The Town of Wirt was formed from Bolivar and Friendship April 12, 1838 and named by Peleg Sherman after the writer, William Wirt.  The first settlement was made in the northern part of the town of farms owned later by Mott Whitwood and D.S. Willard.  The first pioneers were Benjamin Crabtree and Levi Abbott who came from Amsterdam,  Montgomery County in 1912.  Other earlier settlers where Chauncey Axtel, Horace Ketchum, Alvan Richardson, Nathan Gilbert, James Smith, Simon Wightman, Reuben Whitney, Philip Applebee, Josiah Wheeler, Joseph Allen, Jonah French, Gilbert Thomas, Levi Applebee, Calvin Wheeler, Isaiah Jordan, Elisha Dakin, Robert Almy, Pliny Evans, Aaron Smith, Sheldon P Stanton and John Scott.  Clark E. Newton came early from Madison County and bought land west of South Branch Creek.  With his brother, H. B. Newton, he began clearing land on Lot 39.  Mr. Newton was a stone mason by trade and he helped plaster the first county courthouse in Angelica.

tags: History, name, wirt

With the free spending populace, Richburg attracted many top artists in the entertainment profession. One of the most popular was the great John L. Sullivan, who gave a standing-room-only exhibition at the Baum Opera House. His performance started a mild epidemic of cauliflower ears among the youths of the village and created a permanent interest in the fistic art of self defense.

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tags: boxing, entertainment, History

Two newspapers were printed in Richburg during the oil excitement days, The Evening Era and the Oil Echo, the latter being the more popular daily paper, which appeared January 18, 1882. It was printed from new hand set type on a three-revolution hoe press, at a cost of

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tags: History, newspapers

First National bank

Richburg First National Bank  was granted a charter on August 11, 1881 on the application of a group of local citizens along with a number of Friendship residents.  It was organized with a capital of $50,000.  The Allegany Directory of 1882 says, “It stands well among the monied institutions of the State”.

The firsts officers were:
      President-  John S. Rowley
      Vice President-   Albert B Cottrell
      Cashier-    Frank E. Fairbanks
      Treasurer-  William J. Richardson

All the Directors of the Bank but two were engaged in the oil business, then  booming in the area.  A contract was let for a two-story brick building at the corner of Main Street and Park Place, to be erected at the cost of $10,000.

(Information from “A History of the Town of Wirt”)

tags: bank, History, main street

On March 5, 1839 the Town of Wirt was made into a town with the following officers elected:

Supervisor: Jonah French
Town Clerk: Azariah Randolph
Commissioner of Highways: Joseph Allen
Collector: Abner B. Cole
Commissioners of Common Schools: Edward Wightman, Calvin Wheeler, Sheldon P. Stanton
Overseers of the Poor: Ezekiel Johnson and Chauncey Axtell
Inspectors of Common Schools: Clark Rogers, Pliny Evans, Ezekiel R. Clark
Constables: Abner B. Cole, Alan Stanton, John Truman
Sealer of Weights and Measures: John W. Jordan

Minutes of the first meeting were read as follows:

Resolved: That the annual meeting be held the first Tuesday of March each year.
Resolved: That we elect officers as listed above.
Resolved: That we raise as much money as the law will allow.
Resolved: That the meeting stand adjourned.

Old ledgers record that the annual meetings were usually held at the homes of the officers until March 4, 1854 when the meetings were held at the Forrest House.

During the years 1863, 1864 and 1865 any special meetings were called for the purpose of procuring Volunteers for the War Between the States.

December 23, 1863 at a special meeting it was-

Resolved- That the Town of Wirt shall pay to each volunteer, who shall enlist under the President’s call of October 17, 1863 or have enlisted, who shall apply on said call when mustered into the service of the United States the sum of $300.00 to be paid in bounty orders bearing interest from date as follows; the sum of $100.00 the first day of March 1866 and $100.00 the first day of March 1867. Said orders to be payable to the order of the Supervisor of Said Town.

