How Port Byron Became Port Byron

While writing about John Beach and his Mill, I was reminded of the stories that credit Beach with changing the name of the village from Bucksville to Port Byron. Over the years, many people have chimed in on this fascinating story, the latest was as late as 2012, when historian Dawn Roe wrote an excellent article about the subject. Years ago, I had written an article about the subject for the InPort, and looking back on it, I found it needed more details. So here is the latest entry.

There is an issue with using first person sources as people tend to mis-remember as time goes by. What clouds the facts is the fairly large event that takes place when John Beach and his partners build their very large grist mill on the banks of the Erie Canal. There is also the building of the Canal in 1820, the Incorporation of the Village in 1837, and the enlargement of the Canal in the 1850’s. So mashed all together, the events and dates tend to run together in people’s recollections.

In an Chronicle article titled “How Port Byron Got It’s Name” written by E.H. Kerns, he says when he wrote his 1922 History of the Village of Port Byron and the Town of Mentz, he could not find any record or person who could tell him why the name was changed. He goes on to say that he later spoke with Albina Treat about the issue. Mrs. Treat, who was born in1841, tells Kerns that the name was changed in 1832 after Beach built his grist mill. Remember that this major event took place eleven years before she was born. As Ms. Roe points out, Kerns “facts” are quickly corrected by George Perkins, who uses actual dated letters to place the name change prior to 1826. Perkins writes; “The origin of the village name has been a controversy for many years, and, while the story of Lord Byron, who died in 1824, and the mill owner with aristocratic tendencies is alluring, I fear it is just another of those fables which crop up in all village histories.” Perkins then goes onto write a very accurate history of the mill.

So I wanted to see what documents were available on the web that could help point to the Bucksville / Port Byron name change.

Ms. Roe mentions this very interesting death notice for Sarah Buck of Bucksville, and Giles Landon of Port Byron from February 15, 1826.

How can we have both a Bucksville and a Port Byron? Good question. From even earlier, we have this Travelers Pocket Guide from 1825, which was written in the summer of 1824.

What is important to keep in the mind is that whatever you call it, Bucksville or Port Byron, it was what we would call today a hamlet, or an unincorporated village. The actual Village was not formally created until 1837. Further supporting documents can be found in form of notices from the Post Master, telling people to pick up their mail. From April of 1827, we find this notice. And as you look it over, notice the last name, Bingham Young, more likely Brigham Young.

Yet there are conflicting documents that I won't post here. A document in the NYS Assembly from January 27, 1825 says Bucksville, as does the 1829 Natural History of NY, and the 1831 Gazetter. But the register of Post Offices in 1828 says Port Byron, as does the Niles Register of 1827.

In 1830, John Beach purchases the water rights of the Outlet and builds his mill. This probably delighted Aholiab Buck who runs this ad in the Auburn Free Press in 1830.

However, just a year later, Buck and his wife sell all their remaining village lots to Beach and Company and his family moves west. The deed is very interesting as it lists all the people that Buck had sold lots to, and all the land that Beach would own. The amount of land, basically much of the village, can be seen in the canal map from 1834 as listed as owned by Beach and Company, or Beach and Others. You can also see a part of Beach's Mill. The road running from the top to bottom of the image is Utica Street.

So let's go back to the 1824/25 Pocket Guide, which is the earliest document I could find that used the name of Port Byron.

It clearly says Bucksville, Port Byron P.O. (post office). Looking at the register of post offices, you find a Bucksville in Bucks County in Pennsylvania, and other Bucksville’s in Tennessee and Alabama. Just as the name of the Town was changed in 1808 from Jefferson to Mentz because there was just too many Jefferson’s about, the decision to change the name of the Post Office may have been one of convenience. In fact, we don't have any indication that there was ever a post office with the name of Bucksville, or that Bucksville had a post office prior to 1824 and the coming of the canal boom. Once the name of the Post Office was in common use, it was likely inevitable that the whole community becomes known as Port Byron. Was Lord Byron and his famous writings a factor in the name change? It certainly makes sense as he died in 1824, about the same time the name “Port Byron” came into use. However, Ms. Roe gives a good alternative explanation of the origin of “Byron”.

