USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > A history of Buffalo : delineating the evolution of the city > Part 15
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1884; John Parmenter, F. W. Hinkel, C. F. Howard, in 1885; DeLancey Rochester, J. W. Grosvenor, William C. Callanan, Thomas Crowe, Arthur W. Hurd, Elmer Starr, in 1886; Harry A. Wood, Julius Pohlman, in 1887; Ernest Wende (subsequently the notable organizer of the Health Department of the city), H. G. Matzinger, W. S. Renner, Charles E. Congdon, William H. Heath, in 1888; Electa B. Whipple, in 1889; A. L. Benedict, M. A. Crockett, Sydney A. Dunham, in 1890.
To follow the records of the Erie County Medical Society further would bring us into the younger generation of medical men whose reputations and standing are consid- erably undetermined, and from among whom it would be more hazardous than from earlier lists to attempt a selection of prominent names.
In 1831 and 1836 attempts were made to form a Buffalo Medical Society, distinct from the County organization, but they had no lasting success. In 1845, however, the Buffalo Medical Association came into existence and lived through nearly half a century. It gave way in 1892 to the Buffalo Academy of Medicine, in which several other more special- ized associations-obstetrical, pathological and clinical- were united, becoming a group of sections under one admin- istration. The Academy has had a prosperous history since.
In 1859 the Homeopathic system of medicine had ac- quired fifteen practitioners in Buffalo and the villages of the county, and they organized the Erie County Homeo- pathic Medical Society. They had won their footing against bitter opposition, in a struggle which had then been in progress for fifteen years or more. The pioneer of the struggle had been Dr. N. H. Warner, who settled in Buffalo as a practitioner of the older school of medicine, having charge of the Marine Hospital, about 1836. Becoming a convert to the medical doctrines of Hahnemann, Dr.
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Warner committed himself definitely to a practice in ac- cordance with them in 1844. For doing so he was expelled from the County Medical Society and suffered professional ostracism thenceforth. But he gained a supporting cli- entage and began, in a few years, to have comrades in the battle for Homeopathy. Dr. George W. Lewis came into the ranks in 1849, and was followed in the course of the next ten years by Drs. P. W. Gray, Dio Lewis, G. H. Blanchard, Simon Z. Haven, A. H. Beers, A. S. Hinckley, L. M. Ken- yon, A. R. Wright. These were among the organizers of the County Homeopathic Medical Society, of which Dr. Haven was the first president. Prominent accessions in sub- sequent years to the corps of Homeopathic practitioners in- cluded Drs. Nehemiah Osborne, Rollin R. Gregg, Augustus C. Hoxsie, J. W. Wallace, H. N. Martin, G. C. Hibbard, Lyman Bedford, Alexander T. Bull, Hubbard Foster, Henry Baethig, George F. Foote, S. N. Brayton, Joseph T. Cook, George T. Moseley, F. Park Lewis, D. B. Stumpf, Truman J. Martin, B. J. Maycock, A. M. Curtiss, John Miller, H. C. Frost, E. P. Hussey, D. G. Wilcox, W. H. Marcy, G. R. Stearns, George P. Critchlow, Clarence L. Hyde, C. W. Seaman, C. M. Kendrick, Jessie Shepard, Rose Wilder.
CHAPTER VIII LOCAL LITERATURE-THE NEWSPAPER PRESS
T HOSE who aspire to a literary career are drawn, in all countries, by many attractions of opportunity and widened experience, to the largest centers of activity and concentrated life. London in Great Britain, Paris in France, New York in America, are more engrossingly the seats of productive work in literature and in all of the higher forms of art than of any which has to do with the production of more material things. Edinburgh could hold its ground for a time against London, as a provincial literary capital, and Boston could even lead New York in the output of letters during many years; but both gave way in the end to the pull of the bigger social mass. Hence, naturally, other cities have made but a modest showing in the history of American literature.
