds New York Currency. A miller had already been engaged, John Wilson of Long Island. Mr. Scriba agreed to pay him 160 pounds per annum and, if he stayed three years, he was, in addition, promised a city lot and timber for a house “as it stands in the forest.” No grist mill had been built, however, as late as 1801; but by 1798 there was a saw mill to be taxed. Of its construction, Benjamin Wright wrote on September 20, 1797—”I have been very unfortunate in the Mill and instead of having the mill good and the pitch of the water good, it is done very bad and I am now at them for damages &c. which as John Hall Esq. is worth the money I must and will not be put off in this manner. Mr. Hall has come forward and offered to rebuild it or anything that is right but I insist on his rebuilding and paying me damages for the disappointment of the (use) which I very much wanted. The wharf stands very well as yet and I hope it will.”
Wright Was Optimistic
In spite of his troubles, Mr. Wright kept his confidence in the future greatness of the City of Mexico. He told Mr. Scriba: “I am as yet, sanguine in my Idea of Mexico and the longer I stay the more it appears to me that this place, if encouragement is given in the first beginning, will become a place of good Deal of Business. However, as Oswego appears to be calculated by the present waters to be the principal place and but few people can see the advantageous situation here there needs every encouragement to begin it and then there is no doubt of its being a place of Business, the greatest on this part of the Lake.”
The Store
As for the store, on October 1st, 1796, John Meyer wrote: “The Store at Little Salmon Creek will not be finished. The carpenters have left again.” Letters dated throughout the next month show that not only was the store unfinished but the city was without inhabitants. In the above letter Mr. Meyer also said: “Nor would it be safe at present to keep goods there, when nobody is settled but Casper Hill (and he) has left it, with his family all sick.” In ordering flour from Archibald Fairfield on October 20th. Mr. Meyer wrote that goods might be delivered at Little Sal mon Creek: but that Mr. Wright should be previously asked whether it would “lay” safe there until they could send for it. “If no Person resides there, it would not do.” Again on November 24th he wrote: “Wright is gone to Little Salmon Creek with carpenters to enclose the store. There is no soul living there and it will be impossible for him to stay there alone, I expect he will return as soon as the work is done.”
Mr. Wright had finished the work and returned to Rome more than ten days before Mr. Meyer wrote the above, reported to Mr. Scriba on November 14, 1796: “I have but two days returned from Salmon Creek where I have been to see the completion of the Store which is now ready for the reception of goods in Bales &c, being completely enclosed and floors all done. It is with considerable difficulty that I could obtain any Workmen, there being so many employed in this part of the country. Have the satisfaction to announce it ready for the purposes of the North West Oneida Company.” In 1797 all preparations were made to stock the store in conjunction with the one at Rotterdam. The following list will give some idea of the goods considered desirable for a frontier store and the quantities estimated as sufficient for the two stores:
What Customers Sought
12 or 16 Hghs Rum, 4 pipes Brandy, 1 or 2 pipes Gin (Holland) if to be had, 6 quarter casks Port wine, 3 pipes Teneriffe, 6 barrels muscavado sugar, 8 barrels sugar house Molasses, 100 lb. chocolate, 6 or 8 half chests Bohea tea, 4 barrels coffy, 200 lbs. raisins, 2 barrels pepper, 2 barrels allspices, 50 lbs. best Carolina Indigo, 2 boxes starch, 4 boxes hair powder, 4 boxes hard soap, 3 dozen cow bells, as sorted, 6 dozen snuff boxes, 6 dozen horn combs in cases, 12 dozen knives and forks, not of the inferior sort, 1 dozen hard metal Table spoons, 12 dozen hard metal tea spoons, no pewter, 3 dozen spectacles, steel spring. 2 dozen black castor hats for women at 16 or 20 a piece, 8 dozen cotton stockings, white and fancy, mens and womens, 8 pieces casemir dark, light, fancy, and black assortment of twist, sewing silk, fine thread of all numbers, 30 pieces nankeens, 6 pieces gingham fashionable. 4 crates glass ware assorted. Let there be wine glasses among them. 1 chest violins, 2 dozen fifes, 4 dozen Almanacs. Websters Institute, 1, 2, 3, part, 2 dozen each, 1 Turn Pig Tail Tobacco. The list though not complete, gives a fair sampling of the stock.
