Abraham H. Bennett's lot: 1824
braham H. Bennett was the publisher and editor of the first newspaper in Yates County. This was the Penn-Yan Herald, first printed in 1818. Soon afterward its name was changed to the Penn-Yan Democrat, and under that name it was published until 1947. To complete the newspaper's lifespan, it was taken over by a right-wing Republican who changed its name to the Courier and brought it out for another couple of years, after which it ceased publication permanently.
Bennett himself was from an old Milo family. He ran successfully for County Clerk in the new County's first elections in 1824, and evidently in the process continued to put out his paper every Friday even while he held this office. It's worth noting here that in Bennett's day the Democrats comprised the only national party in the country. Once the Republican party was founded in 1856 the local appetite for abolition and temperance swung the local politics into the column where it has remained steadfast ever since.
Bennett bought this double lot from Abraham Wagener in 1824, and built a house in the upper room of which he printed his paper; he subdivided and sold the more northerly half but then regained it when the buyer defaulted. In 1844 it was again sold off, this time to E.G. Hopkins, who used the buildings Bennett had erected as a print shop for a dwelling. As can be seen from the adjacent map, Wagener divided nearly all the land along here into a series of lots that were all the same size, four rods by seventeen, or 68 perches (a perch being a now-obsolete unit equal to one square rod). Bennett's initial lot was eight rods front and rear, so it was a double lot; seventeen rods back, behind all these lots, ran an alley from Chapel Street to Court Street which allowed rear access to all the dwelling lots on both Main and Liberty Streets.
Abraham Bennett bought this lot (8 rods by 17; or 132 feet by 280 feet) in 1824. He built a house on it, and later on a separate print shop. The more northerly half, where the latter building stood, became part of the Elijah Hopkins lot in 1844.
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This double lot was purchased by Abraham Bennett in 1824 and became one of
several mixed commercial and residential lots in this block of Main Street.
