USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > A history of Buffalo : delineating the evolution of the city > Part 14
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The building had been planned by its architect, Mr. George Cary, of Buffalo, to fit the final uses for which it was intended, and does so, in most respects, most admirably. But its large spaces are already quite filled by the society's collections, and some addition will soon be a need. It has become one of the places of most interest in the city, and draws thousands of visitors to its historical museum and to the lectures and addresses which are given freely to the public on most Sunday afternoons of the year, and occasion- ally at other times. The instituting and arranging of these has been one of the greatly valuable services of Mr. Frank H. Severance, who has been secretary of the society for the past fourteen years, and actively in charge of its works since 1903. His greater service is in the high character he has given to its annual Publications.
Mr. Langdon was continuously chosen president of the society for sixteen years, and on asking to be released from office in 1910 was made honorary president. The other present members of the board of directors (not including the members ex officio) are Dr. A. H. Briggs, Willis O. Chapin, Robert W. Day, Charles W. Goodyear, R. R. Hef- ford, Henry W. Hill, Henry R. Howland, Hugh Kennedy, Andrew Langdon, J. N. Larned, O. P. Letchworth, L. L. Lewis, Jr., John J. McWilliams, G. Barrett Rich, Henry A. Richmond, Frank H. Severance, Dr. Lee H. Smith, George A. Stringer, James Sweeney, Charles R. Wilson.
The library of the Historical Society contains at the pres- ent time 17,600 volumes. In the Lord Library (bequeathed to the city by the Rev. Dr. John C. Lord), of which it is the custodian, there are about 12,000 volumes.
The Buffalo Catholic Institute is the outgrowth of a literary society that was formed in 1866 by Catholic young
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men of St. Michael's Church, and its name for a few years was the German Catholic Young Men's Association. Par- ish and racial limitations were soon outgrown, and the broader organization and title were adopted in 1870. In 1872 the Institute was incorporated, with Charles V. Fornes for president, Joseph Krumholz vice-president, Peter Paul and J. L. Jacobs secretaries, and Joseph A. Gittere treasurer. A library and reading room had then been established in the American Block since 1869. In 1874 it bought the building on the northeast corner of Main and Chippewa streets, occupying the upper floors and deriving income from the stores below. The Institute was well accommo- dated in this place for nearly a quarter of a century; but improved its situation in 1897-8 by buying property at the corner of Main and Virginia streets and building hand- somely there. With a library of 13,425 volumes, organized on the most approved principles and conducted by well- trained librarians, in commodious rooms, and with an excel- lent lecture hall, the circumstances of the Institute seem to be most satisfactory in all respects. The officers of the Institute were recently John F. Cochrane, president; Ralph H. Rieman, secretary; Marie X. Sevasco, librarian.
A North Buffalo Catholic Institute, organized as a social club in 1885, now occupies its own building, and maintains a library, with reading rooms.
The Grosvenor Library, opened in 1870, was founded upon a bequest to the city, made in 1857 by Seth Grosvenor, formerly of Buffalo, but resident at the time of his death in New York. The total sum bequeathed was $40,000, of which $10,000 should be applicable to the purchase of ground and the erection of a building; the remainder "to be invested forever and its income to be used in the purchase of books, to be always kept open for the use of the public; the books not to be lent out nor rented, and only used for
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reading in the building." It was stipulated in the testator's will that the city should make provision annually for the current expenses of the library, and that obligation was assumed in the acceptance of the gift.
The original trustees of Mr. Grosvenor's bequest, Messrs. O. H. Marshall, George R. Babcock and Joseph G. Masten, wisely judged it to be expedient to allow some considerable accumulation of the fund at their disposal before attempting a collection of books for reference use by the public, and when they organized and opened the Grosvenor Library, in 1870, it was with a fair showing of well-chosen books on its shelves. They were book-loving men, of studious tastes, qualified excellently for their trust, and assisted very com- petently by Alexander Sheldon, the first librarian in charge.
For more than twenty years the library was well placed on the upper floor of the then Buffalo Savings Bank Build- ing, at the corner of Washington Street and Broadway. In 1891 its building fund had grown sufficiently to enable the trustees to purchase ground on Franklin and Edward streets and build the attractive home which the library now enjoys. As related already in the preceding historical sketch of the Buffalo Public Library, the Grosvenor Library was included in the public library undertaking of 1897, the city then assuming its maintenance in a more definite way. One-fifth of three one-hundredths of one per centum of the total taxable assessed valuation of property in Buffalo was then pledged as an annual appropriation to the library; which has had, as the consequence, a much more satisfactory growth in the past dozen years. It now (1910) contains 82,000 volumes.