William Withey, Town Clerk

Nine additional meetings were called for the procuring of Volunteers and moneys appropriated for them.

Fourteen men from the Town of Wirt joined the Union Army at the beginning of the War Between the States. Others volunteered from time to time. Fourteen died on the battlefields while six died in Andersonville Prison.

Cassius Maxson Post GAR was established in Richburg at the close of the war and flourished for any years, but ceased to function when the men who wore the blue, one by one, passed away. Crandall Lester, Richburg’s last GAR veteran passed away in 1924 at the age of 84. He served with the 160^th regiment, New York Volunteers as Sergeant. He was honorably discharged October 17, 1864.

Taken from “The History of the Town of Wirt and Village of Richburg”

tags: History, town board

On July 12, 1884 a cyclone passed over this portion of Allegany County and struck the farm of Alonzo Mead, on the West Notch Road. Mrs. Mead was preparing a codfish for cooking. A tin dipper stood on the table, and on a nail in the wall hung a pair of hickory overalls. Mr. Mead was standing in his barn door talking with Farmer Wightman, a neighbor, who had driven into the barn with his wife to wait until the shower they supposed was coming up had passed over. Suddenly there came a loud roaring from the direction of Southwest Hill and Farmer Mead saw first a grove of of large maples coming toward the barn and house, in the air, carried along by what seemed to be a funnel-shaped cloud of black smoke. A half second later nearly all the trees in Mead’s orchard had mingled with the flying maple grove and all were rushing along at a frightful velocity. Farmer Mead started to run to the house to warn his wife. He was caught up on his way by the whirling mass and carried with it a hundred yards and deposited in a rye field. Simultaneously the house and barn were lifted up and carried along in crashing fragments with the whirlwind. The passing of the cyclone was but momentary. Not more than five seconds elapsed from the time it was first seen sweeping from down from Southwest Hill by Farm Mead until it had disappeared in the northeast. Mead was uninjured by his sudden journey through the air, and as soon as he could recover himself he ran toward the ruins of his house, expecting to find his wife crushed to death or borne away. Only a small portion of the house was left standing. Mrs. Mead was in the cellar, where she had hurried at the approach of the hurricane and was uninjured. Mead found Farmer Wightman and his wife imprisoned by heavy timers in the barn. A pile of hay and caught the timbers at the end and prevented them falling with full weight on the farmer and his wife. They were both held firmly beneath the timbers, however, and Mrs. Wightman was badly hurt. To lift one end of the timbers today Farmer Mead says he would require the aid of at least two men, but on that day he raised them alond and threw the ends up on a beam four feet high and rescued his neighbors from their perilous situation. How he managed to handle the heavy timbers he is unable to explain.

Every piece of furniture was carried out of Farmer Mead’s house. Fragments of it have been found along the course of the cyclone as far as a mile away. On Wednesday parties who were searching in the woods for missing cattle three miles from Mead’s farm found hanging in a tree a codfish and a pair of hickory overalls, and lying on the ground beneath the tree was a tin dipper. These have been identified as the fish Mrs. Mead was preparing when the cyclone came along, the dipper that stood on the table, and the garmet that hung on the wall. They are the the only articles that Farmer Mead has recovered intact.

The three children of Stewart Shinebarger were playing in the yard when the cyclone appeared. After the storm had passed search was made for them. They had been carried over a hundred feet and thrown against a barbed wire fense, where they were found entangled, with their clothing nearly all torn from them and their flesh badly lacerated by the sharp barbs in the fence.

