Westfield High School - Prospectus Yearbook (Westfield, NY)

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FOREWORD TO FOREWORD The pages of the 1944 Porta-Via have been faithfully devoted to Westfield history. It has been our aim to achieve an historic comparison between the earliest and most recent classes to attend Westfield High School. Just as each of us today is making history, in his own individual manner, as well as conjoined in groups of his contemporary comrades, so did our fathers and their fathers before them record a life, perpetually changing, perpetually progressing, which we of the present and our posterity will use as guide-posts and markers upon the crooked road of human progress. Without generations of experience behind us to light the path ahead, to point out the wrong from the right, we should not have been so far advanced as we are today. It is to the unselfish, stalwart men of a century past, who had the desire and perseverance to bring education to children of the frontier, despite the many hardships of pioneer life, that we owe our right to enjoy the wealth of opportunity which education affords today and to publish this annual in their commemoration. Early History of Chautauqua County Before the land¬ ing of the Pilgrims, the French, m 1615, led by Champlain, had penetrated hun¬ dreds of miles into the wilderness and reached the distant shores of Lake Hur¬ on. The French ex¬ plorer learned there that the country southeast of Lake Erie, where lies Chautauqua Coun¬ ty, was the home of the Eries. Champlain’s interpreter, Ettiene Brule, had traversed the wilderness of Western New York and visited the country of the Eries and Carantouan, their principal village. In 1656, in a fierce war with the Iroquois, the Eries were destroyed and ceased to exist as a nation. Their towns, of which we find numerous remains in our county, were devas¬ tated or went to decay. LaSalle, the most remarkable explorer that ever visited this continent, on his voyage west¬ ward in the “Griffin,” the first vessel to spread its sails to the breezes of Lake Erie, passed in sight of the forest-covered hills of Chautauqua in 1769. Journeying westward from Onondaga County in New York to the headwaters of the Ohio River, LaSalle came within view of Chau¬ tauqua Lake. At that time there must have remained many evidences of the great calamity that had befallen the Eries—abandoned corn¬ fields grown up to briars and saplings, fallen palisades—sites of their longhouses and now and then bones of a murdered Erie. Prior to and at the time of the destruction of the Eries there dwelt around Lake Erie several nations of Indians. The valley of the Mohawk and the country westward in the state of New York was the territory of the Iroquois or Six Nations. Along the northern shore of Lake Erie and extending east of the Niagara River toward the Iroquois was the country of the Neutral nation. North of the Eries and be¬ tween Lake Erie and the dominions of the Iroquois dwelt the Wenrohronons. Among the many evidences that the earth¬ works in Chautauqua County are remains of the conquered Eries is that furnished by an ancient French map of Frankuelin, dated 1684. Upon several old French maps Chautauqua Lake is called Oniassont and the people who inhabited the region, Ontarononas. From the destruction of the Eries until its settlement by pioneers of the Holland Purchase Company, Chautauqua county was the do¬ main of the Senecas, most western of Iroquois nations. Sixty years after the death of LaSalle, France and England were bound in earnest contention respect¬ ing boundary lines between their pos¬ sesions in America. Chautauqua was in¬ cluded in the region claimed by both France and Eng¬ land. As a conse¬ quence of this ir was soon to be near to prominent mili¬ tary operations and in close proximity to important lines 4

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THE Class of 1944 Westfield Academy and High School WESTFIELD, N. Y. presents The Historical Issue of the P O R T A - V I A

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of communication and rude military highways leading from distant mili¬ tary posts in this then interminable western wilderness. In 1749 the French sent out from LaChine, Ca¬ nada, Captain Bien¬ ville de Celeron to take formal posses¬ sion of the disputed territory in the name of France and to warn English traders out of the country. The expedition ascended the Niagara River, entered Lake Erie, and coasted along its southern shore. It arrived at Chatakoin portage, now Barcelona, at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, marked upon Celeron’s map as the river “Aux Pommes” (Apple River). After a difficult journey Celeron and his men arrived at the mouth of the Great Miami. He then ascended the river and re¬ turned to Canada, burying leaden plates at the mouth of the Great Miami, at the famous rock below Erankhn known as “Indian God,” and at the site which is now Warren, Pennsylvania. One of these plates contains the earliest record that we have of the name, Chautauqua. The voyage of Celeron, the building of the Erench road from the site of Erie to that of Waterford, Pennsylvania, and the building of the Portage Road from the site of Barcelona to that of Mayville are important events in the history of Westfield and Chautauqua County. The Portage road was cut by the Erench twenty years before the battle of Lexington. It was the first work performed by civilized hands within the limits of Chautauqua County of which we are cognizant. The Marquis du Quense in the year 1752 dispatched from Montreal an advanced force of two hundred-fifty men under Barbeer for Chautauqua with orders to erect a fort there. They marched to Eort Niagara, then pursued their way by water along the shore of Lake Erie arriving at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek in April of 1753. Where the city of Erie now stands, the Erench built Eort Presque Isle. Eight days before the Erench departed from Presque Isle, Chevalier Le Crake arrived from Canada with orders from DuQuense to erect two forts in Chautauqua, one at Barcelona and the other at the end of the Portage Road on Chautauqua Lake. On October 30, 1753, a force of Frenchmen under Captain Deneman arrived at Barcelona and cut a wagon road over the carrying place from Barcelona to Chautauqua Lake. THE FOUNDING OF WESTFIELD With the scrutinizing eyes of a prospective settler, ambitious young James McMahan visited the region around Westfield early in 1801. Struck by the natural beauty and by the rich, fertile soil of the country, he purchased ten acres of land and thereby instigated the settlement of Westfield. McMahan eagerly set to work clearing his land and building a cabin at the crossing of the trail between Erie and Buffalo by the old Portage trail, which was known as the “Cross Roads.” Several years later when other homesteads had been estab¬ lished in the vicinity, McMahan also built the first post office at the crossing of the trails. Following closely in the footsteps of his pioneer friend, Edward McHenry built a home of logs at the crossroads, where he opened the first tavern in the county. It was there that the town’s earliest settlers gathered to discuss the foremost topics of the day and to hold their town meetings and elections. There, too, in 1802, John McHenry was the first white child to be born in the village. After the first few years settlers came rapidly to this paradise for farmers and trappers, many of them from Pennsylvania and the New England states. More and more land was cleared from the deep forests; gram became both plentiful and cheap. As the town itself sprang up quickly out of the wilderness, so also did the various, inevit¬ able enterprises of civilization rise. At first the only mills in Chautauqua County were crude “Hominy Mills,” but before very long Westfield was not without its own saw and gristmills— carding and cloth dressing mills. Most of these were built along the banks of the Chautauqua Creek, and the remains of one or two are still to be found, lying in the forgotten ashes of yesterday. A tannery and a granite and marble works were also erected not far from the stream. The latter was established by Samuel Nixon in 1846 and is still m operation under the control of his grandson bearing the same name. James McClurg built the Westfield House, where, in 1829, the first authentic town meeting was held. McClurg, with the aid of Thomas Campbell, also built up several of the town’s Important business blocks. In 1864, at consider¬ able expense, Allen Wright organized the “Westfield pa- 5