The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 315
Town of Mentz

Myers were early settlers in this locality. Myers was from Dutchess county, and settled on the farm now occupied by E. Waldron. He died in Port Byron February 21st, 1874, aged seventy-eight years. Jonathan, his son, still lives in the town.

The completion of the Erie Canal, October 26th, 1825, gave a new impetus to the business of the village, rapidly increased its population, and soon made it one of the principal grain markets in western New York.

In 1828 the most important enterprise connected with the prosperity of Port Byron, was developed. In that year John H. Beach moved into the village and bought the water-power. He built a race-way two miles in length, thus securing a thirty feet head of water, and erected on the west side of the Outlet and the south bank of the old canal, what was then and for many years thereafter the largest and best constructed flouring-mill in the State. It was 120 feet long and 50 feet wide. Connected with it was a storehouse, 80 by 40 feet, under a portion of which a branch canal was conducted to facilitate the loading and unloading of boats. It contained 10 run of stones, driven by an over-shot wheel twenty-two feet in diameter, and was capable of grinding 500 barrels of flour in twenty-four hours. The building cost $60,000, and gave employment to twenty to thirty persons. Belonging to the mill, but not in its immediate vicinity, was a stone cooper shop, 200 feet in length, which gave employment to fifty persons, but furnished only a portion of the barrels used in the mill. Most of the wheat used in the mill was brought from the west.

Beach's mill was burned in 1857, and not rebuilt.

Henry Wells, the noted expressman, came into the town with this father's family after the opening of the canal, and for some three years mended shoes for the residents of Port Byron. The Wells family lived in a small, wood-colored house, and now stands diagonally opposite the residence of Mr. William Hosford, having since been raised and repaired and modernized with additions and a coat of paint. Henry remained in the town only about three years. His sister Harriet, (now Mrs. C. B. Newton,) who is remembered as a beautiful woman, a fine singer and a devout Christian, became a missionary to Lahore, North India, a field which still engages her labors.

In 1851 the direct line of the N. Y. C. R. R. between Syracuse and Rochester was built, and operated detrimentally to the interests of the place by dividing its trade with other towns along the route, and carrying much of it to Syracuse.

In 1856, while the enlargement of the Erie canal was in progress-a measure which was ordered Mary 11th, 1835, begun in August, 1836, and finished in September, 1862, and by which the water surface was increased in width from forty to seventy feet, and the depth from four to seven feet-a difference of opinion arose among the residents of Port Byron as to the course it should take through the village. Some advocated the enlargement along the old circuitous route; others, a new and more direct route. The will of the latter finally prevailed, and the present channel was cut through the most beautiful part of the village. This change, while it vastly improved the canal, impaired the beauty of the village and proved disastrous to its business interests, by destroying in a great measure its water power. The State built a dam across the Outlet and diverted the water from Beach's race-way to the new canal, by means of a pipe forty rods in length, laid underground. The canal is spanned at this point by four iron bridges, and has a large double lock, with a lift of about twelve feet. The village at one time had a population of fully 1,500.

The first hotel in the village was built and kept by George Daniels, probably very soon after the opening of the King's Inn. It stood on the site of the National Hotel, the land there being then low and marshy, and though it was a framed house, it was denominated an "inferior inn." It was burned during Daniel's occupancy, and re-built by him on a little larger scale. The present brick building on that site was built by Mr. Lytle, the second building erected by Daniels having also been burned. Contemporary with, but a little later than Daniels, were Amos Parks and the late James Pine, the former of whom kept a "better hotel," on the south-west corner of Main and Rochester streets, and the latter, one on the site of Mr. Lewis Houghtaling's residence, near the corner of Main and Pine streets.

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