From the Friendship Chronicle, May 12, 1880.
Transcribed by Yvonne E. Smith.
Excerpted from the newspaper column, "Random Ramblings".
RANDOM RAMBLINGS.
BY THE EDITOR.
No. 4.-Among the Archives of Allegany County
[...]
By permission of Clerk Mackman we spent a considerable time among the County archives, now placed in the inner room at the north end of the building. We inspected the first deed book of the county, then spelled Alleghany, a volume of 527 pages, paged by hand. The first deed recorded therein was written in December 26, 1866, and is a conveyance of 502 acres of land in the County of Genesee {now the town of New Hudson} from Victor Dupont de Hemors to John B. Church and wife, Angelica. Jacob S. Holt was then the County Clerk.
The book now in use exhibits as marked a difference compared with that of 1800 as there exists between a stage coach of that period and a Pullman palace car of to-day.
In the office is a map published by Stone & Clark of Ithica, dated 1839. On it appear as part of the County of Allegany the following townships:-Nunda, Portage, Pike and Eagle cut off in 1846 and Ossian cut off in 1856.
There is also a curious diagrame of this section of Western New York in which the county is portioned out into small tracts, such as 800,000 and 1,000,000 acres to the Holland Land Co., 190,680 acres to W. & J. Willink and 100,000 acres to John B. Church.
The records of the Holland Land Company’s transactions occupy many pages of the earlier books. The old Company embraced several names that will sound somewhat odd to the ear of the rising generation. For instance, the names of Wilhelm Willink and many other members of the Willink family, Walrave Van Henkelom, Nicolas Van Beeftingle, Jan Van Eeghan, Garret Schimmelpenninch, Rutger Jans Son, Van Bennebrock.
The name of Moses Van Campen occurs quite frequently in the register.