USA > New York > Ontario County > A history of Ontario County, New York and its people, Volume I > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46
The Asylum from the start commanded the interest and generous support of the people of the county, its annual donation days providing the opportunity for friends in the several towns to replenish its treasury and refill its larder. Several generous bequests, including one of $80.000 received from the estate of Commodore
294
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
James Glynn of the United States Navy, following his death at New Haven, May 13, 1871, have given the institution an endowment that happily assures its support for the years to come. The Asylum's permanent funds were reported at the annual meeting, October 4, 1910, as aggregating the sum of $130,026.58. The family had included during the preceding year an average of fifty-four children.
The board of trustees of which General John A. Granger, Alexander H. Howell, James C. Smith, Henry M. Field, and David G. Lapham have successively officiated as presidents, now consists of David G. Lapham, president; Charles A. Richardson, secretary ; Frank H. Hamlin, treasurer ; Frank A. Christian, Charles C. Sackett, and Robert F. Thompson.
The Clark Manor House, founded in July, 1899, by Mrs. Mary Clark Thompson, in loving memory of her parents, Myron Holley Clark and Zilpha Watkins Clark, provides a home for aged men and women of the county that is supported at the cost of its founder and is doing a most gracious work. Its original board of managers consisted of the following named persons: Dwight R. Burrell, John H. Jewett, William H. Adams, George N. Williams, Edward G. Hayes, Charles C. Sackett, Charles F. Milliken, Harriet J. Gillette, Zilpha C. Backus, Charlotte E. Clark, Mary C. Williams, Elizabeth C. Phelps, Clara G. Coleman, Clara F. Clement, and Louise H. Field. Dr. Burrell was president of the board from its organization until 1908, when he was succeeded by Mr. Milliken.
The Frederick Ferris Thompson Hospital was founded by Mrs. Thompson, in memory of her husband, the late Frederick Ferris Thompson. It was opened for the reception of patients on September 1, 1904. The main hospital building, which is located on the site formerly occupied by the Ontario Female Seminary, is a handsome three-story structure built of Canandaigua pressed brick, with a steel frame, concrete and slate roof, and copper cornice, and is absolutely fire proof. It is equipped with all modern appli- ances for the treatment of disease and injuries and has accommoda- tions for forty-five patients. A pavilion for cases of contagious disease located on the same property contains beds for ten patients.
The hospital's original board of directors was made up as fol- lows: Edward G. Hayes, Dwight R. Burrell, John H. Jewett, Frank A. Christian, Clark Williams, Orlando J. Hallenbeck, Frank- lin P. Warner, Matthew R. Carson, Albert L. Beahan, Fred E. McClellan, Harry C. Buell, Jean L. Burnett, Leonard A. Parkhurst,
THE VILLAGE OF CANANDAIGUA. 295
Peter P. Turner, Charles F. Milliken, John H. Pratt, and Alfred M. Mead. Mr. Hayes has been president of the board since its first organization and Mr. Christian has held the office of secre- tary. The office of treasurer has been held successively by William J. Donovan, Dr. Harry C. Buell, and Timothy W. Lynch. In the deed of gift, Mrs. Thompson provided that no discrimination should be shown in the admission of patients because of their creed or pecuniary condition, and she has made generous provision for its maintenance.
A training school for nurses was opened in connection with the Thompson hospital on April 1, 1908, and was registered by the State Regents, April 1, 1909. It is under the direct supervision of the superintendent of the hospital, Miss Elin Karlson Kraemer.
The Ontario County Bacteriological Laboratory, built and equipped by Mrs. Thompson in 1906, is located on the hospital grounds and is operated at public expense, for the benefit of the physicians and people of Ontario county.
The Canandaigua Hospital of Physicians and Surgeons, estab- lished as the Beahan Hospital in 1898 and incorporated under its present name in 1904, was established by Dr. A. L. Beahan, and has been conducted by him in association with other physicians of the village and county. Dr. Beahan is the president and treasurer of the institution, and Dr. Orlando J. Hallenbeck is its secretary. The directors are as follows: Dr. Matthew R. Carson, Dr. Orlando J. Hallenbeck, Dr. Frederick E. McClellan, Dr. S. R. Wheeler, and Dr. A. L. Beahan. Its nurses training school was organized in 1903 and is registered by the Regents.
