excerpted from "Ye Old Log School House Tymes and Pioneer Sketches"
by Jno. S. Minard, published in Cuba, NY 1905 -- Note - spelling is
original.
Jonathan Thatcher. A CHARACTER
The pioneers of Western New York were not all saints by any means. Far
from it. It may be also, that they averaged no better than the present
population, if indeed as well. It must be confessed there were many extraordinary
characters among the settlers. Some had made records as Indian fighters,
some had been captives by the Indians and had been assimilated, as it were,
into their tribes, and given names like Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish.
Some perhaps had been tories and took part with Indians and British in
the Revolution, and it is barely possible that the grand old woods furnished
asylum for an occasional horse thief who was wanted in staid old Connecticut
or Vermont, or villains of deeper dye who had fled from justice and sought
refuge in this new country. Another class who, if not very many, were numerous
enough to supply every settlement with more than was wanted, were a lot
of ne'er-do-wells who were not noted for piety, cleanliness nor industry,
nor had been famous for bloody encounters with the Indians. Some of this
class were trappers and made a precarious livelihood by trading skins for
powder and clothing, and some were farmers in a small way. All of them
however were rovers and idlers. Of this class was Jonathan Thatcher, as
curious an old fellow as ever roamed through the woods. At various times
he lived in Hume, Caneadea and Belfast, Allegany County, N. Y., but his
fame covered all the upper Genesee country and spread considerably east
and west: and from 1835 to 1865 he was more generally known all over the
territory indicated, than any other man. He was the country's most extraordinary
character. It was his habit to roam about constantly. Indeed, such was
his reputation in this respect, that a man once offered to make a wager
that he could start four men at the same time, from the corners at Fillmore,
each taking a different road, and that each of them before going two miles,
would meet Jonathan Thatcher, and that as many as two of them would meet
Betsey his wife, trudging along behind, and no one dared to take the bet!
Jonathan had no remarkable talents. He certainly was not thrifty. And he
was not over particular about his dress. No one ever presumed to call Jonathan
a dude, and the one thing he hated above everything else, was soap. When
soap was mentioned it would nearly throw him into convulsions. He didn't
like it hard or soft, hot or cold, white or brown, plain or colored. He
said it didn't agree with him, but he couldn't prove it, for no one knew
of his ever trying it. No one who ever saw this wild man of the woods was
able to forget him; and those to whom Jonathan did not appear in their
dreams were counted lucky. Thatcher is supposed to be one of the twenty
historic families which, tradition says, an enterprising land speculator
introduced as settlers in a certain township on the Holland Purchase, as
a condition of a bargain with Joseph Ellicott, the land agent at Batavia,
where by he was to have a large tract of land at greatly reduced prices.
The settlers moved in, the colony was established, and Ellicott sent a
man to investigate. This man reported that he found a colony of twenty
adult settlers, heads of families, but "if hell were raked with a fine
toothed comb, another such lot could not be found". Jonathan had two brothers,
Mike and Jim, but neither achieved the peculiar fame that he enjoyed. As
to the ancestry of the family, nothing trustworthy was ever learned. Mike
however one day, inadvertently let in a little light on this interesting
branch of the subject, but only in a negative way. A neighbor, who was
something of a wag, one day said: "Mike there's a bad story started about
you. It will hurt you if you can't stop it, for people are beginning to
believe it". "What is it?" inquired Mike. "Why" said the neighbor, "they
are saying that there is human blood in your veins". "It's a lie, an infernal
lie" said Mike, "and I can prove it. I can lick the man that said it, too.
There a'int a d--d drop of human blood in me, and never was". Jonathan
was a patriot. He said he was at Lundy's Lane and fought and bled, and
came near dying for his country. When living near Belfast, Jonathan had
a canoe, and one winter it was frozen in the ice. A great thaw came on.
The ice breaking, Thatcher sought to secure his boat, when the swelling
current moved the large cake of ice, in which the canoe was frozen, away
from its moorings, and he was soon out on the swiftly running flood at
the mercy of the elements. There was a dam a few miles below. Jonathan
knew It, and was fully aware of the gravity of the situation. As he neared
it, it is said he fervently prayed to God for deliverance and promised
never to do another wicked thing. The dam was reached, the shock encountered
in making the passage parted the canoe from the ice, Thatcher clinging
to it with all the tenacity of a cat. By the help of some people who saw
him he was rescued from a watery grave. It was afterward told by some of
his rescuers, that as soon as Jonathan was thoroughly assured of the fact
that he was on terra firma, and safe, he exclaimed that "it was the d--dest
flood he ever got into". A whole volume might be written of anecdotes and
adventures, reminiscent of Jonathan Thatcher, but for the purpose of this
sketch the foregoing must suffice. As the years passed Jonathan and his
wife grew old and became debilitated and, having no visible means of support,
they were, against Jonathan's strong protests, taken "over the hill to
the poorhouse". Their stay there was short. Subjected to a bath, housed
in warm rooms, clad with clean rainment and supplied with wholesome, nourishing
food, the change was so abrupt and decided, the shock so great, their systems,
which had survived so many years of the old regime, gave way. Succumbing
to the new, and what the world calls better conditions, their natures withstood,
for a few days only, the effects of the shock, and they passed away. No
imposing shaft marks the resting place, nor gilded mausoleum received the
remains of Jonathan Thatcher, yet his name will be handed down to, and
his memory kept green by, generations yet unborn, who will gaze with a
sort of listless admiration on the proud columns which bear the names of
those of whom they have never heard, and are hardly curious enough to inquire.
Note-This chapter appeared some years since in the Rochester Post Express,
and is the joint production of Mr. W. H. Samson, the managing editor of
that paper, and the author: the first part of it being by Mr. Samson.
Thanks to Richard Frisbie of Hope
Farms Press for permission to use this selection.
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