of land facing east on Buffalo Street. Isaac built his first house near the Minnekime home, and later (sometime between 1825-1830) erected the first brick house in the village. (It is now owned and occupied by Miss Lillian Ribbel.) This home and the old brick office that stood about where the Gowanda Cooperative Saving and Loan Association building now stands, were made of bricks manufactured in a brick-yard at the foot of Hospital Hill.

Other old houses of this period include: the Maltbie home on Maltbie Heights; the old Starr home at the head of East Main Street; Halsey Stearns home on West Main Street ( now owned by Mrs. A. Musacchio); the Wells home at the top of Stafford Hill, once a tavern run by Pete Hardy; the old Dan Allen home at the top of Snyder Hill on Beach Street, Hidi, ( the first frame house in town of Persia); the Eagle Hotel corner of Buffalo and Perry Streets; and Dr. Field's home on Water Street.

Ahaz Allen was commissioned to build a road to Otto in 1830. There had previously been only a footpath from Hidi to ''Forty'' on Darby Flats and a ford had to be taken across the south branch of the Cattaraugus. Irving

was a port of call for lake boats at that time and many of the supplies needed by the Lodi and Hidi villagers had to be brought from there. It was still a heavily forested country.

Sometime in 1830 or 1831, a young man by name of Horace Greeley walked from North East, Pa., to Lodi and sought employment in the newspaper office of G. N. Starr. The youth limped into the village with a small bundle tied to a stick thrown over his shoulder.

Young Horace Greeley stopped at the old , Brick Tavern on Buffalo Street. After obtaining work with Mr. Starr he moved into the first Starr home on West Main Street. Mrs. Starr remarked in later years that she little realized at the time she was entertaining a genius unawares, but she did know that he was a very eccentric and trustworthy young man. For the duration of the 6 months he stayed in the village, he worked as a typesetter in the printing office and boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Starr. After work, he would eat his supper, go to his room and study by candlelight until the early hours of the morning. This was strange behav-

Page Thirty

ior in a village where all the good people went to bed about eight or nine o'clock.

The printing office was located in the basement of the little brick office on West Main Street, on the Richard Wilhelm lot (between the Loan building and Gulley's Drug Store.) Not many years after his sojourn in Lodi, Mr. Greeley founded the New York Tribune and obtained national fame; For years his paper was the most popular and had the largest subscription of any newspaper that came to the village postoffice.

Ralph Plumb purchased a great deal of virgin pine timber on the Indian reservation. This timber was converted into lumber and shipped from Irving. He also had extensive land and timber holdings north and east of the village.

Phineas Spencer was postmaster from 1832 to 1839. To avoid confusion with another postoffice in the state of the same na.me, the official designation was changed from Lodi to ''Persia'' in 1835. A new cemetery was purchased on the northeast corner of Buffalo Street and Sand Hill, which was the village· cemetery until 1867.

The Presbyterian Church was built in 1835

and the Methodist Church was erected about the same time. Mormon meetings were being held in the school house on Buffalo Street. The Ogden Land Company bought the Buffalo Creek Reserve, the Indians removing to the Cattaraugus Reservation.

It was a period of considerable industrial and mercantile development.Job Davis started his blacksmith shop in 1835. Today, his grandson, Frank M. Davis, carries on the same business in. the original building. Anson Alverson had a pail and tub factory. Millen T. Hill opened a lumber mill on Thatcher Brook. In 18 3 7 Elias Hall started his sash and blind factory at Jamestown and Walnut Streets, which has been continued by n1embers of his family ever since and is now the Forbush Lumber Company. Porter Welch, who came to Lodi in 1831, had a large store on the southeast corner of Jam es town and Water Streets. Phineas Spencer bought the saw- mills and grist mill of Ahaz Allen at Hidi in 1833.

Amasa Chaffee sold his interest in the Chaffee & Camp Wool Carding factory to Ralph Plumb. Plumb & Camp put up a three-

Page Thirly-one

story woolen factory, which was then the largest business in town. The newspaper published by G. N. Starr was bought by Edwin Hough in 1838 who changed it to the "Freeman & Messenger'' in 1839.

James Locke.was born in Cayuga County in 1802. He learned the carpenter trade and at the age of 22 he was engaged by Isaac Skinner of Buffalo to build a saw-mill at Skinner's Hollow, nine miles southeast of Lodi.

After completing the saw-mill, he returned to Buffalo until 182 7 when he decided to go into business for himself. The plow had recently come into use and he decided to go into plow manufacture at Fredonia. A few months later he moved to Lodi ( 18 2 8).

Here he bought about an acre and a quarter of land. of Edwin Farnsworth on Water Street, for which he paid $72.00. This he purchased in the following manner; $12.00 cash, February 1, 1829; $24.00 in wheat or corn, February 1, 1830; $36.00 in oxen not over six years old, August 1830, with interest on each installment. As will be seen by this transaction, very little money changed hands at this time.

Upon his original site and about 40 feet from the present location of the old Locke

homestead, 77 Water Stre.et, he built a small shop and foundry. The blast furnace was operated by horse power. Here he manufactured the castings, made the wooden beams and handles and assembled the plows. He found a ready ·market as the nearest manufacturers of plows were more than a hundred miles away.

His business soon demanded more power and better facilities and in 1833, he bought a site across the creek on the Erie county side. He obtained a water privilege from Ralph Plumb, and formed a partnership with John Vosburg who had moved from Ellicottville to Lodi in 1825 and engaged in blacksmithing. Thus the Lock & Vosburg plow works occupied the site that in later years was the location of the Gowanda Foundry. The development of the plow business was another indication of the industrial growth of the 18 30-1840 period.

The town was also gaining in municipal interest. Chaffee & Welch completed a water system in 1835, the water being conveyed b,y pump-logs from outlying springs to the village. The company had 5 7 customers. Judge

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