First Inhabitants
And now it was necessary to secure inhabitants for the city. In a letter of September 20, 1797 Mr. Wright speaks of two men, without mentioning their names, who were about, to move into the city and adds: “Mr. Fairfield has moved his family here and intends being a citizen of Mexico.” On February 6, 1798 special inducements were offered to encourage more settlers to come to the new settlement. “Twentyfour lots or squares are to be given to the first 24 settlers who have the first 24 houses built in the City of Mexico on a lease for 12 years from the first of May next, free from rent under condition the said leasee shall clear or cause to be cleared within two years from the first of May next each of said lots with one half the breadth of streets which surround them clear and free of any timber. Timber to be for the use of leasee who shall also set up straight and lawful fences and have the streets as described on the map open and in case of default I will not comply on my part to give them the lease and all those who have taken a block or square in the City of Mexico but have not a good frame house up and occupied the same on or before the first day of May 1799 in said city shall forfeit the privilege and the lot shall be withdrawn.”
The tax list of 1798 shows that there were then only four tax payers in the city, namely the said Archibald Fairfield, Benjamin Winch, Benjamin Gilbert who must have been the two settlers on the point of moving into the city in September 1797 and Benjamin Wright who, as Scriba’s agent, was assessed for a store, a barn, a blacksmith shop, and a saw mill. If there were other inhabitants at that time, they were not taxpayers.
Shipping
It now seemed desirable to provide shipping for that “excellent harbor” for there were other settlers scattered through the Patent, especially along the Scriba road who would wish to ship potash or salt to Canada and to bring in supplies for themselves. Arrangements were made for a shipbuilder, Captain Christian Geerman, to come to Mexico City and establish a shipyard, which he located at the bend of the creek on a block bounded by Dundas, Bates, and William Streets according to the 1812 map. A letter written May 1, 1798 by John Meyer at Canada Creek to Doctor Wirth at Rotterdam served to introduce the Captain: “The bearer hereof is Captain Geerman who is on his way to Mexico where he intends to settle and build vessels. He has two boats with him which I have hired from Rotterdam to little Salmon creek to bring him there with his wife and goods. Tuttle, the owner, is to have 7 pounds 10 shillings for each boat in cash and we must pay Masters at the (Oswego) Falls to whom you will write a line. Let Tuttle bring a receipt from Mr. Wright of the delivery of the goods, the two boats. They are to get one gallon spirits over and above the freight. Please to show Captain Geerman and his wife all the civility you can during their stay at Rotterdam which will be but short. If they stay a night, you might provide a bed for them.”
An Epidemic
Captain Geerman and Mrs. Geerman must have arrived at the “City of Mexico” just in time to witness the ravages of the great epidemic of fever that afflicted that settlement as well as Rotterdam in the autumn of 1798. Dr. Wirth’s letter written on the 12th of September reports: “I lost at Mexico a few days ago two patients, both young. If the yellow fever ever derived its name from the color of the skin and the (whites) of the eye, I do not know what to call the Tertian* that carried off those two patients. They were so yellow that, although they laid amongst 5 or 6 sick with the ague, they would immediately strike the attention of the stranger on his entering the place where they laid. It must now be a great question from what it originated and will no doubt lead either to the foundation of Dr. Mitchell’s theory or else renew the old Doctrine of Contagion more permanently.” In the doctor’s letter of the 26th, he reported: “At Mexico they are in a deplorable condition.” and at the end of the letter added: “Captain Geerman wishes very much to have 60 D’s cash. Can have it? ”
The next spring Captain Geerman rented the saw mill at Mexico for one year from the first of March, doubtless, to saw out his own timber for ship building. By the late fall of 1799, one schooner had been built and it was sailed by the Captain with the help of Welcome Spencer, a 16 year old, to Kingston (Can.) for supplies.
