Origins of Big Flats |
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Big Flats has long been noted for its Indian history, scenic beauty, and soil fertility. The very earliest written references to the area which we now know as Big Flats, and the Indians called Atsingnetsing, praise the scenic beauty and the fertility of the soil. “Great Flatts” it was often called by the early white settlers, referring to the broadening of the Chemung Valley where the Chemung River, near the present hamlet of Big Flats, turns rather sharply to the southeast on its way to Chesapeake Bay. Atsingnetsing quickly became Sing Sing to the early white men. Today it is the specific designation of a good trout stream which empties into the Chemung River a mile or so from the hamlet.
One of the earliest complimentary references to this section is in the interesting Day Journal of Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian missionary, who traveling through Big Flats on May 23, 1760 wrote: “when we came to this place (Atsingnetsing) we found it to be true that between this place and Diaogo (Tioga Point) is the best land on the Susquehanna.”
And Capt. Henry Montour writing to his superior Sir William Johnson on April 4, 1764, on the success Of his expedition to destroy Indian villages around Big Flats writes of it “as the most beautiful country we have ever seen for land and pretty improvements for Indian settlements.” And as Montour was very familiar with the fertile soils of the Mohawk valley this was quite a compliment to the richness of our soils.
This beauty and fertility was not lost on the soldiers of the Sullivan Expedition when they visited Big Flats area in 1779 to destroy the Indian village of Runonvea there. Six years after the expedition many of them returned to make their homes here at Chemung, Newtown, Big Flats, and Painted Post, and as many of these soldiers were originally from the stony pastures of New England, the flat, fertile soils around Big Flats must have seemed an agricultural paradise indeed.
Geologists have an interesting theory to explain the origin of these rich, alluvial soils. It is thought that ages ago a “finger lake” nestled in the Big Flats section of the Chemung valley. Drift brought from the north during the ice age filled the valley basin, forcing streams to cut new channels. Eventually it caused the Chemung river to change its course at Big Flats, leaving its old course to the north past Horseheads and thence northward to Lake Ontario, and cutting an entirely new channel to the southward, through the narrows at present Route 17, completely draining the wide lake area around Big Flats and leaving a top dressing of rich, alluvial soil.
In a few short years, relatively speaking, the Big Flats area has witnessed the ending of a Stone Age civilization, and the beginning of our present Jet Age. One of the oldest Indian village sites in New York State is at Big Flats, Runonvea village, where hammer stones, axes, and flint arrowheads have been found and identified as belonging to a very early Algonkin Indian period, while not far from the same site is the modern Elmira-Corning Regional Airport with its exceptional facilities for commercial airliners and Army aircraft.
Although long known and used by the Indians, the Chemung Valley and Big Flats area remained practically unknown to the white man long after the Hudson River and Mohawk Valleys had been settled. To the Indians, and later to the settlers, when they discovered it, the Chemung Valley was a natural pathway to the south from Niagara and the Great Lakes. The Genesee and Chemung valleys were but ten miles apart by Canaseraga Creek (a tributary of the Genesee river) and the Canisteo River, thus offering river transport for canoe or flatboat on the Genesee to the Chemung and thence down the Susquehanna to Chesapeake Bay.
Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for His Majesty’s Government, knew New York as well as any man of his time, (he owned a quarter million acres of it before the Revolution) issued a map in 1771 to Governor Tryon of New York, showing central, northern, and eastern New York very accurately, but the Chemung Valley was left blank except f or a doubtful reference to ‘Singsink, “in this general area.
References to the white man in pre-Revolutionary days in the Big Flats area are few. There are records, however, of Brule, the earliest Frenchman, who in 1615 with 12 Huron warriors followed the river through Big Flats to Carantouan, now known as Spanish Hill, at Waverly, NY. There is record of fur trading Swedes from the Delaware in 1682, and very early in the 18th century Germans and Moravians such as Conrad Weiser, Zeisberger and others. We know representatives of the landowning Penns visited the area, and also Sir William Johnson’s expedition in 1764, to be followed by our own entry on the scene in the official reports of the Sullivan Expedition in 1779. Indians still lived around Big Flats in 1786, and the last did not leave until 1791 when the Indian title to the territory was extinguished by a treaty held with the Indians on July 4, 1791 by Col. Timothy Pickering, at present Market and Madison streets in Elmira.
