Significance: Founder of the Village of Pultneyville, Timothy Ledyard (and perhaps also his parents Samuel and Sophia Ledyard) assisted in the Underground Railroad

Description: This is essentially a gable-and-wing house, with broad eaves, a front door with sidelights, a wide porch with delicate sawn porch supports, and three-sash windows extending that reach to the porch floor. Dormer windows on both the wing and the main block, bay window, and French door flanked by quarter-round windows in the gable over the porch were probably added later.  The family called their home “Lake Cottage.”

Discussion: Born in New Jersey on January 29, 1782, Samuel Ledyard was one of Pultneyville’s earliest settlers, migrating to this village in 1806 from Aurora with other members of the intermarried Ledyard-Cuyler-Throop-Forman-Lincklaen families. These families were all major early landholders in several key villages in central New York (including Cazenovia, Syracuse, and Aurora). One of his fellow migrants that year was Samuel Throop, who married Samuel Ledyard’s sister, Mary Forman Ledyard. His nephew Samuel C. Cuyler also came to Pultneyville. About 1807, Ledyard built the first store in Pultneyville, a log building that he later replaced with a frame structure. Ledyard also operated a forwarding business here, building the first piers and warehouses. Samuel Ledyard’s first wife, Ann Phelps, with whom he had three children, died in 1815. On January 15, 1816, he married Sophia Childs in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Timothy Childs Ledyard was the fourth of their eight children, born August 3, 1822. The Ledyard family was Episcopalian, and held the first Episcopal Church services in Pultneyville in their home.  In 1843-44, Timothy Ledyard acted on behalf of African Americans when he became a teacher in the biracial school district 2 in the Town of Sodus.   He also worked on the Underground Railroad. Lewis H. Clark, who lived nearby and also helped carry people on the Underground Railroad, noted in his journal that on May 5, 1844, “Timothy Ledyard came here with a ‘runaway slave,’ Sam Williams by name . .  . . He will stay here tonight and then we shall take him in the morning down to Dr. Cook’s.” Timothy Ledyard became a doctor, living in Ceres, Allegany County, New York. Samuel Ledyard died November 27, 1866. Sophia Childs Ledyard died in 1885, age 95.