*An intermittent fever
“The Great Calamity”
The tragedy of that voyage has come down to us in the very words of Mrs. Phineas Davis who lived in the Twentieth Town at the time. She called it “The Great Calamity:” “The Great Calamity came upon us in the fall of 1799. Capl. Geerman who lived near the lake built a small sloop or had one that he ran to Canada with for goods and provisions for the settlers. The last trip was late in the fall. He had only one young lad with him, Welcome Spencer, 16 years old. They were driven on shore on their way home and both lives and vessel were lost not far from the Galloup Islands. We did not hear from them for three weeks until it was reported that a light was seen on Stony Island. It was feared that Capt. Geerman was cast away on that Island and he and young Spencer might be there straving(sic.) to death. Sylvester Spencer, father to Welcome, Nathaniel Rood, Chipman Wheadon, Miles Doolittle and Green Clark started from Mexico Point to rescue these men if they could be found. After a long and fruitless search among the Islands and about the Lake shore they gave up all hopes and on their return home off against Stony Point there came up a blow that capsized their boat and they all found a watery grave. For days and days nothing was heard of them. After about three weeks one day Capt. Hamilton came along to our house with a hat in his hand. I asked him if he had heard anything from the men. “Yes’, said he, ‘they are all drowned; this is Mr. Wheadon’s hat.’ The boat was seen from the shore when it was upset. One man was seen to hang on to the boat, supposed to be Wheadon as he was a very smart and active man.”
While Mr. Scriba made some financial concessions for the benefit of the heirs of other victims, the correspondence reveals no such relief measures for Mrs. Geerman. The federal census rolls of 1800 list a Rebecca German aged between 26 and 45 living in the town of Mexico, with one girl child under ten years of age; but since this list is arranged alphabetically it is impossible to venture an opinion as to whether she still lived in Mexico city. The discrepancy in the spelling of the family name would be a natural error for Reuben Hamilton, the census enumerator, to make.
Fairfield Removes To Oswego
One immediate effect of the calamity was the removal of Archibald Fairfield from Mexico. Discouraged by conditions in the infant city, he moved to Oswego in 1799 or 1800 and there engaged in the forwarding business. According to Churchill’s “Land marks of Oswego County” he built a house in Oswego and there began keeping a tavern. The same authority states that Thomas Wentworth, in passing through Oswego on his way to Canada, saw the prospective value of the waterpower and other advantages of Oswego and obtained the refusal of water lots 5 and 6 with other real estate belonging to Archibald “Fairchild.” Mr. Wentworth returned in the spring of 1807 and completed the purchase and Mr. “Fairchild” thereupon moved to Sackett’s Harbor.
A letter in the Scriba papers corrects the “Landmarks” use of Fairchild for Fairfield and throws some incidental light on the Wentworth transaction and Mr. Fairfield’s financial relations with Mr. Scriba. Jonas Piatt, writing from Albany March 20, 1812 to George Scriba, quotes a legal document: “Supreme Court, George Scriba and John Meyer vs. Archibald Fairfield. Judgment for debt $2827.68; costs $14.44. Docketed 20 July 1801. Moore Atty.” Mr. Piatt wrote: “In investigating the title of Mr. Wentworth to lands in Oswego derived under Archibald Fairfield I find the above judgment upon which no satisfaction has been entered I presume it is satisfied but I do not know it. I request you to inform me as early as possible how that is. Piatt and Breese in 1806 obtained a judgment in your favor against Fairfield for about $1000 and my impression is that it was for all that he then owed you but of this I am not certain.”
Winch Removes to Salmon River
Of these residents of the City of Mexico the only one who was recalled by Mrs. Phineas Davis as living there on her arrival in 1799 was Benjamin Winch. In the census taken in 1801 in Mexico Mr. Winch had a household consisting of a boy under 10 and another over 16 and two girls under ten, while both he and his wife were listed as over 26 and under 45. Mr. Winch probably kept a tavern in the “City of Mexico” for in June 1799, Calvin Tiffany, a newcomer to the 20th town, “had a glass of grog at Winches,” at a cost of 6 pence. The Winch family moved at least once within the city limits. In 1799 it was voted by the town meeting that the meeting of 1800 should be held at the Winch home; but when town meeting time came, it was necessary to convene at their “former” home and adjourn to reconvene at their “present” home. Again in 1801 it was voted to meet with B. Winch the following spring “at the mouth of Salmon Creek.” But when 1802 came, the regular town meeting was not held, perhaps, because Mr. Winch by that time had left the city and established his home at the mouth of Salmoti river, where Churchill’s County History says he settled in 1801. Financial difficulties existing between Winch and Mr. Scriba may have led the former to leave the city of Mexico.
