USA > New York > Chemung County > Chemung County, its history > Part 7
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William Hoffman was an early settler who owned a large farm in northwestern Elmira. Many of today's beautiful homes in that section are built upon land that once was a part of Hoff- man's farm.
John G. McDowell was the first president of the Chemung Canal Bank, which opened in 1833.
In 1828 Isaac Baldwin built a dam across the Chemung and erected a waterpower mill for making flour. The north end of the dam was at College Ave., which then was called Mill St.
Elmira, in addition to being a coal shipping town in the days of the Chemung Canal, also became a lumbering center. Lumber was brought here from a large area, much of it rafted down the river, for shipping through the canal. Prominent in the lumber business at the time were Samuel Barto Strang, Jervis Langdon and S. G. Andrus.
These men were prominent in community life, and their descend- ants carried on their interests. Later, in the railroad era, A. S. Diven was a man of influence with community spirit.
Mr. Langdon and his heirs gave half of the cost of building the Park Church.
Edward J. Dunn was another such man, his special interest being St. Joseph's Hospital, upon whose board he served for many years and to which he gave a fortune.
Among other notable Elmirans of the late 19th and early 20th Century was the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, who served the Park Church for 40 years, and served his community with charity and kindness.
Rufus Stanley of Elmira was a pioneer in boys' and girls' club work. His name is known today in "Stanley Woods," the Girl Scout camp.
Ross Gilmore Marvin was an Elmira boy who worked his way through Cornell, made a brilliant record in science and mathe- matics, and became a teacher there. When Robert E. Peary, discoverer of the North Pole, was looking for a scientist to help him chart his way through the Arctic wastes, Marvin's name was suggested. Marvin was with Peary on two expeditions, and died during Peary's successful voyage which reached the Pole. A memorial to Marvin is set in a boulder on Market St. near the Historical Center.
Elmira's hospitals serve a wide area of New York State and Pennsylvania. The Arnot-Ogden Hospital was founded in 1888, endowed by Mrs. Marianna Arnot Ogden. St. Joseph's Hospital was founded in 1908 by the Sisters of St. Joseph's.
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The Elmira Reformatory was completed in 1876 with Z. R. Brockway as superintendent. The Reformatory's pioneering work in the rehabilitation and training of young men later was adopted in many prisons in the United States and Europe. Ad- joining it is the Elmira Reception Center, for the orientation of younger offenders.
Elmira was a young village when the fire department was or- ganized in 1839 on a volunteer basis. Every householder in those days was obliged to keep in a convenient place one or more leather fire buckets for use of the department. Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 was formed in 1844. Later came the horse-drawn steamers and the prancing fire horses that would race to their appointed positions under the harness at the first bell. In the early 1900s came the motorized trucks. The Fire Department was organized in 1878. Throughout the years El- mira has had the best available fire apparatus; the American LaFrance Co., world-famous manufacturer of fire appartus, is a home town industry.
A free school system was inaugurated in Elmira in 1859. El- mira Academy became "Free" and a Board of Education was formed.
Illuminating gas was introduced into Elmira in 1852. Electricity came in 1875. The telephone arrived in the late 1870s and in 1880 the first phone directory was published, with less than 50 names.
The Civil War transformed the growing community into a "defense" town. Thousands of soldiers from upstate areas were mustered in and given preliminary training in Elmira, which was one of three marshalling points in the state. The El- mira Prison Camp was a place of confinement for some 12,000 Confederate soldiers, one-quarter of whom died here and were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. It was here that John W. Jones, a former slave, faithfully recorded the name of every soldier buried.
Before the Civil War, Elmira had no police department as such. The "lawman" was the marshal, assisted by several citizen constables. During the Civil War a provost marshal was in charge of the community. The Police Department was estab- lished in 1864.
Capital punishment in the 19th Century was death by hanging. On March 1, 1867, a soldier, Henry Gardner, was hanged here for murdering a man. On July 20, 1877, Peter H. Penwell was hanged for a similar crime. On Jan. 6, 1882, a Reformatory inmate was hanged in the jailyard for killing a fellow inmate.
Elmira has witnessed three disastrous fires in the last 120 years.