In March, 1783, the State of New York passed an act exceedingly favorable to actual settlers in the valley and to those holding military warrants for land. The allotments were to be not less than 200 or more than 1,000 acres and provided that the lands were to be settled within three months (subsequently extended to one year) after the State had acquired the Indian title. The settlers paid 18 pence per acre, and lands were rapidly taken up and worked after 179l. Henry Wisner had one of the biggest plots in the Big Flats area, two plots of 2,000 acres each.
Lumbering was one of the most ready and profitable sources of income to the Big Flats settlers in the early days, with river transport close at hand, and later the feeder canal to Horseheads. At one period the feeder canal through Big Flats conveyed a larger portion of freight than the main canal, and about 1850 one- eighth of the tonnage arriving at Albany by Erie Canal had passed through this branch feeder. Shipments consisted principally of coal and lumber.
Almost from the beginning, too, the Big Flats area became famous for its creamery products, the fertile fields providing lush pasture, and bumper hay and grain crops for heavy producing herds, even as they do to this day.
Big Flats was notable, too, for its tobacco crops, the rich loamy soil, enriched with river silt, giving the product a flavor and “luster” which made Big Flats tobacco famous. Records indicate the first tobacco for market was raised about 1850 by Curtis Elmer. At its peak, between 1908 and 1918, there were probably up to 2,000 acres under tobacco cultivation around Big Flats and nearby river bottom lands. The lands were kept in high and profitable production by the liberal use of natural fertilizers which came in carloads from the Buffalo stockyards.
Ancestors of John Herbert Brand, prominent Elmiran, played an important part in the tobacco history of the area, not only as growers, buyers, converters and merchandisers of the product, but also for early scientific experiments in spraying, testing new varieties, and growing under canvass. Also, the exceedingly important contribution of sterilizing the seed beds with live steam to kill insects, fungi, etc.
Since trends led people to smoke cigarettes instead of cigars, there had been a steady decline in the demand for cigar leaf tobacco from special areas such as Big Flats, until its growth dwindled to a few acres.
The 25th anniversary of gliding and soaring in the Big Flats area was celebrated in1955. In 1932 on the Tom Rhodes farm adjacent to what is now known as Harris Hill, in Big Flats, was held the 3rd National Soaring Contest. With the assistance of the federal WPA agency, and with same land donated by Mr. Rhodes, Chemung County in 1936–1937 developed the Harris Hill site to its present international prominence, effectiveness and beauty. The hill was named for Lt. Henry B. Harris, an active member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology soaring group who lost his life in an automobile accident on the hill in June 1934.
The civic history of Big Flats dates back officially to 1788 when a new township was erected from Montgomery County, formerly called Tryon County, noted for its border warfare in colonial and Revolutionary days. It was a vast expanse of country lying west of the Hudson and east of the central Finger Lake regions. The newly formed township covered the present town of Barton, and the greater part of Tioga in Tioga County, and the towns of Southport, Elmira, Ashland, Baldwin, Chemung, and a portion of Big Flats, Horseheads, Erin and Van Etten. In 1822 the Town of Big Flats was formed from the Town of Elmira, the seat of local government being in the hamlet of Big Flats. In 1836 Chemung County was formed. Christian Minier, whose descendants still live and conduct business in Big Flats was the first settler in 1787, and many other descendants of the early settlers still live in the area.
We are always indebted to those who have gone before us, not only the pioneers who risked everything, including their lives, to penetrate and subdue a wilderness, and create a wealth which we now enjoy and use; but, also, to those who later took the trouble to make a record of their times. We are fortunate in having some records of the early days of Big Flats, and for the benefit of those who may wish to study the history of our beautiful “Great Flatts” area in more detail we invite you to become a member of the Big Flats Historical Society.