Winch’s Ground For Complaint
June 12, 1801 John Bloomfield wrote to Mr. Scriba: “I had no chance to make requested inquiry about Mr. Winch.” The next October 19th Benjamin Wright reported: “I was last week at Mexico and find some complaints against me which ought to be attended to in order to compleat settlement of all former matters. One Benjamin Winch took in 1797 a house lot in Mexico which was to be given free for the use of the twelve first who should build a house within one year on them of not less than twenty feet square. He has done this and I gave him a certificate thereof implying that he had taken Lot No. 11 in block 4 in the town (i. e. city) of Mexico and had complied with the conditions and was entitled to a deed. He informs me that he sent by Mr. Easton in December 1800 for a deed which was refused. Since Winch also took Block 24 on lease on terms as mentioned in your instructions of February 8, 1795 for this he wishes a lease. He also took parts of lots No. 6 and 9 in Town No. 20 on the West bank of Salmon Creek 42 acres. Of this he has cleared 6 or 7 acres and wishes a lease thereof agreeable to your instructions of Feb. 8, 1798.”
Early Settlers Leave
Again on March 20, 1804 Mr. Wright wrote: “The amount of the balance due from Mr. Winch to the store at Mexico is on the books 248 pounds 11 shillings 6 pence. As I expect you only wanted the amount due in order to know what sort of agreement to make him, having understood from Winch that he had some conversation about giving up his house and improvements with you last fall. Should you want the account in full, each article, I will give it at any time. I have from Mr. Meyer the amount of Winch’s account also with this alteration. Mr. Meyer on a settlement of my own account with the Oneida Company found a balance due me and he proposed I should take it out of some of the debts due at Mexico which I agreed to do and of Mr. Winch’s debt 73 pounds 14 shillings 10 1/2 pence was set off to me which would reduce the above to 174 pounds 16 shillings 7 1/2 pence. I have spoken to Winch about paying me the sum of 73 pounds 14 shillings 10 1/2 pence and he has objected and says he expected to make some agreement with you &c for the whole amount.”
The next that we read of Mr. Winch is in a letter from Mr. Bloomfield dated May 21, 1812: “Winch is yet at Salmon River but I have not been able to ascertain that he has any property that can be got hold of. I shall keep an eye upon him and if any chance offer to get the debt or part it, I shall embrace it .”
Winch First Pulaski Innkeeper
Mr. Winch was a surveyor who had worked on the original survey of Town 21, which constitutes the southern part of the present town of Richland. He later opened the first tavern in what is now the village of Pulaski where, it is said, the early settlers found comfort and refreshment from his “fire, venison, and whiskey.” Churchill’s County History is also authority for the statement that Benjamin Winch had “a vast amount of self esteem, with a sprinkling of good judgment and common sense, qualities which made him a counselor in legal affairs for his neighbors. He was known as ‘Pa Winch,’ a useful and prominent citizen.”
Of the four taxpayers in the City of Mexico in 1798, then, Fairfield and Winch had moved away by the end of 1801; Benjamin Wright was no longer there as resident agent; Benjamin Gilbert is unaccounted for, unless he was the Gilbert who was keeping tavern five miles north of Rotterdam in 1799. His name does not appear on the census rolls of 1800-1801.
Efforts for Revival
While conditions were obviously going from bad to worse in the infant city, there is one bit of evidence that efforts were being made to revive it. When the surveyor, David S. Bates, visited it in 1801, he wrote to Mr. Scriba on January 30th: “I am glad that the point is to be opened.” But the outlook was not encouraging. He continued: “The depredations which are daily committed there give one a very (unfortunate) idea. Every house is stripped and dismantled-every nail that could be pulled is drawn and (as) a finishing stroke they are now taking the bricks from the chimney, piles of which are placed on the creek ready for freight as soon as winter will permit.”
Naturally Mr. Bates did not consider this a condition favorable to future sales and wrote; “I was much gratified by information in yours of the Douglas’ intention to see this place and country-and immediately on the receipt of the intelligence wrote to them my candid opinion of this part of the world-generally -in order to keep alive the idea and impress on their mind the benefits they might receive of a removal to this country—they are men of character and enterprise and possess considerable capital and would locate here as well as any where else—but I am not sorry on the whole that they deferred their visit for the present situation of this country would disappoint them—which I would be sorry to have done. I wrote to Mrs. Bates to defer her removal until spring.”
