Asa Ransom’s tavern, sawmill and gristmill have been the focus of an ongoing investigation—three historically-significant structures that have seemed to vanish, evaporated into the atmosphere of the past. Even Asa himself has somehow managed to slip into obscurity. Plymouth Colony records indicate that Robert Ransom was the first of his family to sail from England to Plymouth, MA, prior to 1654. Robert arrived as an indentured servant, an apprentice under Thomas Dexter Jr. at the Dexter Mill. His term of indenture expired in 1657 and Robert was released. Generations of Ransoms followed Robert, settling throughout the colonies in New England. In 1773, Asa Ransom’s father, Elias, passed away suddenly, leaving his 29-year-old mother, Sarah, to raise six young children on her own. Just over a year after Elias’ death, Sarah married Ichabod Hopkins. She bore eight more children to Mr. Hopkins, for a total of 15, and was described as, “…a woman of unusual energy and force.” If this assessment is accurate, Asa must have learned much from his mother, as her drive was certainly evident in his abundant and ambitious life. 

Asa’s childhood and teenage years remain obscure. He learned the silver and goldsmith trade and was listed on the American Silversmiths master list after an apprenticeship, probably in Berkshire County, MA. Asa could have lived a comfortable life in Massachusetts as many of his relatives did, but he decided to move west. He was an adventurous risk-taker and a man who knew how to relate to others. When he later settled in a small hollow called Ransomville – now Clarence – these traits helped him to protect his wife and children as he cleared his land, built his tavern and mills and farmed his fields. He also found time to feed and house hundreds of western-bound pioneers stopping at his tavern within the trees.

Asa Ransom’s first appearance in Western New York was in Geneva in the late 1780s. He lived in a small log hut, which also doubled as a silversmith shop. Geneva was south of the large Seneca village of Kanadasaga, and it was here that Asa began his trading relations with the Native population of the region. His skill as a silversmith became an important tool that helped ease relationships with early settlers and the Seneca. By all accounts, Asa was well liked by the local Haudenosaunee and he earned a decent wage making European-style silver and gold jewelry that he traded with the Native Americans.

Asa returned to Massachusetts to marry Keziah Keyes on October 12, 1794, in the town of Sheffield. Once back in Geneva, Asa and Keziah lived in the log hut he had previously occupied while Asa resumed trading with the Haudenosaunee. Their first child was born on December 20, 1795, a healthy baby girl – Portia Ransom. The following year, Asa and Keziah set out for the nascent settlement of New Amsterdam, now known as Buffalo. While the reason for their move is speculative, it is possible that Asa sought to expand his trading enterprise after the transfer of Fort Niagara to the United States that same year relieved tensions between the British, Americans and the local Native population. The Ransoms settled by the mouth of Buffalo Creek when there were only four buildings in the settlement. 

Asa and Keziah were one of the first white families to settle in the harsh conditions of Buffalo, among a handful of fur trappers, war veterans and surveyors. On February 27, 1798, the couple welcomed a second daughter, Sophia, who the Historical Outline of the Ransom Family in America claimed to be the first white child born in the area outside a military post. Asa spent the next two years there, making silver bracelets, jewelry, ornaments and brooches for his Native  trade. In the process he gained considerable profit from his labor. The time Asa spent in Buffalo was invaluable in gaining the trust of the Haudenosaunee, who were rightly wary of their new neighbors.

After a few years living along Buffalo Creek, Asa was restless again. Fortuitously, in 1799, the Holland Land Company made an offer of land in what would eventually become the Town of Clarence to “any proper man who would build and operate a tavern on it.” Ransom was one of the first to accept Joseph Ellicott’s offer, and purchased 150 acres of land at $2.00 per acre east of Buffalo, along an old Indian path in the future town of Clarence. In so doing, he became one of the first to officially buy property through the Holland Land Company in this region. In the wilderness of the land he bought, he built a tavern where western-bound pioneers could purchase something to eat and spend the night.

