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HISTORIAN’S CORNER
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PHELPS HISTORY
[From "200 Years of the Town of Phelps", Chapter 3]
By John M. Parmelee
JOHN DECKER ROBISON
The town now known as Phelps was Township 11 in the First Range of the Phelps-Gorham Purchase tract. First settler in this township was John Decker Robison, born in Amcrum, Livingston Manor, on May 11, 1742. Amcrum was located about 15 miles south of Hudson, New York, and about 8 miles from the New York-Massachusetts line. It was part of Albany County at the time, now Columbia County. Livingston Manor, not to be confused with the Catskill community of the same name, was a large estate of many thousand acres owned by the aristocratic Livingston family. The farms in the Manor were leased to tenants - the only type of feudal system to be attempted in the Untied States.
Robison became a manger or overseer of some of the Manor estate. He inherited or acquired by labor or business some property of his own, as he was a man of considerable means while still living in Columbia County, where he was listed as a captain, farmer and carpenter. As a youth of 14 or 15, he served in the French and Indian wars. Later, after he was married and had several children, he also served in the Revolution.
No record tells just how Robison became interested in the Phelps-Gorham Purchase enterprise. Perhaps he was disenchanted with the Livingston feudal system. He may have heard that Livingston had organized a group of leasers (Livingston-Benton Company of 1787-1788) who met in Hudson to negotiate a lease from the Indians of land belonging to Massachusetts. One record suggests that Robison had heard of the wonderful land in the Genesee Country and that a man named Nathaniel Sanborn was driving 100 head of cattle to Geneva for Oliver Phelps. Robison told Sanborn that if he would take several of his (Robison's) cattle along, his son James would help drive the cattle. The deal was made, for James, then 16 years old, was hired by Sanborn to assist in driving 100 head of cattle to Geneva - the cattle to be presents to the Indians there as part of Oliver Phelps' negotiations with them for title to the Phelps-Gorham lands.
Phelps had started out for Geneva with a large party which included surveyors, General Chapin and William Walker, the local agent of surveys and sales. The party left Schenectady on May 8, 1788, but did not get to Geneva until the first of June. Sanborn and James Robison arrived in Geneva with the cattle just two days later. They had had to build rafts attached to boats to carry the cattle across Cayuga Lake a few at a time.
The next day, John D. Robison also arrived in Geneva, having gone by boat instead of overland. Soon after his arrival, John D. selected and purchased a farm from the Phelps-Gorham tract, located as Lot 14, Township II, First Range, said to contain 320 acres. Through an error in the survey, a mistake of 170 acres was made in Robison's favor. So, for his payment of $100, the wholesale price of the land, he actually received 490 acres. The payment was actually made by Robison's work as a carpenter, erecting the first frame building in Canandaigua - a dwelling and office for William Walker. This building stood on the corner of Main street and Railroad Avenue, southwest of where the Hotel Canandaigua later stood.
The lot selected by Robison was an excellent site, located at the junction of Flint Creek and Canandaigua Outlet, what is now the eastern part of the Village of Phelps. The land started in the south of Griffith Road, running north through the alleyway just west of the Town Hall, down Exchange Street to a point beyond the White Road including 200 acres north of the Outlet, then east to the eastern line of the Bement property.
In the fall of 1788, after completing the structure in Canandaigua, John D. and son James returned to Columbia County to prepare to move the family in the spring of 1789. In March 1789 they left Copake, near Hudson, New York, and went as far as Schenectady by wagon. Here they acquired a large flat boat, large enough to hold the family of seven children, the father and mother, some household goods and food. They hired some help to row or pole the boat against the current of the Mohawk River. At Little Falls, both boat and goods had to be conveyed on land around the falls. The next portage place was near Herkimer, where the Mohawk River became too shallow. This portage of about one mile took them to Wood Creek which emptied into Oneida Lake. At this portage, they met many other families headed for Geneva or the Genesee Country. After a 3-day delay, they started down Wood Creek, finding the going much easier on the downstream stretch. They crossed Oneida Lake to the outlet, then went by way of the Oswego River, the Seneca River, the Clyde River and finally the Canandaigua Outlet. They made landing up a small brook near the center of Robison's land. There they pitched a tent on May 14, 1789, which was to be their home until they could get a log cabin built on the same site.
Nine days after the Robisons came, Pierce and Elihu Granger, aged 20 and 18 years, respectively, Nathaniel Sanborn and his brother-in-law Mr. Gould arrived from Suffield, Massachusetts. Elisha Granger, father of Pierce and Elihu, bought the lot east of the Robisons. In august, Robison and Sanborn went by boat to German Flats, near Herkimer, to buy seed wheat and to bring back a wagon which had been left in Rome. This was the first wagon in this section. In the fall, the Granger brothers, Sanborn and Gould returned east, leaving the Robisons the only residents in the town of Phelps during that winter. John D. Robison had a family of 12 children - 2 by his first wife and 10 by his second wife. Seven children came with them from Columbia County, three were born in Phelps. Harry H. Robison, born in 1792, was the first white child born in the Town of Phelps.
Robison built the house which later became the Bement property, now the home of Marion Bement. He later bought another 600 acres of land bordering Guaranquer River in Arcadia Township. This was divided among his sons Peter, James and Harry. Joseph Woodhull, who married Robison's daughter Catry, had a 596 acre tract of land in Arcadia on Mud Creek. Robison, after his wife's death and after his children had moved away, wanted Woodhull and Catry to take over his original farm and move into his house with him. So, Woodhull sold his farm and moved to Robison's, where they stayed until his death on January 18, 1826. Woodhull finally sold the farm to Russell Bement in 1833.
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