The first librarian of the Grosvenor Library, Mr. Shel- don, was succeeded in 1874 for a few months by W. W. Valentine, and the latter, in the same year, by James W. Ward. Mr. Ward, who was in service till his death, in
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1896, was followed by the present librarian, Edward P. Van Duzee, who had been the assistant librarian for a number of years. The present trustees are Edward H. Butler, J. H. Lascelles and William Gaertner, M. D.
Of other libraries in the city, the largest and most im- portant is the Law Library for the Eighth Judicial District, which the State maintains, and which reports a collection of 25,000 volumes. The Buffalo Medical Library reports 8,000; the Young Men's Christian Association reports over 10,000 volumes in its library ; the Lutheran Y. M. A. over 6,000; the Czytelnia Polska, in the Dom Polski, over 8,000; the Adam Mickiewicz Library, on Fillmore Avenue, 3,000; the Erie Railway Library Association 4,000; the Harugari Library 18,500.
CHAPTER VII SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS
F ROM an early day Buffalo had men among its citizens who interested themselves deeply in matters of science, and pursued studies in some branches of it to such extent as they could, with the limited opportunities of the time. Roswell W. Haskins, Dr. Lucien W. Caryl, Dr. W. K. Scott, Judge George W. Clinton, Dr. George E. Hayes, David F. Day, were distinctly representatives of the scientific order of mind, who exercised an individual influ- ence in wakening and widening attention to the knowledge of the natural world, long before the organizing of such influences was begun.
A few young lads who had tasted of that knowledge, who found it delightful, and who were drawn together by the common discovery, were the first to attempt an associated pursuit of the study. They met in the spring of 1858 and formed a Buffalo Society of Natural Science, which had existence till near the end of the following year, undergo- ing two changes of its original name. Its eight or ten members maintained a room for meetings, at which scien- tific questions were discussed. But something of vitality was lacking in the society, and it went to decay,-at the top, but not at the root; for a new growth sprang in part from the latter within the next two years, and the new growth was a Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences which is vigorous in life to-day, and large in rank and place among the insti- tutions of the city that are durably fixed.
The history of this society is admirably sketched by its present superintendent, Mr. Henry R. Howland, in the eighth volume of its Bulletins, and the facts to be given here are drawn from that sketch. The prime mover in the
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new organization was a young banker of the period, Cole- man T. Robinson, who offered in his sadly shortened life a very beautiful example of the grace that can be lent to a vocation of business by avocations of studious taste. The society was planned at a meeting in the studio of Charles Caryl Coleman, the artist, on the evening of October 5, 1861, and its organization perfected at a more public meeting, in lower St. James Hall, Thursday evening, December 5th. The older and younger lovers of natural science were now acting together. Mr. Haskins was chairman of the com- mittee which reported the adopted constitution. Judge Clinton presided at the meeting and was elected to the presi- dency of the society. Rev. A. T. Chester and Dr. Charles Winne were made vice-presidents. Samuel Slade and Theodore Howland became the secretaries, corresponding and recording. Dr. Leon F. Harvey was chosen treasurer and Richard K. Noye librarian. The nine curators elected were Dr. George E. Hayes, Professor William S. Van Duzee, Dr. Charles C. F. Gay, Hiram E. Tallmadge, Charles D. Marshall, Coleman T. Robinson, Charles S. Farnham, David F. Day, Charles F. Wadsworth.
For twenty years Judge Clinton was kept in the presi- dency of the society by annual re-election. So long as he could be with it there was no possible thought of any other in his place. He was its more than father,-its presiding genius,-the impersonated spirit which has animated and actuated its life. The love he had for Nature, as simple in pure sentiment as it was scientifically profound, exercised an infection which nothing in his company could resist. In its gently subtle way it gave vital inspirations to the society that never lost their effect.
The first rooms of the society were on Erie Street, near Pearl, and the first lectures it secured were given by Pro- fessor Benjamin Silliman, in February, 1862. In the fol-
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lowing spring it removed to apartments in West Seneca Street, which the liberality of Coleman Robinson furnished with cases for collections contributed by Augustus R. Grote, and others, as well as by himself. The museum grew so fast that larger quarters were soon demanded, and a transfer to Main Street, opposite St. Paul's Church, was made. In January the society was incorporated under the law of the State.
