The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 286
Town of Conquest/Howland's Island

Howland's Island, in Seneca River, has the general form of a parallelogram, is nine and a half miles in circumference and contains between 3,000 and 4,000 acres, one-third of which is swampy and submerged during high water. It derives its name from Humphrey Howland, who acquired the title to it by buying soldier's scrip for nominal sums, and took possession of it about 1823-'4. Previous to Howland's connection with it, it was known as Walnut or Hickory Island, and was occupied and improved by families of squatters named Stone, Spiller, Hyde, Butterfield, Campbell, Herrick, Woodward, Phaddock, Harris and Springstead, there being two families by the latter name. They had established themselves as a colony and built houses and a schoolhouse, supposing that no one owned the island. They were forced to yield to Howland's superior claims, and, though each was paid something for the improvements made by him, they relinquished with reluctance the possessions which years of privation and toil had secured, and which they had fondly hoped to leave as a heritage to their families. Harris, who was a minister, preached, taught school, did the cobbling, and made himself the useful man on the island.

"In 1804 the job of clearing four hundred acres of land was let to * * * John A. Taylor, Crandall, Giles, Adam Cuykendall, Z. Wackman, James Hamilton, Jonathan Vaughn, Martin Harker, Daniel Walling and his father Jeremiah Walling, two Mc Wetheys and Daniel Size. These men took the job by contract, clearing from ten to fifty acres each. This was a great enterprise for this part of the country at that time, but the echoing click of a hundred axes told that the island, instead of being a haunt for game, must soon be covered with fields of waving grain. The next year found the work of clearing off well done. Great elms and maples and mighty oaks had been felled and piled in windrows; none were spared for any purpose. The whole mass was as dry as tinder and a sufficient number of men were employed to fire it at one time. During the day the smoke was seen for fifty miles around, and at night the blaze lit up the country for the same distance. The sight was magnificent and grand beyond description. The heat was so intense that men and cattle were driven into the swamps and into the river even, and it ruined fields of green oats a great distance away.

"The first crop of grain on this four hundred acres told of the richness of the soil. Ten thousand bushels of wheat were taken from the first clearing the first season."*

Mr. Howland was accustomed to entrust the care and management of the island to individuals, who farmed it on shares. The first manager was John Adams Taylor, now living at an advanced age near the south line of Mentz, who took charge of the island April 10th, 1826, and conducted its affairs with marked success. As Mr. Taylor was taking his share of the pigs home from the island, the scow, which was used in making the passage, struck a snag in the middle of the river and precipitated the whole cargo into the stream. The pigs finally made their way to the shore and after some difficulty were driven home. Taylor was succeeded the next year by Wm. Toll, a blacksmith, who lost his wife on the island by fever, and gave up the management at the end of the first year, without adding anything to his wordly store. Lincoln & Co., were the third managers, and their success was as marked as Toll's failure. Lincoln found and married a wife on the island, and is believed to have accumulated a handsome fortune, which enabled him to buy his farm in Conquest. They were followed by the Sheldon Bros., who were large, strong and energetic farmers, and who, during the six years they occupied the island, did handsomely both for themselves and principals. The management was next entrusted to John Wood, and the result under his supervision was as disastrous as that under the Sheldon Bros., was successful. On the death of Mr. Howland, his son, Penn Howland, came into possession of the island, and that, with hundreds of thousands of dollars besides, was soon squandered by improvidence and mismanagement.

The property was sold on mortgage in the spring of 1855, to Penn Howland's bondsman, Hiram Sibley, of Rochester, who leased it for a term of years to S. B. Fyler, with the priviledge of purchasing it during that time for a given sum. Mr. Fyler commenced a thorough system of improvements. He took down over twenty miles of old and broken down fences; removed old hedges and dilapidated foundations; cleared, burned, plowed and planted waste lands which were overgrown with bushes and weeds; cut

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* From contributions to The Port Byron Chronicle, by the late Samuel Hayden, to which we are indebted for information relative to Howland's Island.

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