Buck may have been happy to see the big mill come to town, but as can be seen in his ad, continued to fight the name change that was occurring. It might be why Sarah Buck is listed as dying in Bucksville, where Mr. Landon was listed as dying in Port Byron. I ask you, would Aholiab allow a Buck to die in Port Byron? And the name was well used ever before John Beach built his mill, although his purchase of all the land and the leaving of the Buck family likely settled the matter.

An update as of January 1, 2017

It was another one of those wonderful moments in history when a question about one topic led to a answer on another, quite unrelated topic. So for a little background, a few months ago I wrote about a program where the speaker thought he had, at the very least, nailed down the date that Bucksville became Port Byron, and maybe why. He suggested that both Bucksville and Port Byron were in use at the same time, with maybe Port Byron being the name of the post office. (We have the talk up on our YouTube page so you can hear the reasons why.) But a lot of the reasoning well simply that, well researched reasoning of what few facts were available. Well then a question came in about the age of housing in the village, and in my study I was reading a study about historical resources in Port Byron. A citation noted that a letter dated October 6, 1824 that made reference to the name change. This led me to the talents of Jessica in the County Historian’s Office, who quickly found the 1824 letter in the Cayuga Republican. The reason for the letter was that a Mr. B.B. Drake was protesting the way that his minutes of a meeting in the village were reported. The letter stated that he was the secretary at a meeting where it was decided to change the name of the post office from Mentz to “Port Byron”. (The name Bucksville was adopted in 1819, so why the name of the post office wasn’t Bucksville is not known.) Drake states that it was unlikely that the Post Master General would allow the name change, but if he did, then Port Byron would become the name of the village by use. But, Mr. Drake goes on, there was no reason why there couldn’t be both a Bucksville and the Port Byron. To cap this off, the Editor of the Republican posted a notice just below Drake’s letter stating that the Post Master General had indeed changed the name of the post office from Mentz to Port Byron.

The interesting thing was that Mr. Drake began his letter with; “In your last, an article purporting to be a copy of the proceedings...”. I asked Jessica to go back through the previous issues of the Republican thinking that we would find the first article, but no luck. Looking for avenues, I starting looking into B.B. Drake, and came up with very little on my own. So it was back to the County Historian’s office with the question, “Who is Drake?” Well, little was found on Drake, but a notice in the paper was found, stating that the village residents had held a meeting, and had voted to change the name of the village from Bucksville to Port Byron. Not the post office, but the village, and that B.B. Drake was the secretary. This article appears in the Free Press, dated September 13, 1824. A week later, the B.B. Drake letter appears in the September 29 Free Press, and a week later, the October 6 Cayuga Republican reprints the letter, word for word. This is why we couldn’t find the notice in the Republican.

Anyone who has done family research knows that the censuses before 1850 are greatly lacking in information,listing only the male head of household. So B.B. Drake is still a mystery. He lived in Weedsport, maybe Bucksville, maybe Skaneateles, and Waterloo. But we do know that he was there in the meeting when about 60 people decided to change the name of the village. And he must have opposed the action of the meeting, hence his letter to the paper, as he puts up his convoluted argument to keep Bucksville and still use Port Byron. There is more to do. Is the Roswell Beardsley mentioned in the newspaper a part of the Auburn Beardsley’s? And who was Peter Cook?

This must have been quite a blow to Aholiab Buck, who had given his name to the settlement, and his land to settlers who would move here. Much of the old history states that it was John Beach and his mill that changed the name of the village, but this notice places the change six years prior, and as a action of a large number of the residents. Buck did sell off the rest of his land to Beach in 1831 and then moved west. But up till then, he continued to advertise land for sale in Bucksville.

John Harvey Beach and the Biggest Mill in the State

A 1839 portrait of John Harvey Beach.