And now came the movement of enterprise in which the Young Men's Association of Buffalo had the help of several younger institutions of kindred character (as related else- where) in acquiring the St. James Hotel property and re- constructing the hotel building for their common use. The Society of Natural Sciences was one of the tenants thus provided for, and opened attractive rooms in the remodelled St. James on the roth of January, 1865. Thenceforward, till the present day, it has been housed with the Young Men's Association-the Buffalo Library of later years.
Soon after this entrance of the society into a more per- manent home it experienced a great loss in the death of Coleman T. Robinson, whose residence and business had been removed to New York, but whose interest in the insti- tution he had helped to create had undergone no change. By his will Mr. Robinson left his library, his valuable col- lections, and his fine microscope to the society, together with $10,000 for the beginning of a permanent endowment fund.
The summer of 1866, when Charles Linden was ap- pointed Custodian of the now quite extensive museum of the society, is marked by that event very distinctly as an epoch of importance in its history. Mr. Howland is within the truth when he says: "Charles Linden was an extraordinary man. Born at Breslau, Germany, about 1831, educated first at the gymnasium there and then taught by his own efforts in the book of Nature, both as a student and later as
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a teacher of science, he was an enthusiast who had the rare gift of inspiring others." Three years after his connection with the Society of Natural Sciences was formed he was called to the Central High School as teacher of science, and continued as such until his death in 1888. "For seven years, however, he was the Custodian of the society's collections, and labored faithfully for their growth and welfare. Each year as summer came the spirit of the ex- plorer seized him and he wandered, now to Florida, to Hayti, to Europe, to Brazil, to Labrador, to many strange and out-of-the-way places, whence he returned always richly laden with additions to the museum collections. No man was ever more beloved by his pupils and his friends." Bronze tablets to his memory on the walls of the Central High School and on those of the Museum bear double testi- mony to the impression he had made in both; but his im- portance to the city in the twenty-two years of his life in it is witnessed better by the hundreds of people who, as stu- dents in his classes or as members of the Field Club whose country rambles he led, were wakened by him in their youth to an interest in the lore of Nature which has flavored all their lives.
When the school duties of Mr. Linden compelled him to resign the directorship of the Museum of Natural Science, in 1873, he was succeeded by Mr. Augustus R. Grote. Mr. Grote, an early member of the society and an enthusiastic naturalist, of more than local reputation, added greatly to the value, the extent and the educational usefulness of the collections under his charge, during the seven years of his service. His collection of North American Noctuidæ, which the society relinquished to him, was purchased for the British Museum and now reposes there. The publica- tions of the society, now in their eighth volume, were begun in the first year of the directorship of Mr. Grote. On re-
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signing from the Buffalo Society in 1880 he became resident in Germany, until his death, in 1903, continuing work which gave him rank among the foremost entomologists of the time.
In 1882 Judge Clinton, invited by the State to edit an official publication of the Clinton Papers, removed his resi- dence to Albany, taking a rare personality from the city, and more of an inspiring influence from the Society of Nat- ural Sciences than can be described. As Mr. Howland has said, "its indebtedness to Judge Clinton cannot be measured by words.
* The great Clinton Herbarium which, with the enormous labor of years, he built up for this society, and which includes more than 24,000 exhibits, is a testimony to the unselfish satisfaction which he ever took in his devotion to its interests." Three years after leaving Buffalo the beloved old gentleman died suddenly while strolling through a rural cemetery, and was found lying peacefully on the green herbage of the place, with flowers which he had gathered in his hand. In the words of George William Curtis before the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, of which Judge Clinton was Vice Chancellor, "Nature seemed to have reclaimed the old man, whose heart the love of her had kept as warm and unwasted as a child's. Like Enoch, in that tranquil, beneficent, blameless life, he walked with God, and God took him."
Judge Clinton was succeeded in the presidency of the society by Dr. George E. Hayes, who died within less than three months, leaving a will which provided for an ultimate division of his estate, after the death of his wife, equally between his daughter and the Society of Natural Sciences. The bequest to the latter was for the endowment of a free school of natural science, "or for the purpose of advancing the interests of natural science in the city of Buffalo." In
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the end this munificent legacy from Dr. Hayes will place it in the power of the society to put some notable crown on its educational work, which it has developed already to fine results.
