Dan,

I want to thank you for the information on Transit Road you passed on. I've
obtained the Professional Surveying articles and am going through them now.
I noticed a few incorrect dates in the first page and got in touch with
Francisca Safran. (She was aware of the errors, apparently originating in
an older reference, and is going to be sending me some additional material.



>Francisca Safran and John McIntosh
>Jr's "Surveying the Holland Purchase" in 2 parts, in the journal
>_Professional Surveyor_ May/June & July/August 1998, Vol.s 18#4, & 18#5.
<snip>
>        On a special note, it was Andrew Ellicott, brother of HLCo. Agent
>Joseph
>Ellicott, who invented the surveyor's transit.

I mentioned this to someone and they said they thought G. Washington used a
transit before the Revolution. I'll have to check that out. Meanwhile, I
thought you might be interested in the use I was putting the information
to; a radio script for my weekly commentary on the local PBS FM station.
The scxripts are being added to my web site
but I thought I'd save you the trouble of surfing over to the sit by
including it below.

Script No. 108 - January 16, 1999

Title: Not So Rapid Transit

If you amble out to Buffalo sometime, lake effect off Erie permitting, and
drive along Transit Road to hit some of the plazas, you'll be traveling a
path laid down in the year 1798. It was in March of that year that Joseph
Ellicott and the 130 men of his surveying crew, employed by the Holland
Land Company, set off to mark the company's territory. (Feminists might
claim it's a perfect job for males). The crew's task was to run a
north-south line extending from Lake Ontario all the way to the
Pennsylvania border. There was no national standard for a foot yet, in the
young United States, so Ellicott collected a number of different rulers,
took their average length and made up new, standardized rulers, which he
attached to the cover of each of the survey's field books. This transit
line was going to be accurate! Such attention to detail would help prolong
the project; it wasn't completed until the year 1800. Meanwhile, the
company made its first sale around this time, to William Johnston, who
bought two square miles of land at the mouth of Buffalo Creek. He would
erect a sawmill and four other buildings at the site.

Thw frontier was a good place to be right now, in some ways. At the other
end of the state, in New York City, Yellow Fever would strike down nearly
2900 people in 1798. In spite of the epidemic, or probably after its
passing, the Park Theatre opened in lower Manhattan. And John Stephens
continued his experiments on the Collect Pond. Rival steamboater Robert J.
Livingston stuck his neck way out. He  secured an exclusive contract from
the state  legislature to operate a steamboat on all waters of the state
for twenty years. Just one catch. He had to build such a vessel, within a
year. The legislature also authorized the storage of colonial records in
Albany's new State Hall. Some records, damaged while sequestered on board a
ship moored in the Hudson River during the Revolution, would have to be
transcribed.

Small pockets of activity continued to spring up across the state. Cayuga
County got its first printing press. Fort Schuyler became a village and
changed its name to Utica. The Onondaga salt works continued to grow. As
did the Pultney properties under Charles Williamson - the first Baptist
Church of Bath was organized, and over on the Genesee, Tobias Newcomb built
a windmill at Williamsburgh. Total cost of construction - $20.

A little further south, in the hills above Dansville, a loud booming noise
one day grabbed the attention of the pioneers in the valley below. When
they traced the source of the sound, they discovered an underground spring
had suddenly surfaced. They named it Breakout Creek and went back to work.
It would be another 53 years before entrepreneur Nathaniel Bingham would
divert the creek's waters for a health spa. Trend-chasing hypochondriacs
would then put the village on the map.

OUTRO
For Classical ninety-one five, this is David Minor


Thanks again. I'm going to Florida in about a month. If the plane flies
over Richmond I'll try to beam down some New York State air to you.

David


David Minor
Eagles Byte Historical Research
Pittsford, New York
716 264-0423
[log in to unmask]


http://home.eznet.net/~dminor

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