Brigham Hall, a hospital for the treatment of mental and nerv- ous disorders, was founded in 1855, by Dr. George Cook and Mr. Robert D. Cook. In May, 1860, Dr. John B. Chapin became asso- ciated with the management, but retired in October, 1869, to become superintendent of the newly established State hospital at Willard. Dr. Cook continued thereafter in charge until his death as the result of a murderous attack by a patient, June 12, 1876. Dr. Cook was succeeded by Dr. Dwight R. Burrell, and he, in 1908, by Dr. Robert G. Cook, the present resident physician. In its act of incorporation the name "hospital" was applied for the first time in the State to an institution for the insane, and founded on the most liberal and progressive lines, and enlarged and improved from time to time, it is recognized as one of the most successful private hospital- in the country.
.
296
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
Public Improvements.
The men who made the original plotting of the village of Can- andaigua acted perhaps wiser than they knew. The 8-rods wide Main street, which they laid out through the woods, extending two and one-half miles from the foot of the lake in a northerly direction, and which, at its intersection midway with the 6-rods wide Cross street, had provision for a large public square, did not become the main artery of the metropolis of their dreams, but it has lent itself to a development that illustrates the taste and enterprise of the community and that has made it notable among the handsomest village streets in America.
The first systematic attempt to give the village a lighting system was in 1853, when the Canandaigua Gas Light Company was organized and extended its wooden mains through Main street. .From time to time these were replaced or supplemented by iron pipes, and the company, of which Elbridge G. Lapham was president and Myron H. Clark, James McKechnie, and other enterprising citizens were members, continued to serve the village in street light- ing as well as in house lighting without competition until 1886, when an electric lighting system was introduced by a company of outside capitalists, of which Frank B. Merrill, then a resident of Canandaigua, acted as president and manager. This company soon took over the lighting of the village streets, which was first accom- plished on November 9, 1886. The competition resulted in a combination of interests, though the two corporations were never actually consolidated. In 1893 the electric lighting and street railroad properties amalgamated under the management of M. Dwight Munger, a prominent local banker, who bought and devel- oped the water power at Littleville and used it for the generation of electricity with which to light the village and operate the railroad. In the year 1900, under a foreclosure sale, these interests went into the hands of out-of-town capitalists, organized under the name of the Ontario Light and Traction Company, a corporation which has since continued to hold the electric lighting franchise of. the village.
The demand of the growing population for a more adequate fire protection than that afforded by the public wells, and for a more wholesome water supply for domestic purposes than that of the private wells, resulted in the granting of a franchise in 1884 to a company of eastern capitalists for the construction of a pumping
297
THE VILLAGE OF CANANDAIGUA.
plant and the laying of water mains in the village streets. This company, of which M. Dwight Munger, Frank B. Merrill, and J. Henry Metcalf were successively the local managers, erected a power plant near the lake on the west side of Main street, extended a suction pipe for a distance of 2500 feet into the lake to a point south of Squaw island, laid mains through the principal village streets, and undertook to supply the public and private needs of the village for water. The over-capitalization of the enterprise, and its consequent failure to make both ends meet and to satisfy the just demands of the citizens for efficient service at reasonable rates, led to the construction, in 1895, of a municipal water system, which soon supplanted that of the private company and finally resulted in its dissolution. The pumping station of the municipal system is located on the west shore of the lake, some two miles from the foot of Main street, and by means of two powerful engines, which have supplanted the electrical transmission system first installed, the water is elevated to a reservoir constructed on a nearby eminence, and from there it is distributed by gravity to all parts of the village, under a pressure that affords abundant and efficient service.
The street railroad was laid from the lake dock through Main street to 'a point above the Buffalo street corner in 1887, by a company of which Major Frank O. Chamberlain was president and in which Charles C. Sackett, Augustine S. Cooley, Maynard N. Clement, and Charles F. Milliken, all residents of Canandaigua, held the controlling interest. It was first operated by horse power, but upon its absorption by the Canandaigua Electric Light Company in 1893, was equipped with electricity. In 1900 the combined property was sold under foreclosure to H. C. Mandeville and others and became the property of the Ontario Light and Traction Company.