Buffalo can claim, however, a yield in letters that will compare more than favorably with that of other communi- ties of its class. It is safe to say that none could supply material for a finer collection of local verse than is con- tained in a volume representative of "The Poets and Poetry of Buffalo," compiled and edited by James N. Johnston and published in 1904. The poems, selected from no less than one hundred and thirteen writers, fill four hundred and sixty-two octavo pages of print. An unborrowed true poetic quality is deniable to very few of them, if to any. In a surprisingly large number the unmistakable voice of in- spired thought, feeling and imagination speaks thrillingly to the reader's spirit and melodiously to his ear. Perhaps that pure strain of inspiration is felt most distinctly in the
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verse of David Gray, Robert Cameron Rogers, Dr. William Bull Wright, Annie R. Annan (Mrs. William H. Glenny), Amanda T. Jones, James N. Johnston; but it is hazardous to draw lines of distinction between the singers in a group which includes Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Anson G. Chester, Irving Browne, Frederic Almy, Dr. Frederick Peterson, Carleton Sprague, Philip Becker Goetz, Charlotte Becker, Rev. Patrick Cronyn, Katherine E. Conway, Bessie Chandler (Mrs. Leroy Parker), Mary Ripley, Mary E. Mixer, Mrs. Elizabeth M. Olmsted, William McIntosh, Henry R. Howland, Frank H. Severance, John Harrison Mills, Jabez Loton, Mrs. H. E. G. Arey, Julia Ditto Young.
In prose writing, even if books only are considered, the local product has been too abundant for more than a partial cataloguing of authors' names. More or less important contributions to History and Biography have been made, first and last, by Judge Samuel Wilkeson, O. H. Marshall, William Ketchum, Rev. Dr. John C. Lord, W. L. G. Smith, Jesse Clement, Crisfield Johnson, General A. W. Bishop, John Harrison Mills, Orton S. Clark, George H. Stowits, Daniel G. Kelly, C. W. Boyce, Frank Wilkeson, General James C. Strong, E. G. Spaulding, William Dor- sheimer, Charles C. Deuther, Bishop John Timon, E. Carle- ton Sprague, Henry Tanner, Rev. Thomas Donohoe, Rev. Sanford Hunt, Rev. Professor Guggenberger, F. H. Severance, George S. Potter, Rev. William B. Wright, F. J. Shepard, Samuel M. Welch, Jr., L. G. Sellstedt, Judge Truman C. White, Robert Pennel, D. S. Alexander, J. N. Larned.
Books of Travel have been written by Horace Briggs, Bishop Coxe, F. S. Dellenbaugh, Henry P. Emerson, Mrs. E. A. Forbes, Josiah Letchworth, Charles Linden, James N. Matthews, O. G. Steele, Charles Wood.
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In Medical and Surgical Science works receiving more than pamphlet publication have been written by Drs. A. L. Benedict, F. E. Campbell, Austin Flint, F. E. Fronczak, C. C. F. Gay, F. H. Hamilton, Lucien Howe, F. Park Lewis, M. D. Mann, Herman Mynter, Roswell Park, R. V. Pierce, James P. White. On other subjects of Science the local writers have included Lewis F. Allen, Albert H. Chester, E. E. Fish, R. W. Haskins, D. S. Kellicott, Charles Linden, A. R. Grote.
On subjects in the domain of Politics, Sociology, Law and Education the published books include writings by Al- bert Brisbane, James O. Putnam, Grover Cleveland, Wil- liam P. Letchworth, Irving Browne, Mrs. H. E. G. Arey, Rev. S. H. Gurteen, Charles Ferguson, E. C. Mason, E. C. Townsend, Charles P. Norton, W. H. Hotchkiss, W. C. Cornwell, Leroy Parker, James F. Gluck, Robert Schweckerath, Frederick A. Wood, H. E. Montgomery.