New Survey by Bates
The chief purpose of Mr. Bates’ visit was to undertake a new survey for it was found that Benjamin Wright’s was not quite correct. In fact, Mr. Bates reported to Mr. Scriba: “A very grave inaccuracy has crept into the engraved map by what means I cannot tell. I was in doubt whether it was your intention to have the Town plot resurveyed together with the lots adjoining the 19th town or only to make such a survey as would ascertain the course of the creek alone— the latter of which I did. Owing to the situation of the creek being about 4 chains (264 feet) more to the East than the delineation on the engraved map. I did not lay down the street which runs north from the old mill called Bridge Mill St.” A map made about 1812 may reflect Mr. Bates’ survey for the old Bridge Mill Street is missing and the former Adams Street is labeled Bates Street.
Wright’s Faith Continued
The effort to revive the place resulted on August 1, 1801 in permission being given to one, Frantz Pertle, to build a grist mill on the dam where the sawmill was, to rent the saw mill, water, and adjacent timber. He was to keep the dam in repair, and not to destroy the timber. His building operations were not swift for on April 16, 1802 Mr. Bloomfleld wrote that very little progress had been made toward building a gristmill at Mexico and that there was little probability that there would be any business that year. Nor had anything been done toward repairing the saw mill. He declared that the want of these mills was a very great damage to the Scriba interests.
Benjamin Wright was not willing to give up his faith in a future city, at least not to the point of abandoning his rights in two city lots once promised him by the proprietor. On October 15, 1802 he wrote to Mr. Scriba: “Such a long time has elapsed you may probably have forgotten the verbal promise once made for two lots in the City of Mexico for myself—if you refer to the copy of your letter to me dated 11th March 1799 you will then see that you recognized it. I made choice of my lots—the numbers are 2 and 10 in Block 4. I expended about 200 dollars in making a cellar, well and in getting timber for a frame. If it is agreeable I should be glad of a deed of those two lots. It is very healthy in Mexico and Rotterdam this season.”
Loss of Store, the Miller and Landlord
The tavern may have been reopened by Mr. Pertle for a letter of December 22, 1803 says “Pertle had a wood chopper who lodged lately with him.” In the same letter a familiar note is struck: “Pertle tells me the snow has been three feet high lately.” It was about this time that Reuben Hamilton, sometimes called Captain and sometimes called Squire, moved into a house on the bluff overlooking the lake on the east side of the creek, not strictly in the city but certainly a close neighbor to it. He was still living on that site in a large house as late as 1806 when Silas Town, “the Spy,” died there.
The struggling city must have suffered some kind of an upheaval in 1804 for Mr. Scriba ordered the entire stock of the store to be sold at once for cash or shipped to New York, as he did at the same time in regard to the stocks at Rotterdam. We learn of one more, at least temporary, resident of the city at this time from a letter from Mr. Rohde, dated December 14, 1804 in Rotterdam: “Philander Davis who was sent out a long while on Salmon Creek and lost his new boat on Lake Ontario has been here in order to make hovels for his cattle.”
In 1805 Mexico lost its miller and probably its tavern keeper in person of Frantz Pertle who departed for parts unknown. Mr. Scriba was informed by Frederick Rohde: “Mr. F. K. Pertle removed from your house in Mexico and left it locked up and has left your property in charge of no person there. The report is that he has gone after liquor for the tavern but why, if that is the case, has he taken all his goods? I have not been informed where he has gone but expect into Canada. This information I had from Esq. Hamilton by letter to whom I shall write this morning and request him to take prudent care of your property left by Mr. P. until farther orders.”
Smuggling
The statement has often been repeated that Mexico City did come by 1804 to do more business than either the Oswego or the Utica of that day. Long continuing traditions of smuggling at this little, almost uninhabited harbor may account for this rush of shipping. Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 naturally increased this form of business for it irked the frontiersman to be forbidden to run over to Canada with his potash or salt and bring back needed supplies.
