became responsible for the fifty dollars which Capt. Helm promised to pay
Simon Watkins for his villainy in betraying, Judas-like, those unsuspecting
persons whom it should have been his pleasure to protect and defend
against their common oppressor,--his own as well as theirs.

In addition to this rascality, it can not appear very creditable to the
citizens of Steuben County, that Capt. Helm and Thomas McBirney should
both hold high and important offices at the time, and _after_ they had
been tried and convicted of the crime of kidnapping. Both of these
gentlemen, guilty of a State's prison offence, were judges of the common
pleas. T. McBirney was first judge in the county, and Capt. Helm was side
judge; and notwithstanding their participation in, and conviction of, a
flagrant outrage on the laws of God and man, they managed not only to
escape the penalty, but to retain their offices and their respectable
standing in community for years after.




CHAPTER XIII.

LOCATE IN THE VILLAGE OF ROCHESTER.

I continued to labor in the employ of Mr. O. Comstock, whose son, Zeno,
was married during the year 1816, and purchased a farm on the site of the
present flourishing village of Lockport, to which he moved his family and
effects; but from a mistaken supposition that the Erie Canal, which was
then under contemplation, would take a more southern route, he was induced
to sell his farm in Hartland, which has proved a mine of wealth to the
more fortunate purchaser.