Religious literature has had many contributors from our city, among them Bishops Timon, Ryan and Coxe, Rever- ends Henry A. Adams, C. C. Albertson, G. H. Ball, Gott- fried Berner, J. L. Corning, J. P. Egbert, W. F. Faber, R. S. Green, C. E. Locke, John C. Lord, S. S. Mitchell, J. A. Regester, Montgomery Schuyler, Thomas R. Slicer, S. R. Smith, Henry Smith, J. Hyatt Smith, M. L. R. P. Thompson, J. B. Wentworth, William B. Wright, George Zurcher. Other religious writings have come from the pens of James H. Fisher, E. C. Randall, Mrs. C. H. Wood- ruff, Mary Martha Sherwood.
In fiction, the books catalogued at the Buffalo Public Library as being of local authorship are by George Berner, Allen G. Bigelow, J. E. Brady, Bessie Chandler (Mrs. Leroy Parker), Jane G. Cooke, H. L. Everett, Mrs. Gilder- sleeve-Longstreet, David Gray, Jr., George A. Hibbard, W. T. Hornaday, Elbert Hubbard, James H. W. Howard,
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Carrie F. Judd, William F. Kip, H. T. Koerner, J. H. Lan- gille, Mrs. E. B. Perkins (Susan Chestnutwood), Mrs. Charles Rohlfs (Anna Katherine Green), Robert Cameron Rogers, W. L. G. Smith (who tried in 1852 to stem the effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by a different picture of slavery), G. A. Stringer, Dorothy Tanner (Mrs. Montgomery), D. E. Wade, Ida Worden Wheeler, O. Witherspoon, George A. Woodward, Julia Ditto Young.
"Art in Buffalo" is the subject of a recently published history by the veteran artist, Lars G. Sellstedt, and an im- portant contribution to the literature of Art was made some years ago in Willis O. Chapin's illustrated work on the Masters and Masterpieces of Engraving. A book on Landscape Gardening by E. A. Long, and one on Floricul- ture by W. Scott, seem to complete the tale of local litera- ture in the department of Art.
Neither interest nor importance could be given to an account of everything in journalism that has been under- taken in Buffalo since types and press were first brought to it. The wrecked ventures have been numerous; the sur- vivals for any considerable period have been few. The latter only will be recounted, as a rule, though exceptional interest may occasionally be found in the circumstances of a wreck.
Among the newspapers now published in Buffalo the Commercial Advertiser and the Courier represent long lines of descent, that of the former going back to the first two printing presses that were operated at this extremity of the State of New York. The earliest of those presses to arrive was brought from Canandaigua, in 1811, by the brothers, Smith H. and Hezekiah A. Salisbury, who began at once the publication of a small weekly paper, the Buffalo Gazette, the first number of which was issued on the 3d of October in that year. Nearly full files of the Gazette, preserved in
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the Buffalo Public Library and the Buffalo Historical Society, are among the most precious records of early local history that we possess, notwithstanding the meagreness of its reporting of the village news. The printing equipment of the Salisburys was saved from the destructive invaders of December, 1813, by its timely removal to Harris Hill, where the publication of the Gazette went on for some time.
Smith H. Salisbury was the editor of the Buffalo Gazette until January, 1818, when he transferred his interest in the paper to William A. Carpenter ; but Carpenter sold it in the following April to H. A. Salisbury, who renamed his paper the Buffalo Patriot in 1820. On the first of January, 1835, the publication of a daily newspaper, in association with the Patriot, was begun at the office of the latter, its editor being Guy H. Salisbury, son of Smith H. This was the Daily Commercial Advertiser, which thus traces its parentage to the primitive press of the city. Four years later the Com- mercial Advertiser added to this relationship with our most ancient journalism another tie, by happenings as follows :
A second weekly newspaper had been founded at Buffalo in 1815 by David M. Day. Its original title, the Niagara Journal, was changed to the Buffalo Journal in 1820, when Erie County was separated from Niagara County, and under that name it was published by Mr. Day, in association dur- ing part of the time with Roswell W. Haskins and Oran Follett, until 1834. Then it was sold to a Colonel Roberts, who attempted to publish with it an ambitious Daily Ad- vertiser, which lived no longer than six weeks. In the next year the Journal was suspended, and Mr. Day, who had started a new weekly, the Buffalo Whig, bought back its title and added it to that of his Whig. Soon afterwards he took Mitchenor Cadwallader and Dr. Henry R. Stagg into partnership, and the new firm started a daily Buffalo Journal, in February, 1836. From this connection Mr.