One way in which the smuggling was managed is revealed in letters to Mr. Scriba from his brother in law, Barnet Dundas of Rotterdam. On June 8, 1808 he wrote: “I was thinking I could get my salt round to Mexico Point provided I might be permitted to pass Oswego under cover of disposing of it to the people in Mexico and in the adjacent country—that if I could but do this and store it there and then send some person in whom I could confide over to Kingston and dispose of it, they to come and take it at Mexico where I should go to deliver and receive payment. Impressed with this idea but desirous to look before I leeped(sic) I agreed with Mr. Snow, an honest young man, to go in the first place to Oswego and there particularly ascertain whether the thing could be done without any risk of seizure and if it could, then pass over to Kington by way of Mexico and there inquire of the first and best houses whether, if the salt was brought to Mexico Point, they would send over and purchase it. He started a few days ago and I am now anxiously waiting his return.”
And in another letter Mr. Dundas wrote: “Hearing every day what number of boats have slipped over to Canada with potash and salt and of more, who, fearing to venture there, have gone to ports and places on our side from whence the Canadians come with their vessels and purchase paying the cash, I have been in formed salt has been sold at $15 a barrel but this I scarcely give credit to, but it will bring a good price, I believe pretty certain.”
Oswego Collector Makes Raid
Not all plans of the smugglers met with complete success for the customs officials in Oswego knew where to look for violators of the law. Mr. Bloomfield on September 15, 1808 reported one instance of official activities: “Mr. Burt* sent a detachment of soldiers last week to the mouth of Great Salmon Creek (Salmon River) and seized 30 bbls. of potash which was in a cellar and also took a new boat which had never been in the lake and carried the whole to Oswego. We are petitioning to have the embargo taken off in this County.”
Nor is it to be supposed that Collector Burt failed to raid Little Salmon Creek on his way to or from Great Salmon Creek. If the soldiers had looked in some of the Scriba houses, they might well have found smugglers for in his September 15th letter Mr. Bloomfield also said: “Your houses at Mexico Point are fast going to ruin and are in danger of being burned by careless and wicked boatmen who almost any day have fire in the same.” The same thing was going on two years later for on May 19, 1810 Mr. Bloomfield reported: “I have been applyed(sic) to for permission to go into your house at Mexico Point but having no orders from you to rent it could not give the permission required. I understand the boatmen as usual make it a stoping(sic) place and that they now, when they want wood for a fire, tare(sic) off the boards and are destroying the house at a most shameful rate.”
*Joel Burt was appointed March 3. 1S03, as the first collector of United States Customs at Oswego, the first fresh water port of entry in the United States. The soldiers he sent were undoubtedly a part of the garrison at Fort Ontario.
Dance in Mexico City
Yet there was enough life left in the settlement for a dance to be held there in 1810 when young Meres Wyman, son of Capt. Gardner Wyman of the town of New Haven, thought that he’d like to take his girl to the party. He lacked a horse to take her in proper style; but at last he located one at Mexico Four Corners (Colosse), nine miles away. Such was his devotion to the girl that he walked from near the present village of New Haven to Colosse, borrowed the horse, and rode to Joseph Boynton’s, some 2 miles west of New Haven village. He mounted one of the Boynton girls behind him on the saddle and thus they rode to Mexico Point and the dance. After some hours of dancing, he took Miss Boynton home, rode to Colosse, returned the horse, and walked back to his home to New Haven, a round trip of fifty miles. Mr. Wyman died in 1884 in his ninety-fifth year.
The Roberts Family
It was in the autumn of 1819 that Joel Roberts evinced an interest in land at the Point. Mr. Bloomfield wrote on September 11th: “Joel Roberts who is on No. 10 (20th town) was with me a few days ago and enquired what you was going to do with the Point and appeared to wish to go there. I advised him to go by way of Rotterdam and see you on the subject.” Evidently Mr. Roberts did so and was successful in his negotiations with Mr. Scriba for he and his family were living there on the east side of Salmon Creek during the War of 1812 and their apple orchard is remembered as standing on the bluff by descendants now living. Perhaps the Roberts family took over the house once occupied by Reuben Hamilton for the latter’s name had disappeared from the town records after 1808.