As was the case with the other locations in which he had settled, Asa enjoyed amicable relations with the local Native population and may have paid them to help clear the land or construct his tavern in the spring of 1799. On September 1 of that year, at the age of 34, Asa moved into his third log home at the site that was sometimes called “The Hollow” or “Pine Grove,” and would later be called Ransomville (now Clarence). The two-story tavern must have been built quickly to protect his family from the winter of 1799, including the two young girls and a newborn son—Harry Bolton Ransom—who was born November 6, 1799.

By 1800, Asa and his wife were well-known for tending to guests in their tavern. On February 26 of that year, Joseph Ellicott wrote in his diary that upwards of 40 people stayed at Ransom’s the night before, prior to traveling to New Connecticut, OH and Presque Isle (now Erie), PA. The Ransoms hosted John Maude in late August 1800, one of nearly 150 families passing by the tavern that summer. Other noted guests were Mr. Joseph Alston and his wife, Theodosia,  who stopped in late July 1801 on their way to see Niagara Falls. Mrs. Alston was the daughter of then-Vice President Aaron Burr. On October 6, 1800, the first tax roll west of the Genesee River was completed. The document valued Asa Ransom’s property and personal estate at $410, for which assessment he paid a tax of 61 cents. 

At the end of January 1801, Joseph Ellicott set up his temporary land office at the tavern in Ransomville.  He also provided a detailed description of the place, calling it “…a large, commodious house built of hewn logs forty-six feet in length, two stories high with a spacious passage through the middle, well covered with good white pine shingles, with a chimney already built containing one fireplace in the lower and one in the upper stories, also a commodious kitchen with a good fireplace, and stabling sufficient to accommodate several span of horses.” 

Many of Joseph Ellicott’s letters were written from Ransomville, where he stayed in Asa’s two story tavern until the office of the Holland Land Company was completed in Batavia in 1802. As a result, some of the first settlers in Western New York stopped at the tavern, looking to purchase land from Ellicott. In his records, he states that he hired Asa on various occasions, calling him “an industrious worthy man, and a friend to the just rights of the Holland Land Company.” Joseph Ellicott’s journal entries relate memories of frosty nights at Asa Ransom’s tavern. Such a night could find a varied gathering that included Ellicott, local Seneca, passing pioneers heading west, Asa, his wife and children.  The assembly gathered together around the upper floor fireplace, smoking their pipes and discussing the day’s adventures.Despite the friendly moments, however, frontier life was difficult and unpredictable. There were many potentially worrisome subjects for the Ransoms’ guests, not the least of which were the horse flies that often prevented the equine population from eating or the year-round threat of wolves to livestock.

Over the several years that followed the completion of his log tavern in the fall of 1799, Asa built a sawmill and a gristmill. Ellicott encouraged all new tavern owners to build such operations to facilitate additional settlements. He had grown up helping his father and uncles run a large-scale milling operation located in the town Ellicott’s Upper Mills, MD. He learned the workings of mills at a young age and used his experiences to help Asa, among other early settlers, build and run their grist and sawmills. Ellicott even gave Asa a loan to help build the mills, which according to his journal entries Ransom used to purchase, “Irons Mills Stones, Bolting Clothes, and…the running gears.” 

Asa chose to build his gristmill on a small creek, later named Ransom Creek. Here the water tumbles over the Onondaga Escarpment into the “hollow” that is today known as Clarence Hollow. According to Ellicott, the creek could “supply water for more than five months a year.” Nevertheless, as the community grew, the supply of water could not keep pace with the increasing population, and so “farmers were frequently obligated to take their grist elsewhere…in time it became dilapidated and useless.” 

Historians agree that Asa’s grist and sawmills initially provided settlers in the area with significant benefits.  However, when the water supply began to cease meeting the demands of the population, and the mills fell into disuse, Abraham Shope purchased the property in the early 1840s and constructed his own mill. This mill, in turn, went through numerous owners.  In the late 1890s, J.H. Ebersole, who had purchased the property by that time, rebuilt the mill yet again. Thus, today is difficult to determine exactly which parts—if any—of the mill [on page  ] were original to Asa Ransom’s mill.

