This season a printing office was established at Geneva, and a weekly gazette published, supported by eight hundred subscribers, who, before six months, increased to one thousand. Of the settlements begun this season, one was sixteen miles south from Genevaj on the outlet of the Crooked Lake, which here empties into the Seneca ;' a village, called Hopetown, was laid out on a rising ground adjacent to the creek, and within half a mile of the

•This tract of country has continued to increase with great rapidity; one hundred and fifty families moved into it in the space of a few weeks last winter, 1797.

VOL. n. 72.

1138 PAPERS RELATING TO

lake ; at tnc same time a set of merchant mills were begun on the outlet, about half a mile from the village. No situation in the •world can be better adapted for an establishment of this kind, having not only an excellent mill-seat on a powerful and never failing stream of water, but it is in the centre of a rich and flourishing settlement, and possesses the advantage of a good navigation from any part of the Seneca Lake to the mills, and from thence to Albany ; and also, with a trifling land carriage, to the Crooked Lake. These mills are intended as a depository for all grain taken in this part of the country, in payment for lands sold, where it can either be manufactured into flour, or distilled, as may answer best for sale to the new-comers^ or for exports to Canada or Albany. One floor of the mills will be solely appropriated for the use of the merchants residing in the adjacent country, who may sell their merchandize for wheat delivered at the mills, and pay storage for the advantage they derive. Mills of this kind, in countries where such vast crops of grain may be raised, are highly useful to the farmer, the merchant, and the great land-holder.