It was one day during the war that young Mrs. Roberts saw two British sailors row ashore from their warship anchored in the bay and after they landed and played a while with her two year old son, Orville, they carried off the boy to the ship. After two hours of the utmost anxiety the mother saw young Orville set ashore by the sailors, dressed in a miniature uniform of a British tar. Some idea of the baby’s appearance can be gained from the description of the prescribed uniform then worn by the ratings of the British navy—a blue jacket, scarlet or buff waistcoat, checked or striped shirt, white or striped trousers, long in the legs and taut at the hips and ankles, a kerchief, black or brightly colored tied loosely around the neck with two corners hanging down outside the jacket behind to protect it from the chafing of the pigtail. The round hat was of straw, leather, or tarred canvass(sic), turned up at the sides with a color lining and a ribbon with the name of the ship painted on it. In such a gay uniform, made by the ship’s tailor, little Orville returned, home clutching a ship’s biscuit in each chubby hand.
Vera Cruz
Evidently Mr. Scriba, brooding over the obvious failure of all previous efforts to develop his City of Mexico, determined on new advertising to resuscitate a dying, if not already dead, settlement. On March 14, 1812 Mr. Bloomfield, in replying to this suggestion wrote: “In reply to the plan of disposing of lots at Mexico Point, I should say it was very proper but I think it would not be best to go to the expense of advertizing(sic) the same until the survey is made. I cannot consider this situation so important as to make it proper to advertize(sic) so extensively as you contemplate. The village of Oswego on one side and the village contemplated at the mouth of Great Salmon Creek on the other, (Port Ontario) the harbour of both having greater depth of water, will undoubtedly give then a preference. I was informed by Mr. Wright yesterday, upon my inquiry of him respecting the contemplated village at the mouth of Great Salmon Creek, that the ground intended for a Village was to be laid out this spring, that only one settler is there. I should advise not to advertize(sic) the lots for sale until the survey may be completed but in the meantime make it known in No. 19 and 20 that they will be for sale as soon as the survey is made in the spring. I should think in order to give a spring to the settlement of the village it would be best to put lots very low for a few of the first settlers, say $25 on a two years credit without interest. This price could be increased as the population increased. In order to make the village grow rapidly there would be wanted a man of property who shall be very much interested in its growth. He ought to be able to build saw and gristmills, fulling mills and have also a carding machine; if such a man was there, there is no doubt of its rapid growth. I shall defer advertising in the Utica papers till I hear from you again on this subject. The form of the village I think a good one; the size of the lots are the same as in this village (Rome) except they are here two feet deeper.”
Scriba Sought Land Boom
Mr. Scriba already had had printed handbills dated March 9, 1812, advertising a “Plan for settling Mexico Harbour on Lake Ontario, into a Village, by the name of ‘Vera Cruz.’ ” This appears to be the first use of the name Vera Cruz for the former City of Mexico. The name was taken from Mr. Scriba’s name for the 19th town, in whose lots 24-27 the settlement was to be developed. It was on October 1st 1813 that lot 3 of the 20th town with its 153 1/4 acres was formally added to the village’s acreages bringing the total to 605 1/4 acres. The virtues of the site were set forth in the language of a land boom designed to catch the unwary buyer. In part the hand bill read: “The Village, from its eligible situation, will have the command of a considerable part of the trade with the Lakes; its harbour is safe and good—the timber for shipbuilding near and handy; in quality exceeded by none. It will have the advantage of two markets—that with Montreal and Upper Canada, and with New York; its situation is about an equal distance from Montreal with that of New York. From Utica 65 miles, and only 22 miles from Oneida Lake; the inland navigation to Albany and New York, taking in its course Rome, Utica and Schenectady. This village, being the greater part insulated by a large Creek and the Lake, affords an inexhaustible reservoir for the best kinds of fish of which the Salmon fishery on that Lake is of great importance, and may become a considerable branch of commerce for the future. The materials for building are of the best quality at and near the place as, excellent quarry stone, clay both for brick and earthen ware, and the best timber is not only handy, but may almost be had for the labour. Saw mills are in the neighborhood, and excellent mill seats on Salmon Creek, on which extensive works may be erected.”
For Churches And Schools
Another paragraph reads: “The proprietor gives in trust to three respectable citizens in the County of Oneida, seventy five acres of land, within one mile of this village, to be solely appropriated in manner following: that is to say, fifty acres thereof towards the support of a clergyman of the first Christian congregation who shall build a respectable house of worship in that village; and twenty five acres shall be towards the support of a school; both tracts of land to remain forever for these purposes, and a deed of trust be given for the same.” The final paragraph reads: “To point out all the advantages in detail, would to many who are unacquainted with the situation, appear exaggerated; therefore, suffice to say, that in the month of June next, the sale of lots for building of divers dimensions will begin in that village, at moderate prices and upon easy terms. The plan and map, with the condition of sale, will be exhibited at the time.”
