To our Holy Family Catholic Community brothers and sisters,

Two-fold is our purpose
Both knowledge and fun
We did not intend
To slight anyone.

To give a fair picture
Was our only aim,
Truth was the target,
Not fortune or fame.

Hope omissions are few
In the stories we state
And no one offended,
By things we relate.

So read on, don't linger,
We only can try,
To view Perkinsville's past,
And the good-times gone by.

Our dedication is to the people of Perkinsville, NY who lived the history we have chronicled.  We would especially like to dedicate this history to Florence Bricks who taught us to live in the present by loving the past.

Two hundred years ago, Perkinsville, NY was the domain of the Seneca Indians, Guardian to the "west door" of the Long House, the title given to our state by the Indians.  The Senecas comprised one of the Indian tribes named "Five Nations" by the French, and "Iroquois" by the English.

The charter granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company by the English Crown in 1691 conflicted with an earlier grant made by Charles I to his son, the Duke of York, in 1663.  The dispute was settled with a meeting in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1786.  By the compromise, Massachusetts relinquished to New York her claim to the "right and title of government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction" to lands in the state; and New York ceded to Massachusetts, her pre-emption rights to the western part of the state.  This pre-emption line began at a corner in the southeast corner of Steuben Co. and ran to Sodus Bay.  Thus, the compromise placed the site of Perkinsville at the disposal of Massachusetts.

The Phelps & Gorham Co. purchased this land from Massachusetts for $300. Subject to final dealing with the Indians, they were unable to secure all the land, and unable to deal further with the Indians, they returned the balance to Massachusetts, which relieved them of 2/3 the contract price.  The lands they thus acquired cost them, aside from the Indian annuity, about $40 an acre.
On Nov. 17, 1790, Phelps & Gorham sold their purchase to Robert Morris and he in turn sold it to William Pulteney of England and it is to this estate that the deeds of our homes are traced.

Early settlers to the area had a limited choice of routes to the interior and west.  Most came the Susquehanna-Chemung River route from the south & west, but the building of the Genesee Valley Canal made Dansville a convenient port of entry to northern Steuben County.  Sandy Hill greatly benefited from the resulting influx of settlers, many of who came from Europe.

And what was the tempo of the times in Europe?  It was recovering from the wars inflicted by Napoleon, which had ended in 1815 at Waterloo.  Prussia (as Germany was then called) had played a major part in these wars and at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 had received Posen, Westphalia, the Rhine Provinces, and parts of Saxony and Swedish Pomerania.

Prussia almost immediately entered upon a period of strong reaction.  Their ruler, King Frederick III, strongly influenced by the Austrian chancellor Prince Van Metternich, ruthlessly repressed all liberal & nationalist sentiments.  Thus, the earlier administrative reforms were nullified.  In addition, he refused the constitution promised 5 times.  Resentment culminated in the Revolution of 1848, which frightened him into consenting to convocation of the National Assembly to draw up a Constitution.

Without a doubt, the suppression of liberty was one of the major factors in the decision of our early forefathers to seek their fortune in the United States.

So what was the state of affairs in America? It was 1838. The Panic of 1837 was still of recent memory and Martin Van Buren of NY was the President.  The DeWitt Clinton Railroad had already made its initial run from Albany to Schenectady and the Erie Canal was 13 yrs. old.   Life was essentially rural and primitive.  Although Benjamin Franklin and others had developed stoves for heating, most homes depended on fireplaces for heat as well as cooking.
 
Most rural homes were log cabins without the luxury of windows.  Furniture was generally homemade and clothes homespun.  The plough was crude and clumsy.  Grain was sewed by hand, cut by sickle and threshed with a hand flail.  In general, rural life was one of unremitting hardships and monotony.

It is into a setting such as this, that our fore bearers entered.  Determined to find a new home and equal justice, they brought their skills to a raw land in need of their talents.  Their thrift, good humor and industriousness are our heritage.