Beach’s Mill (1830-1857) Port Byron

Anyone who has picked up any history of Port Byron has seen the description of Beach’s Mill; “In 1828, Mr. Beach settled in the place, purchased the water power on the Outlet, and built a raceway, two miles in length, thereby securing a head of twenty feet. Mr. Beach put up a mill with ten run of stone, capable of manufacturing five hundred barrels of flour per day. This was at that time, and for a number of years thereafter, the largest and best constructed flouring mill in the State. The building was 120 feet long, fifty wide, with a store-house attached, 80 by 40 feet, and an overshot wheel 22 feet in diameter. It was situated on the west side of the Outlet, and on the south bank of the canal, and had a branch canal under a portion of the store-house, which afforded great facilities for loading and unloading boats. The building cost $60,000, and employed 20 to 30 hands. A cooper shop, built of stone, 200 feet long, was connected with it, and supplied a part of the barrels used by the mill. The employment which this enterprise furnished, and the traffic it built up, was of great importance to the prosperity of the village.” As a Historian, I wanted to know 1) Who was Mr. Beach, and 2) Was his mill the largest and best constructed in the State? Here is what I found.

John Harvey Beach was born about 1784 in Connecticut. He was trained as a lawyer, but becomes a miller by trade. In 1809 he moves to Auburn and begins a long career in public service. In the War of 1812, Beach rallies the people of Auburn to march west to defend the homeland against a rumored British attack. By 1814, he joined into a partnership to open the first cotton mill in Auburn. In 1815, he was the local representative to the New York State Assembly and helps to incorporate the village of Auburn. In 1816 he aids in the establishment of the Auburn prison and in 1817, he helps to organize the first bank in the village. During this time he also helps to start schools, gives money to build the new Theological Seminary, opens more mills along the Owasco Outlet, builds other businesses, and sits on a board to investigate the construction of a Owasco and Auburn Canal between Port Byron and Owasco Lake.

At the same time, John’s brother, a General Ebenezer S. Beach was buying land in northern Cayuga County and in Rochester. In 1827, E. S. Beach and Thomas Kempshall opens a large flouring mill in Rochester. This mill was six stories tall and has room for sixteen run of stone, although it appears that only ten run are installed. This mill is the first in Rochester to use a elevator system to unload wheat directly from the hold of a canal boat. The mill was capable of turning out five hundred barrels of flour per day. It is not known (at this time) what became of the land he purchased in Cayuga County.

In 1830, John Beach spent $11,000 buying land in Port Byron. Some of this land is located on the bank of the new Erie Canal and next to the Outlet, which today would be across the creek from St. Johns Church. Beach also buys easements to many parcels of land south through the valley for the construction of a two-mile long canal headrace. He built the large flouring mill as described above on the south bank of the Erie Canal. Included is a slip for boats to dock while being unloaded or loaded. About a year later, John Beach and Company (Henry Kennedy, Thomas Kempshall, and E.S. Beach) buy land just to the west of the mill, near the canal lock. (The canal lock was the first lock built in Port Byron, not Lock 52 that can be seen today.) Here they built a large cooperage that made barrels in which was packed the finished flour. Somewhere between seventy to eighty men found work in this enterprise, which consisted of the saw mill and cooperage.

To understand the large mill, one needs to understand the nature of milling at this period of history. The romantic idea of a mill might be a miller bent over a turning stone, slowly pouring the wheat from a sack, grinding it into flour. This might have happened at one of the smaller mills in town. These were typically known as a custom mill, where the farmer traded a portion of his wheat to the miller in return for grinding the rest of his crop. But Beach’s Mill was a merchant mill, designed to process large quantities of wheat into flour. A mill such as this was highly automated, with the wheat being unloaded by an elevator, moved by screw type conveyors and gravity, cleaned by air blown by large fans, ground by many stones, sifted and packed, all without the touch of human hands.