On March 23rd, Mr. Bloomfield acknowledged the receipt of the advertising matter: “By last mail I received the advertizing for the sale of Mexico Point or Vera Cruz, two of which I have sent to Mexico, one to Oswego and one to Volna* or Oswego Falls.”
Whether the result of the advertising or not cannot be said, but on January 14, 1813, Mr. Scriba was notified of a “prospect”. David S. Bates wrote: “Esquire Williams informed me that he has begun to prepare stuff for an establishment at Vera Cruz, that he intends, if no untoward accident interfered to go on in the spring.” But no deed for land in the village sold to the Squire is recorded.
A revised form of the handbill put out in 1814* however, refers prospective buyers to David Williams “in the village,” indicating that he had made the proposed move. This new advertizing embodied the features of the 1812 edition, but added other advantages possessed by Vera Cruz, as the proposed establishment of iron and glass works and the fact that the village was situated almost in the center of the populous towns of Scriba, New Haven, Mexico and Richland.
From Book A of Deeds page 61, it is learned that David S. Bates himself acquired title to “lot No. 4, in block 1 on the west side of George Street 66 by168 feet in the Village of Vera Cruz on Lake Ontario and Salmon Creek otherwise known as Mexico Point or Mexico Harbour situated in the town of New Haven.”
*Volney
Bates Colosse Landlord
This deed was given in 1816 when Mr. Bates was planning to retire from the landlordship of a tavern in Colosse which he is said to have done in 1817. He continued to live in this part of the country, for in 1821 he was listed as a member of the Civil Society of the Presbyterian church in Prattville, and in 1822 he received a deed for a lot in Colosse.
In addition to the Scriba road leading from Rotterdam to “Mexico City,” another road running from Oswego to Vera Cruz is shown on the map of 1812. Signs of its existence nearer to the lake shore than the route of the present “North Road” are still found on the Frank V. Stevens farm and adjoining farms in the town of New Haven, in the cellar holes and clumps of Bouncing Bets and Sweet Briar that mark the sites of long forgotten homes and gardens.
Effects of War and Destruction of Vera Cruz
The War of 1812 and the British control of the lake resulted in the falling off of all migration to this part of the country and even in the departure of some who had already settled here. It is easy to imagine what effect enemy landings for plunder and burning in the little settlements all along the lake shore and the capture of Fort Ontario must have had on the inhabitants, if any, of the City of Mexico or the Village of Vera Cruz.
Articles in the Mexico Independent of seventy or seventy-five years ago on the Mexico Vera Cruz settlement say that it rapidly declined after the war and that fire wiped it out in 1820.* The origin of such a fire is easy to be deduced from the careless use of the old houses by the “wicked boatmen.” In 1870 it was said that all that could then be seen of the old settlement was a cellar hole west of the creek near an apple tree where the creek emptied into the lake, that the dam for the mills a little south of the Texas Hotel** had been washed away many years before in the spring high water.
One of those who played around that cellar as a child assures us that no trace of it is now to be found. It may even be beneath the waters of the lake, for waves and ice have greately(sic) changed the shore line while the creek has cut new channels through the beach, many times probably, since 1820.
And so ended George Scriba’s dream city, Mexico, the metropolis of the lakes. But perhaps ghosts of the past may walk by night in the civic center on Spy Island or enjoy the vistas of Professor Casey’s gardens, like the gardens that might have been developed on their own home lots or in the public parks of their city, if the dream of the proprietor had come true.
*It was after this destructive fire that the name Texas was given to the new Post Office opened in that portion of the former settlement that still endured. While the Post Office long ago was abandoned its name is perpetuated by the hamlet of the same name.
**The Texas Hotel stood about on the site now (in 1944) occupied by the Spy Island Restaurant at Texas. It was located slightly to the east of the road which leads into the west side of Mexico Point from the main highway passing through.
Et nunc manet Ardea nomen sed fortuna fuit.
(And now Ardea remains a name, but its fortune/glory is no more”.)
