Articles

Many of the inhabitants of Cadiz will remember the little white house and shop at the crossing of Main Street and the Ischua Creek in the Village of Cadiz where for twenty years lived and wrought William B. White, the blacksmith.

Abolitionist

George Lenoard White was born in Cadiz on September 20, 1838.  His father Willam was the village blacksmith and his small white house and shop were located on Main Street at the crossing of Ischua Creek.  His father was a devoted Baptist who often led village prayers.  He believed in the Temperance Movement (prohibiting the use of alcoholic beverages) and was proud to proclaim himself as an Abolitionist.

Benjamin Howard was born in 1817 in Schoharie County and first came here in 1842.  He settled in an old hotel on the northwest corner of the crossroads at Cadiz.  For several years he ran this hotel.  This was a highly traveled stagecoach route for stages between Pike and Ellicottville and from Olean Points to Buffalo.  His house was one of the principal stops along the way.  It was not unusual for 40 to 50 teams loaded with goods to stop there daily.

It was April 13, 1820, when the town of Yorkshire was formed and the first town meeting was scheduled to "be held at the house of Robert Steele, in said town, on the first Tuesday of March next".  At this meeting on March 6, 1821, town officers were elected to the positions of supervisor, town clerk, assessors, collector, commissioners of highways, overseers of the poor, and commissioners of common school. The first supervisor elected was Samuel G. Sulton.

Lydon prospered and peaked about 1870. Farmers owned their farms and had money in the bank. Cheese factories were busy and even a narrow gauge railway skirted the eastern end of Lyndon on its way from Rushford to Cuba. Then the decline set in as settlers, particularly their children, began to move further west to more productive land. The lure of steady income from the growing industrialization of the country drew even more people away from the farms.

The following report is a reprint of news that happened one hundred years ago in September 1913. This article was taken from the Randolph Register dated September 25, 2013:

Locating information related to old buildings in townships is very difficult.  The Fish Hill Tavern in the Town of Mansfield has held interest for many years as one of the resting stops on the Old Chautauqua Road.  This article from the viewpoint of Mr. Windsor is another tale of the area.