This article was published in the New York Times on July 13, 1884

tags: History, weather

One of the most interesting characters who drifted into Richburg was “Happy Jack” Stoops, a veteran of the Civil War, a soldier of fortune and a former police chief in wild and wicked oil towns in the Pennsylvania Oil Fields. He stood 6′ 2″ in his stockings, wore a 22-inch collar, number 12 shoe, a 7 and a half hat, his waist measured 60 inches and was 360 lbs. He had been a journeyman blacksmith in his youth and was one of the most powerful men in the oil country. His name was John Stoops, but owing to his good nature and ready smile, he gained the nickname “Happy Jack”. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA. At 18 he was a champion sledge thrower. When the Civil War began, he was a blacksmith at Mt. Ayr, Iowa, where he enlisted for three months in Company G of the 29^th Iowa Volunteers. He liked soldering and re-enlisted for the duration of the war. He was discharged from service August 10, 1865.

After the war, he drifted to Kansas and for two years was a policeman in Topeka. Then the oil excitement lured him to Pennsylvania where he served as policeman in Pithole, Summit City, Bullion, Cole Creek and Duke City when these oil towns were hot spots. In Summit City, there was no jail in which to lodge bad men, so he in vented a new kind of lockup. He would walk his prisoner to a telegraph pole, place his arms around the pole, and snap a pair of handcuffs on the luckless drunk. The prisoner could either sit down or stand up, but he had to remain there until Happy Jack came along and marched him to a Justice of the Peace.

Happy Jack came to Richburg late in 1881, when Richburg was a roaring boom town. After the Oil Boom, Happy Jack relocated to the Town of Bolivar where he was appointed Chief of Police. During his long stay in Bolivar he joined a tent show and made a tour of the United States. He was advertised as the “Heaviest Civil War Veteran in the Country”. Posters stated that he weighed 600 lbs, but that was circus talk, for then he weighed just 360.

When Happy Jack tired of being a policeman for Bolivar, he traveled over the near by townships as an auctioneer. He had a voice like a steam calliope- one of those voices that can be heard a quarter mile on a clear day. He would lead a horse up and down before a crowd, saying, “A nice, eight-year-old mare, sound as a dollar, or no sale. How much do I hear for her?” Eight years, it seems was the age limit of horses he auctioned off. During his frequent vacations from police duty and auctioneering, he look after a truck garden he owned, a mile east of Bolivar. As a youthful editor of Bolivar, the writer found in Happy Jack a faithful ally. He new nearly everyone by name, kept both eyes and ears open, remembered names and faces, and each week supplied many local news items. And his judgement as to what to print and what to leave out was excellent. The reciprocated by frequently printing interest paragraphs about the exploits of the husky police chief.

Happy Jack passed away on January 23, 1901 at the Soldiers’ Home in Bath, New York.

tags: History

• First child born was Benjamin Crabtree in 1813
• First marriage was that of Hyra Axtell and Lucy Crabtree in 1814
• First school was taught in the northern part of town by Sophia Hitchcock in 1820
• First inn was kept by Alvan Richardson in 1824
• First sawmill was also kept by Alvan Richardson in 1824
• First gristmill was built in 1825  by Alvan Richardson by the Little Genesee Creek near the Village of Richburg

tags: Firsts, History

The Town of Wirt was formed from Bolivar and Friendship April 12, 1838 and named by Peleg Sherman after the writer, William Wirt. The first settlement was made in the northern part of the town of farms owned later by Mott Whitwood and D.S. Willard. The first pioneers were Benjamin Crabtree and Levi Abbott, who came from Amsterdam. Montgomery County in 1812. Other earlier settlers were Chauncey Axtel, Horace Ketchum, Alvan Richardson, Nathan Gilbert, James Smith, Simon Wightman, Reuben Whitney, Philip Applebee, Josiah Wheeler, Joseph Allen, Jonah French, Gilbert Thomas, Levi Applebee, Calvin Wheeler, Isaiah Jordan, Elisha Dakin, Robert Almy, Pliny Evans, Aaron Smith, Sheldon P Stanton, and John Scott. Clark E. Newton came early from Madison County and bought land west of South Branch creek. With his brother, H.B. Newton. He began clearing land on Lot 39. Mr. Newtown was a stone mason by trade and he helped plaster the first county courthouse in Angelica.

tags: History