Since going with the Buffalo Library into the splendid new building of the latter, in 1887, and especially within the last few years, the Society of Natural Sciences has had more space, not only for better arrangements and a more in- structive exhibition of its collections, but for popular lec- tures, given freely and abundantly to old and young. Evening lectures weekly, through a long winter season, very often by men of high distinction in science, from all parts of the country, and very commonly with lantern illustra- tions, are enjoyed by large audiences every year. Added to these, by arrangement with the City Department of Edu- cation, a permanent lecturer, Dr. Cummings, gives regular daily talks to classes from the public schools, on the subjects of their lessons in physiology, anatomy, hygiene and natural history, with illustrative exhibits, experiments and pictures. Thus the educational work of the society has been developed and systematized already to a notable degree.
In the years that have elapsed since Mr. Grote resigned the directorship of the Museum, it has been successively under the care of Dr. Julius Pohlman, Dr. W. C. Barrett, Mr. Frederick K. Mixer and Miss Elizabeth J. Letson, and many superb additions have been made to its collections. As inventoried and appraised in 1907 by Mr. Charles H. Ward, of Rochester, the Museum then contained, in its thirteen sections, 63,052 specimens, valued at $61,678.
Among the presidents of the society in these later years have been many who were pillars of strength to it from the beginning. It is an honor-roll of useful citizens: Dr. Lucien Howe, David F. Day, Dr. Leon F. Harvey, Pro- fessor D. S. Kellicott, Henry P. Emerson, William H.
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Glenny, Dr. Roswell Park, Dr. Lee H. Smith, and the Hon. T. Guilford Smith, the latter of whom has been called upon, from time to time, to put the effective impress of his quiet energies on some important period in the administra- tion of many of our greater institutions.
By gift from the late Dexter P. Rumsey and the heirs of Bronson C. Rumsey, the Society of Natural Sciences, in 1903, received a beautifully situated plot of land, contigu- ous to the southern boundary of Delaware Park, having a frontage of 150 feet on Elmwood Avenue and a depth of 280 feet. On this ground, which is valued at $30,000, it is hoped that the society may soon be able to build a worthy home for itself, and become the near neighbor of the Al- bright Art Gallery and the Buffalo Historical Society in a noble group.
Prior to 1821, when Erie County was "set off" from Niagara County, there had been a Niagara County Medical Society existing for some years. When the separation occurred an Erie County Medical Society was formed, with a charter membership of twenty-four, of which number Buffalo contributed thirteen, namely: Cyrenius Chapin, Ebenezer Johnson, John E. Marshall, Benjamin C. Cong- don, Lucius H. Allen, Josiah Trowbridge, Thomas B. Clark, Sylvester Clark, Jonathan Hurlburt, William Lucas, Charles McLowth, Elisha Smith, Sylvanus S. Stuart. Dr. Ebenezer Johnson retired from practice that year. In the following decade the rising village received a number of important accessions to its medical practitioners. Dr. Moses Bristol came in 1822; Drs. Henry R. Stagg, Bryant Burwell and Judah Bliss in 1824; Dr. Alden S. Sprague in 1825; Dr. Lucien W. Caryl in 1830. Drs. James P. White and Gorham F. Pratt came as students in 1830, and Dr. Orson S. St. John, a native of Buffalo, entered practice
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that year. All these became members of the County Society.
The records of the Erie County Medical Society are the main source of information concerning the advent in Buf- falo of the men who acquired prominence and eminence in the medical profession. Those records have been sum- marized chronologically in the work on "Our County and Its People" which was edited by Judge Truman C. White and published in 1898. As shown by them, Drs. Josiah Barnes, Joseph R. Jones and James E. Hawley came to the young city in 1832; Dr. Charles Winne in 1833. Dr. James P. White took his degree at Jefferson Medical Col- lege and joined the society that year, entering on a distin- guished career. Dr. Charles H. Raymond obtained mem- bership in 1835. The year 1836 was made important in the local annals of medicine by the coming of Dr. Austin Flint, who acquired very soon a leading influence in the profession, and whose celebrity, as a writer and a prac- titioner, drew him eventually to the larger field offered at New York. Dr. Flint was the founder of the Buffalo Medical Journal, in 1845, and he was foremost in the efforts which established the Medical College of the Uni- versity of Buffalo in the following year. Dr. Horatio N. Loomis, who had come to the city some time previously, became a member of the society in 1837, and it was joined also by Dr. Samuel M. Abbott that year.