All this machinery was run by the power of a large waterwheel. This is mentioned in the description, where it states that the wheel was twenty-two feet high. What is missing is the width of the wheel, but similar sized mills used wheels eighteen feet wide. The water to turn this wheel flowed through the canal that began two miles up the valley, south of Hayden Road. This canal can still be seen today as it follows the west side of the valley between Port Byron and Hayden Road. The beginning of this race can be seen just south of where Hayden Road intersects with Route 38. (Look just downstream from where the power lines cross the valley.) At this point Charles and Amos Parks owned a dam that impounded water and increased the amount of head to the mill. This dam also served Hayden's Mill which was built right at the intersection of today's Hayden Rd and Route 38. 

The question raised by the period description quoted above is “Was Beach’s Mill the largest and best constructed mill in the state?” It appears not to be totally true, nor is it a complete falsehood. John’s brother Ebenezer had built his mill in Rochester in 1827. His mill was at least as large as the mill in Port Byron, with ten run of stone, six stories tall, and a more reliable source of water, that being the Genesee River. Both brothers used the canal to transport wheat to their mills and to ship flour out. Ebenezer was the first to use an elevator to unload the boats, although this was something already invented years before by a Millwright named Oliver Evans.

An article in the paper states;

A Mammoth Mill- The American Miller of the 8^th inst[ant], describes Beach’s Mill, at Port Byron, as the largest in the State. It consists of ten run of stone, propelled by five overshot water-wheels, driving two run of stone each, with the necessary bolting and cleaning apparatus. This mill was built for the late Gen. Beach, by Robert M. Dalzell, Esq, assisted by the Messrs. Jewells of Rochester. Those gentlemen are widely known as most skillful millwrights. The mill is capable of turning out about 800 barrels of flour per day, and of consuming 3,500 bushels of wheat every 24 hours. (The Auburn Daily Advertiser, Monday November 17, 1851.)

Beach’s Mill was capable of turning out five hundred barrels of flour per day, but only if all the stones were running. What we don’t know is the size of the stones used to grind the wheat, and this would make a huge difference in these calculations. One barrel of flour weighs one hundred ninety six pounds, and it takes two hundred seventy two pounds of wheat to make one barrel. An average size (about four feet across) stone can make two plus barrels of flour in one hour, so if all the stones ran for twenty-four hours, the mill should produce five hundred twenty eight barrels a day. This would take one and half boats or about seventy-five tons of wheat. So while the period descriptions of the mill might be correct, there seems to be a tad bit of hyperbole involved.

In 1911, the Auburn Semi-Weekly said that the flour produced by the mill "maintained a reputation amoung New York City bakers for producing the best flour for cake baking of any of the up-state mills."

John Beach never settled in the village. He lived in Auburn. One of his partners, a Henry Kennedy, ran the business. Kennedy also began the process of laying out new streets in the village and seems to be a driving force in the expansion of Port Byron. Beach and Company bought large parcels of land in the village, seemingly planning for large-scale growth. Beach dies in 1839 and his son assumes John’s ownership of the mill.

In 1855, the mill is sold to Messrs Bradfield and Roberts. It is an odd time to buy such a large mill. By the 1850’s, the bulk of the milling business had shifted to the much larger city of Rochester. And in the 1850’s, talk of changing the route of the canal in the village threatened the mill and other businesses that relied on the waterway. A court battle raged between those who wish to move the canal slightly north and those who wish to see it enlarged along the old route. in 1857, the canal was shifted north, however, the State did allow the old canal to remain open to serve the mill. But this short dead end section was never deepened to the enlarged dimensions, so it was useless for canal transport.  In 1857 the mill burned. The Auburn paper states that the fire was started in the "smut Machine" and spread quickly, but that the origin of the fire was unknown. In 1906, John L. Davis told the Port Byron Chronicle that he was told that the fire was started by a night watchman who had left a candle burning in the grain room.  By this time, only twenty seven years after it was built for $60,000, the mill was insured only for $13,000. The loss of this large business and the non-related death of Henry Kennedy hurt the prosperous outlook of the village. In 1922, E.H. Kerns stated that “…Port Byron ceased to grow.”

Today Beach’s Mill is just a mention in our history books. The dams and millponds that once fed the water into the mills are all gone. Beach’s raceway remains only because it was used to feed water into the enlarged Erie Canal until 1917.