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Day retired in 1837, and the establishment, with its news- papers, was bought by Elam R. Jewett, in the fall of 1838.
Meantime, changes had occurred in the ownership of the Patriot and the Daily Commercial Advertiser. In Janu- ary, 1836, Bradford A. Manchester had bought one-half of the establishment, and, six months later, H. A. Salisbury retired from business. Dr. Thomas M. Foote, who had been connected editorially with the daily for a short time, and Guy H. Salisbury, then became associated with Mr. Manchester in the publication. In the summer of 1838 they were joined by Almon M. Clapp, who had been publishing a weekly paper at East Aurora for three years past, and who now merged it in the Patriot, becoming one of the editors and proprietors of the Commercial Advertiser and the Patriot. Soon after this Mr. Manchester withdrew from the business, and, in May, 1839, Messrs. Salisbury and Clapp sold their interests to Dr. Foote and Elam R. Jewett, the latter of whom, as noted above, had become the pro- prietor of the Daily Journal. That newspaper was now merged in the Commercial Advertiser, which acquired, under the proprietorship of E. R. Jewett & Co., the substan- tial footing it has since maintained.
If lineage is traced back through weekly progenitors, the pedigree of the Commercial Advertiser is unrivalled; but the Courier finds somewhat earlier parentage in a daily publication. Its primary ancestor was a weekly paper, the Buffalo Republican, started in 1828 by William P. M. Wood, from whom it passed through several hands in the next half dozen years, until it became the property of Charles Faxon, who bought, furthermore, from James Faxon, a daily newspaper, the Star, which the latter had undertaken in the summer of 1831. The Star, daily, and the Republican, weekly, were published by Charles Faxon until late in 1838, when, after going through a disastrous
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fire, he sold them to Quartus Graves. Graves, in turn, sold the establishment in 1842 to Henry Burwell, who changed the title of the daily paper to the Mercantile Courier and Democratic Economist. The next purchaser, Joseph Stringham, cut the title down to Mercantile Courier, and carried on both publication and editorship of the paper for several years.
Meantime, Bradford A. Manchester and James O. Brayman had started another daily newspaper, the National Pilot, and this, on the Ist of July, 1846, was united with the Mercantile Courier, which then became the Buffalo Courier of the present day. In the editorial conduct of the several publications which came to this union, a number of notable citizens had taken part at various times. Horatio Gates, Israel T. Hatch, Henry K. Smith, Stephen Albro, R. W. Haskins, were of the list. Through all changes its stand, politically, was on the Democratic side.
Compared with the Commercial and the Courier, the Buffalo Morning Express is young; compared with the re- maining "dailies" of the present time in the city it is old. It was planted on entirely new foundations in 1846, by Almon M. Clapp and Rufus Wheeler, and its first editor was James McKay. William E. Robinson, T. N. Parmalee and Seth C. Hawley were successive editors until about 1852, when Mr. Clapp, previously engaged with Mr. Wheeler in the business management, took the editorial direction of the paper on himself. About this time, or not long afterward, James N. Matthews became a partner in the job printing business connected with the newspaper publication, and raised it to importance very soon by his rare capabilities. Printing, to Mr. Matthews, was an art, and he led the de- velopment of it as such in Buffalo, from the day that the management of a printing establishment came into his hands. Until 1860 the Express and the allied printing
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ALTI RAL EVOLUTION
Vore w Quartus Graves. Graves, in turn, sold Modif in 1842 to Henry Burwell, who changed The daily paper to the Mercantile Courier and Economist, The next purchaser, Joseph ham, cut the title down to Mercantile Courier, and hed on both publication and editorship of the paper for veral years.
