Settler makes Cayuga his home

After the Revolutionary War, the government mapped and surveyed this area into military lots to be used for payment to the soldiers who had fought in the war. Many of the soldiers sold and traded their land without ever stepping foot on their bounty. What follows is a fictionalized account of the first settler in Cato, Samson Lawrence who died here in 1821. Samson and his wife, Patience, are buried in Leland Cemetery on Bonta Bridge Road. His land was on the northwest corner of Bonta Bridge Road and Jorolemon Road. Many early settlers in this area came by boat as there were no roads yet; only Indian trails traversed the thickly wooded area by land. A common boat for the transport of man and goods was called a bateaux. This was a flat bottomed wooden boat that was large enough to accommodate the boatman and a family of early settlers including their ox. Before the dams were installed on the waterways, the water level was lower than what exists today. If the boat became stuck in shallow river bottom, the ox would be used to pull the boat out and the group would continue on.