In addition to his mills, Joseph Elliott’s annual report from 1807 reveals that Ransom had increased his debt to the Holland Land Company by $134 in order to begin another enterprise. According to the report, Asa had “erected a distillery [to] convert the grain into spirits.”  Apparently, Ellicott felt the move was a good one, as he expressed his belief that “Asa can make a profit by the business.” 

The history of Western New York is filled with examples of early settlers and businessmen who, by virtue of their early arrival in the area and possibly the status that often accompanied that reality, eventually found themselves involved in local politics. Asa Ransom was no exception.  In 1801, Governor George Clinton appointed Ransom to be Justice of the Peace. Three years later, the Town of Willink was carved out from the huge Town of Batavia, which then made up most of modern Western New York.  Asa served as the new town’s assessor until 1805. In 1807, the venue for the annual Willink town meeting was moved from Peter Vandeventer’s tavern to the Ransom tavern and Asa was elected town supervisor, replacing Mr. Vandeventer.  Apparently, it had been the custom, official or otherwise, to elect the landlord of the tavern in which the meeting was held. Many of the records Asa kept while serving as the Willink town supervisor have been lost, so little is known about his time in that office. 

Western New York’s population continued to grow during the first decade of the 19th century, and as it did so, new towns were created out of the larger old ones. In March 1808, the counties of Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Niagara (encompassing modern Niagara and Erie) were established, while the Town of Clarence was created from the northern portion of the Town of Willink.  These two towns now encompassed what, in 1821, would become Erie County. With the growth in population and the associated increase in traffic passing into and through the region, the doors of Asa Ransom’s tavern were always open to weary travelers and the community at large. Many early town meetings were held at the tavern during this time, as was the 33rd Session of the New York Legislature, which convened at the Ransom establishment on February 8, 1810. 

Prior to the War of 1812, Asa served as a Lieutenant Colonel of the state’s militia, but he was forced to turn over the position to his half-brother, Timothy S. Hopkins when Governor Daniel Tompkins appointed him Sheriff of the newly formed Niagara County. With the outbreak of  war in 1812, Asa became captain of a company of mounted volunteers under the command of his half-brother, now-Brigadier General Hopkins. Asa continued to serve intermittent terms as sheriff between 1808-1818.  During this time, the county’s first murder trial took place in 1815 and Ransom was a member of the first grand jury. 

Many of Asa’s siblings became prominent citizens of the City of Buffalo and Erie County. Following his military service, Timothy S. Hopkins later became the first supervisor of the Town of Amherst. Timothy’s brother Otis R. Hopkins became a Supervisor of Clarence. After serving in the Revolutionary War, Asa’s older brother Elias migrated to Buffalo, where he maintained a tavern for many years. Many of Asa’s relatives had large families and their children held prominent positions in Western New York throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Asa and Keziah Ransom’s tavern—the first in Clarence and the stopping place for so many early and prominent pioneers—may have disappeared, but it is possible that this fact could change. An archaeological investigation was conducted on the site of the tavern in 2013, but the artifacts discovered were limited to personal items and building materials from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. New evidence has recently been uncovered, however, relative to masonic interest in a lodge in Clarence. According to John Conlin, the former editor of Western New York Heritage and an authority on early cabin construction, the structure located on Main Street just east of Schurr Road was built prior to 1810 and is a prime example of New England-style construction. At this time, however, there is no evidence to prove that this is Asa Ransom’s tavern.

Asa Ransom lived a simple life, having written no memoirs or autobiography, nor having published any articles in newspapers that might document his accomplishments as the first to settle Clarence. Ironically, his death was 27 years, to the day, after the founding of the Town of Clarence. He and his wife were a respected and well-liked couple who were industrious ambitious, and who brought law, order and family to the wilderness while paving the way for others. His legacy seems to be his nine children who passed on his hard work ethic and devotion to the country.