The sewer system of the village was inaugurated in the year 1883, when a trunk sewer was constructed through Main street under municipal direction and at the cost of the property benefited. In 1887, "for the purpose of obtaining drainage and sewerage for the Village of Canandaigua," the corporation named acquired possession of the dam across the outlet at Chapinville and the control of the so-called "feeder," an artificial channel, which had been opened in 1855 by the "Ontario Hydraulic Company" from the lake direct to a point on the outlet something over two miles distant from its mouth, for the purpose of regulating the discharge of the
298
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
waters for the benefit of the mills and factories lower down on the stream. The village, upon acquiring possession as stated, removed the dam and deepened the channel, making the stream substantially a part of the village sewer system. In succeeding years sewers were laid through the lateral streets, the cost ini each case being assessed and collected on the property benefited.
Except for some fairly good gravel roads, bordered by cobble- stone gutters, the village streets were without permanent improve- ments until 1899, when a brick pavement was laid on Chapin street, from Main street to Sucker brook bridge, a distance of 1300 feet. In 1901 a Telford macadam pavement, 30 feet wide with cement curbs and gutters, was constructed on Howell street and the following year a similar improvement was laid on the east end of Gibson street. In 1903, after much agitation of the need of the village for permanent street construction and of the futility and wastefulness of expending large sums annually for temporary repairs, the village board of trustees, of which Dr. Cornelius J. Andruss was president, submitted to the taxpayers the question of bonding the corporation in the sum of $200,000 for paving. This proposition was adopted, and with an advisory committee of citizens, consisting of Messrs. Franklin P. Warner, George W. Hamlin, Michael J. Moran, and Llewellyn L. Smith, the board employed Legrand Brown of Rochester as engineer in charge and proceeded with the task of paving Main street, from the lake to Chapel street, with shale brick. In the following year, under authority conferred by special act of the Legislature, the work of street construction and repair was transferred to a board of street commissioners, which was appointed as follows: Franklin P. Warner, president; Charles J. Brady, Leonard A. Parkhurst, Thomas Johnson, and Fred G. Douglass. George W. Hamlin was elected secretary of the new board. The work of laying permanent pavements was continued thereafter with such industry that within two years all the principal streets of the village were paved with brick or macadam, with sandstone curbs and storm sewers, and the work has been pursued in subsequent years with a result that most of the residential as well as the business streets have been provided with permanent improvements of this character. Their total length aggregates four- teen miles and their cost $500,000, which, excepting in the case of parts of Main street, Charlotte street, Fort Hill avenue, and East street, has been borne one-half by assessment on the village at large
299
THE VILLAGE OF CANANDAIGUA.
and one-half on the abutting property. In the case of Main street, one-third of the cost of the improvement was borne by the abutting property, the balance being assessed upon the village at large.
Two additional features which may be counted as public improvements, although established and maintained by the same generous woman who has provided the village with a hospital and other beneficent institutions, are the recreation grounds on Howell street and the swimming school on the lake front, at the foot of Main street, both of which are fitted with the most complete equip- ment and are in charge of trained instructors.
Transportation Facilities.
The trails which formed the avenues of travel and traffic for the original possessors of the soil gave place, following the opening of the country to settlement by the whites, to so-called turnpikes or state roads, of which Canandaigua was the center of an extensive system. These highways were in time supplemented and in some respects supplanted, first by the canal and then by the railroad. The Erie canal, completed in 1825, did not come nearer the village than Palmyra ; in 1829, it was brought as near as Geneva by the com- pletion of the Cayuga and Seneca branch; an effort in 1820 to put the village and lake in direct connection with the "Grand Canal" then in course of building, was made through the formation of "The Ontario Canal Company" and $50,000 was raised toward the $100,000 which it was estimated the enterprise would cost, but this proposed waterway was not dug.