Meantime, Bradford A. Manchester and James O. Brayman had started another daily newspaper, the National Pilot, and this, on the Ist of July, 1846, was united with the Mer onile Courier, which then became the Buffalo Courier of the preso In the editorial conduct of the several
JAMES Ntl MATTHEWSumber of notable
Printer and publisher ; born Bungay, County of Suffolk, W. England, November 21, 1828; came to the United States in 1846; married Harriet Wells of Westfield, N. Y., July 24, 1 1851; was employed in various printing offices in Buffalo, 1846-60; was editor and one of the publishers of the Com- mercial Advertiser, 1860-77; a delegate-at-large to the Re- re-
publican national conventions of 1872 and 1876; published the Buffalo Express from January 7, 1878, until his death;
It wws died December 20, 1888. w foundations in 1846, by Almon M Clapp and Rufus Wheeler, and its first editor was James McKay. William E. Robinson, T. N. Parmalee and Seth C'. Hawley were successive editors until about 1852 when Mr Clapp, previously engaged with Mr WI le in the bumps management, took the editor lincimen of the About this time, or not long afterward,
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S.n. Walther.
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establishment remained under this organization. Then a rupture of harmonious relations occurred. Mr. Wheeler parted company with Mr. Clapp, and formed a partnership soon afterwards with Joseph Candee and James D. Warren, in the firm of Rufus Wheeler & Co., which bought the Commercial Advertiser and its printing outfit.
One previous change in the proprietorship of the Com- mercial had occurred since it passed into the hands of Mr. Jewett and Dr. Foote, in 1839. In 1850 they had associated C. F. S. Thomas and S. H. Lathrop with themselves in the printing department of the business, and in 1855 had sold their whole interest, the newspaper included, to those gen- tlemen ; but the property had returned a few years later to Mr. Jewett. Dr. Foote, meantime, had been enjoying some years of diplomatic experience, as Charge d'Affaires at Bogota and Vienna. He died in February, 1858. His successors for a period in the editorship of the Commercial Advertiser were E. Peshine Smith, Professor Ivory Cham- berlain, afterwards editorial writer on the New York Herald, Dr. Sanford B. Hunt and Anson G. Chester.
Mr. Candee retired from the firm of Rufus Wheeler & Co. in 1862, and Mr. Matthews, dissolving his partnership with Mr. Clapp, then entered it, the firm name becoming Wheeler, Matthews & Warren, until the retirement of Mr. Wheeler (followed soon by his death) in the spring of 1865. The firm was then Matthews & Warren, and Mr. Matthews assumed the chief editorship of the paper, Mr. William E. Foster beginning not long after, as associate editor, his long editorial connection with the Commercial Advertiser. After twelve years of association, Messrs. Matthews & Warren dissolved partnership in 1877, the latter buying the interest of the former, who, thereupon, purchased the Express. The Commercial Advertiser establishment has remained the property of Mr. Warren and his family to
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the present time. At his death, in 1886, the management passed to his eldest son, Orsamus G., who died in May, 1892. The business is now conducted by William C. Warren. Mr. Foster has been the editor of the paper since Mr. Mat- thews withdrew, and Mr. Frank M. Hollister has been associated with him for many years.