In 1842 the society received into its membership Dr. Timothy T. Lockwood, afterwards Mayor of the city, and Dr. Sylvester F. Mixer, who held a notable rank in his profession throughout the next forty years. In the next year it was joined by Dr. William K. Scott, already a veteran physician, from Troy, holding a diploma of the date of 1809, and by Drs. Silas Hubbard, Horace M. Conger and Charles H. Wilcox, the latter of whom died nineteen years
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later in the service of his country, as surgeon of the first regiment that went from Buffalo into the field of the Civil War. The accessions of 1844 included Dr. William Treat, who came to his death in the same patriotic service, in 1861 ; Drs. George N. Burwell, John Hauenstein and John B. Samo, whose names were among the most familiar and re- spected in the city for the next half century or more.
In 1845 our city gave an opening to another career in medical science which paralleled that of Dr. Austin Flint. Dr. Frank H. Hamilton came to it from Geneva to be pro- fessor of surgery in the Buffalo Medical College, and to achieve here a more than national reputation as one of the great surgeons of his time. He was called from Buffalo in 1860 to round out his career in New York.
Drs. Walter Cary, Phineas H. Strong and James M. Newman were enrolled in the County Society in 1847. In the next year an investigation, made for the Society, showed 38 "regular" and 21 "irregular" physicians engaged in practice in the city. Names of note added to the member- ship list of the Society in 1849 were those of Cornelius C. Wyckoff, Charles W. Harvey, Lewis P. Dayton (after- wards Mayor), and John D. Hill. It received Drs. San- ford Eastman and Charles C. Jewett in 1851; Dr. John C. Dalton,-the subsequently famous teacher of physiology, who taught in the Buffalo Medical College for several years,-in 1852; Dr. John Boardman in 1853. The not- able accessions of 1854 were more numerous, including Dr. Thomas F. Rochester, who held a place of great eminence in the city, as a physician and as a citizen, for thirty-three years; Dr. Sanford B. Hunt, who succeeded Dr. Flint in the editorship of the Buffalo Medical Journal, and who became editor of the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser a few years later; Dr. C. C. F. Gay, one of the most skillful and successful surgeons of the day, and Dr. Edward Storck, whose uncommon energies were exercised in many fields.
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Surgery, as practiced and as taught in Buffalo, was strengthened greatly in 1855 by the acquisition of Dr. Julius F. Miner. Dr. Austin Flint, Jr., came in 1857, taking the professorship of physiology at the Medical College, and the editorship of the Medical Journal in the next year. Dr. William H. Mason succeeded to the same professorship in 1860, in which year Dr. John Cronyn, from Canada, became resident in the city, and Dr. Leon F. Harvey was received to membership in the County Society. Drs. Thomas Lothrop (afterwards Superintendent of Schools) and Elias S. Bissell joined it in 1861; S. W. Wetmore, in 1863; Joseph C. Greene and U. C. Lynde, in 1864; F. W. Bartlett, in 1865; F. W. Abbott and William C. Phelps, in 1866; Conrad Diehl (afterwards Mayor), Milton G. Potter and Byron H. Daggett, in 1867; Henry R. Hopkins, in 1868; M. B. Folwell and A. H. Briggs, in 1870; P. W. Van Peyma, in 1872; Joseph Fowler, in 1873; Bernard Bartow, Edward N. Brush, W. H. Slacer, L. A. Long, in 1874; Lucien Howe, John A. Pettit, Philip Sonneck, E. B. Potter, in 1875; Herman Mynter, S. S. Greene, Samuel G. Dorr, in 1876; C. O. Chester, H. M. Wernecke, Mary J. Moody (the first woman admitted), in 1877; Charles Cary, in 1878; A. E. Davidson, in 1879; Charles G. Stockton, in 1880; Judson B. Andrews (in charge of the State Hospital for the Insane), Benjamin H. Grove, Frederick Peterson, W. C. Barrett, J. B. Coakley, in 1881; Matthew D. Mann, W. W. Potter, Carlton C. Frederick, Clayton M. Daniels, Irving M. Snow, Walter D. Greene, Floyd S. Crego, in 1882; James W. Putnam, Frank H. Potter, Alvin A. Hubbell, John H. Pryor, Herman E. Hayd, Eli H. Long, George E. Fell, Willis G. Gregory, in 1883; Roswell Park (now a surgeon of more than national fame), F. A. Witthaus, Wil- liam Meisberger, B. G. Long, Carlton R. Jewett, William H. Thornton, Stephen Y. Howell, Herbert Mickle, in
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