Canandaigua, however, was brought into direct and rapid communication with the rest of the country by the building of the Auburn and Rochester railroad, an enterprise in which two of its leading citizens, Francis Granger and Oliver Phelps, 3d, took an active part, and upon the organization of which Henry B. Gibson, of Canandaigua, became its president. After varied incidents and accidents the road was completed between Canandaigua and Rochester, and on Saturday, September 12, 1840, a locomotive and three cars came through to Canandaigua and made the return trip the Monday following. Within a few days a rude station house was built west of Mr. Gibson's residence, near where Greig terrace now intersects the Auburn branch, and there was opened, as the first time table advertised, "for freight and passage three daily lines." The work of construction toward the east was carried
300
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
rapidly forward, and on July 4, 1841, was so far completed as to warrant the running of an excursion train to Seneca Falls. The bridge over Cayuga lake was completed the same fall and in November trains were running the entire length of the road between Rochester and Auburn. Some years later the Auburn and Rochester road was consolidated with the Auburn and Syracuse road, and in 1853 a direct line between Rochester and Syracuse was completed, a step preparatory to the general consolidation of the lines through the State in a corporation thereafter to be known as the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company.
The building of a road connecting Canandaigua with the country to the south was undertaken by Mark H. Sibley, Jonas M. Wheeler, Jared Willson, John A. Granger, and Oliver Phelps, 3d, in 1845, and, an act of incorporation having been secured and after much effort the requisite funds provided, the work of construction was begun in 1850. The road was opened between Canandaigua and Jefferson (now Watkins) in September, 1851. Known first as the Canandaigua and Corning railroad, it became on September 11, 1852, the Canandaigua and Elmira railroad. William G. Lapham was its superintendent, and its two passenger trains and two freight trains made the round trip between the two villages, daily. The road was sold to outside capitalists in 1857 for $35,000, subject to a bonded indebtedness of half a million dollars, and the name was changed to the Elmira, Canandaigua, and Niagara Falls Railroad. The road is now operated under lease by the Northern Central Company, constituting the northern terminal of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, and affords Canandaigua direct connection with Washington, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
The railroad now known as the Batavia branch of the New York Central was built in 1853 by a corporation known as the Canandaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad Company. The first passenger train was run over the completed road on July 28, 1853. It is now operated by the New York Central under a long lease.
Tentative efforts were made subsequently to build railroads to connect Canandaigua by routes on the east and west sides of the lake with Naples and with the east and west trunk lines in the southern part of the State, also northward to Palmyra and Lake Ontario, but none of the projects were carried much beyond the prospectus stage.
In May, 1904, however, the village saw the successful com-
301
THE VILLAGE OF CANANDAIGUA.
pletion of an electric trolley line, the Rochester and Eastern Rapid Railway, connecting it with Rochester at the west and with Geneva at the east by an hourly car service. The company which built this road took over the franchise and property of the street railroad heretofore mentioned. The control of the Rochester and Eastern road was transferred in 1905 to a company of eastern capitalists representing the Vanderbilt or New York Central interests.
Canandaigua Lake.
The beautiful lake lying south of Canandaigua was from the earliest settlement a means of transportation by row and sail boats to and from the farms and woodlands lying about its headwaters, but the first steam craft to travel the lake was a boat called "The Lady of the Lake," which was built through the enterprise of Francis Granger, John Greig, Jared Willson, James D. Bemis, and other prominent citizens of the village, and which was launched in the summer of 1827. The launching took place on the west shore of the lake, opposite the island, in the presence of a brilliant party of village people and under the eyes of the officers of the 12th regiment of militia, assembled by order of their commander. Colonel John A. Granger, for their annual drill. The "light infantry." the local militia company, was also out in their natty uniforms and with their fine martial music. The speech of the occasion was made by Mr. John Greig and the boat was christened with a bottle of wine broken by Miss Sally Morris, the daughter of Hon. Thomas Morris, a former prominent resident of the village.