In the years between the separation of Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Matthews from Mr. Clapp and the purchase of the Express by Mr. Matthews in 1877, that newspaper and printing establishment had undergone several changes. Mr. Clapp took his son, H. H. Clapp, into partnership with himself in the newspaper department of the business. After the withdrawal of Mr. Matthews from the printing depart- ment, in 1862, or early in 1863, several persons were joined in interest with the latter business for short periods during the next few years. In the newspaper the editorial associates of Mr. Clapp, from the time he assumed the pen, were, successively, Anson G. Chester, George W. Haskins, David Wentworth and J. N. Larned. For a short time in 1860-61, after his resignation from the Commercial Adver- tiser and before he entered the medical service of the army, Dr. Sanford B. Hunt had an editorial connection with the Express.
In 1866 the Express property and business were con- veyed to an incorporated Express Printing Company, in which A. M. Clapp, H. H. Clapp, J. N. Larned, Colonel George H. Selkirk and Thomas A. Kennett held equal shares. Two years later Mr. A. M. Clapp received the ap- pointment of Congressional Printer, which required his withdrawal from private interests in the business of print- ing, and the shares of himself and his son were sold to the remaining members of the company. In the next year Mr. Kennett's shares were bought by Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), and the readers of the Express enjoyed some of the
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best of Mr. Clemens' humorous sketches at first hands, while the editorial staff of the paper had the pleasure of his rare companionship and assistance, for about a year. He then sold his interest to Colonel Selkirk; and, in 1872, a majority of the shares of the Express Printing Company were bought by the proprietors of the Commercial Advertiser. After some further changes in the ownership, the whole property was bought in 1877, as stated above, by James N. Matthews, who proceeded to build upon it the notably prosperous structure of business, which he left, on his death in Decem- ber, 1888, to his son, George E. Matthews.
In the business and the editorial management Mr. Mat- thews had equal success. The printing establishment, which he created, is one of the most notable in America, especially in the finer departments of the art. In color printing it has few rivals; in map-drawing and printing, almost none. The latter branch of its large and varied busi- ness has been developed from an establishment of relief line engraving which was founded originally by Elam R. Jewett, the former proprietor of the Commercial Adver- tiser. From Mr. Jewett this passed to Henry Chandler & Co., and thence to William P. Northrup & Co., from whom it came into union with the printing establishment of Mr. Matthews.
On the death of J. N. Matthews his son took into partner- ship two members of his father's previous staff, James W. Greene and Charles E. Austin, organizing the firm of George E. Matthews & Co., which conducted the business until April, 1901. Then the J. N. Matthews Company was formed, under which designation the whole business is included, but with two organizations, namely that of The Buffalo Express and that of the Matthews-Northrup Works. The officers of the company are George E. Mat- thews president, William P. Northrup vice-president,
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George E. Burrows treasurer, Edward A. Kendrick secre- tary. In the editorial organization of the Express James W. Greene is editor-in-chief, M. M. Wilner assistant gen- eral editor, Brayton Nichols editor of the Illustrated Ex- press (Sunday). It should be said, by the way, that the Illustrated Express, established in 1883, has a wide circula- tion in the United States and Canada. On the business side of the newspaper organization William M. Ramsdell is publisher ; James A. Pierce is general superintendent of the Matthews-Northrup Works.
Returning now to the annals of the Courier, which were left at the point of time, in 1846, when it absorbed the Na- tional Pilot, we find that Mr. Stringham soon sold his interest to Messrs. Manchester & Brayman, and that Guy H. Salisbury was associated with Mr. Brayman in the con- duct of the paper editorially. But in 1849 the whole estab- lishment was bought by W. A. Seaver, who became both publisher and editor for the next few years. In 1857 James H. Sanford acquired an interest, and in the next year the important connection of Joseph Warren with the Courier, which had begun in 1854, when he was engaged as local editor or reporter, became fixed by his joining Gilbert K. Harroun in a purchase of the interest which Mr. Seaver had retained. The firm then formed, of Sanford, Warren & Harroun, was changed in a few years to Joseph Warren & Co., Messrs. Sanford and Harroun dropping out and being succeeded by Milo Stevens, William C. Horan and David Gray.
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