Isaac Parrish was the captain of the wonderful craft, which. however, was not a financial success and had but a brief career. The next lake steamboat, called "The Ontario," was built by a company of Naples capitalists and was launched in the fall of 1845. Her skeleton, too, was after a few years embedded in the sand at the bottom of the lake. This first "Ontario's" immediate successor was the "Joseph Wood." built by Allen and David Wood and for a long time successfully managed by the Standish brothers. About the year 1858, Captain John Robinson built the steamer "Henry B. Gibson," which after being enlarged and renamed "The Naples" passed into the hands first of Wood & Holcomb and then of the Warner brothers. She was later destroyed in the ice at Canan- daigua. In 1865 the Warner brothers built as her successor a boat which was christened "The Canandaigua," and which for a number
302
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
of years was owned and operated by J. & A. McKechnie, the Canandaigua brewers. In September, 1867, the Standish brothers completed the construction of a new boat christened the "Ontario," the second Canandaigua lake craft to bear that name, and on the 25th of the month she was launched at Woodville with appropriate ceremonies, the traditional bottle being broken over the bow by Miss Julia Phelps of Canandaigua. Mr. Manning C. Wells delivered the address. A sharp rivalry ensued between the "Canandaigua," under the management of the McKechnies, and the "Ontario," of which Henry Standish succeeded to the captaincy. This rivalry continued for several years and until the McKechnies purchased the competing line. In 1880 the steamboat and dock properties of the lake were taken over by a corporation known as the Canan- daigua Lake Steam Navigation Company, of which Mr. M. Dwight Munger was the first president and Mr. James McKechnie his successor. This company, following the burning of the steamer "Ontario," at the dock in Canandaigua in July, 1887, began the construction of a new boat, which was launched May 19, 1888, and christened the "Onnalinda," by Miss Maude Sayer. The address was delivered by Hon. John Raines. The "Onnalinda," 142 feet in length over all, with a deck 40 feet wide, is the largest boat that has been run on the lake. The following year, the same company built a second and smaller steamboat, the "Ogarita," to take the place of the worn-out "Canandaigua," whose engine, however, was trans- ferred and used in the new boat. In 1889, also, a rival or inde- pendent boat was built by the People's Line Company, in which Captain John M. McCormack, Captain James Menteth, and other lake boatmen were interested. This boat was launched May 5, Oliver Armstrong. Esq., making the speech and Miss Philadelphia Menteth giving it the name "Genundewah." This boat was destroyed by fire at her dock at Woodville on December 8, 1894.
In July, 1899, the remaining steamboat interests of the lake went into the possession of a new corporation, the Canandaigua Lake Transportation Company, of which John Raines was made president and Louis Sayer became general manager. This company continues to operate the "Onnalinda," the "Ogarita," and also a smaller boat known as the "Oriana," which has been enlarged and fitted with a gasoline engine the present season.
Much interest was manifested for a number of years in sailing craft, the Canandaigua Yacht Club, under the leadership of Commo-
30.
THE VILLAGE OF CANANDAIGUA.
dore Louis Sayer, having on its roster a score or more of fast boats and its annual regattas constituting an attractive feature of the succeeding summers. More recently the development of the gasoline propelled launch has operated to discourage interest in sailing, and the lake men have equipped themselves with motor boats representing the widest variety in size and equipment. At least one hundred and fifty of these boats are now in use on the lake.
Manufacturing and Business Interests.
Canandaigua, as the geographical and political center of a rich farming district, but without water power or other natural resources, has been compelled to develop its business along lines that would supply the needs of the farmers rather than depend upon the more stimulating if less reliable support of large manufacturing interests. It has, however, been the location of a number of ventures in manufacturing lines. First of these were, of course, the grist mills and the saw mills upon which the settlers had to depend for the flour with which to make their bread and the lumber with which to build their houses. Following the establishment of the grist mill on the outlet at Chapinville came a more extensive enterprise at the foot of Main street, but the water power available here was not sufficient and after several renewed attempts to make the enterprise a success it was abandoned and in 1828 the buildings were destroyed by fire.
The J. & A. McKechnie Brewing Company was founded by James and Alexander McKechnie in 1843 and early became an extensive and profitable business, making millionaires of the owners. Following the death of the McKechnie brothers, the enterprise was continued for a time by a company in which the younger members of the family were largely interested, but it is now operated by outside capital. The name and fame of Canandaigua ale is widely disseminated.
Another successful enterprise has been that of the Lisk Manu- facturing Company, which was brought to Canandaigua from Clifton Springs in 1892, and here developed a large business in the manu- facture of anti-rust tin. Later the company greatly enlarged its plant and engaged in the manufacture of enameled steel ware, and notwithstanding a financial difficulty which it suffered, as the result of experiments in "high finance" by its directors, in 1907, it has gained recognition as one of the largest concerns in the country.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.