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In 1840 every building on Water St. between Lake and Baldwin burned. In 1888 The Advertiser fire destroyed several buildings on Lake St. south of Market. In 1913 the Sunday Telegram building, the N. J. Thompson Co. and the Happy Hour Theater were destroyed by a fire at State and Market.
Floods, too, have caused heavy losses to Elmira. The worst floods were in June, 1889, August, 1935, with the most recent and costly being the flood of May 28, 1946. After the 1946 flood a 221/2-foot flood wall was built by the Army Engineers along the north bank of the Chemung River and the Southside earthen and concrete dikes were reinforced.
Two men from Elmira have served as Governor of New York. David B. Hill served in 1885-1891, and Lucius Robinson in 1876-79.
The first mayor of the Village of Elmira was Stephen Tuttle, a leading businessman and politician. The village population was about 4,000.
Thirty-six years later, in 1864 (April 7) Elmira was incorpor- ated as a city. The population had passed 12,000. John Arnot Jr., of the pioneer Arnot family, was the first mayor, followed in 1865 by John I. Nicks, businessman, cigar-maker and politi- cian. The first City Hall was on Market St. between Baldwin and Lake Sts .; in 1895 the present City Hall was built.
When Elmira adopted the City Manager form of government in 1934, Florence J. Sullivan, who was associated with Elmira Water-Light and Railroad Co., was named the first city manager.
Elmira continued its industrial growth through the latter 19th and early 20th Centuries. By 1890 the population was 30,893; it was 34,687 in 1905, 37,176 in 1910, 40,093 in 1915, and reached 45,359 in 1920.
The Morrow Plant on South Main St., located where Remington Rand is now, was the principal industry of that period. John N. Willys, who came to Elmira at the age of 18 to open a bicycle shop, was the dynamic industrialist who had amassed 47 million dollars by the time he was 47 years old. At peak employment at the time of World War I, the Morrow plant employed 6,500. But after the war the Willys-Morrow interests had shifted to Ohio, and soon the big factory was idle.
In the midst of the Depression of the 1930s, a group of public spirited industrialists, businessmen and lawyers formed Elmira Industries Inc. with such men as Halsey Sayles, J. John Hassett, Alexander D. Falck at the helm. They raised $728,000 in 1934 and 1935, bought the Morrow Plant at a public auction, and offered it to Remington Rand as an inducement to establish a
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factory here. Thus was born the "Precision Tool" plant, now the Remington Rand Division of Sperry Rand Co., where ap- proximately 3,000 are employed.
A prominent name in Elmira's progress of the late 19th Century was that of J. Sloat Fassett, a lawyer, politician and philan- thropist. He and his wife, Jennie Crocker Fassett, built the first Strathmont, helped organize the Elmira Country Club, fostered the Federation of Social Services, among other good works. Both were great benefactors of Elmira College.
Elmira was a "boom town" during World War II, with a popu- lation that grew from 45,106 in 1940 to 49,716 in 1950.
The postwar period saw a fairly healthy economy, spurred by the decision of Westinghouse to build an electronic tube plant at Horseheads and the National Homes Corp. to locate at Horse- heads. Development of "suburbia" in the 1950s saw Elmira's population drop to 46,365 in 1960. A slower industrial pace also was a factor in the decline. While Elmira was losing, Chemung County's population grew from 73,718 in 1940 to 86,827 in 1950 and 98,706 in 1960. The "population explosion" was one big factor in the county's growth; larger families were in contrast to the Depression, when the birth rate was relatively low.
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TOWN OF VAN ETTEN
The town of Van Etten in the northeastern part of the county not only includes the Village of Van Etten, but also the com- munity called Swartwood. The area contains 23,149 acres, most of which is fertile, rich loam. That is why farming is now its chief industry.
The first settler, Joseph Thomas, came in 1795. Gen. Jacob Swartwood harvested his first crop in 1797. Like other areas, it was settled by men who had been with General Sullivan. They returned with their families among which were four families by the name of Van Etten. Slaves were owned by several families in 1803 but were not profitable. Nearly all the settlers came from the valley of the Delaware River and were of Holland Dutch ancestry.
Van Etten was organized April 17, 1854, taken from Erin and Cayuta, and named in honor of John B. Van Etten. Van Etten was incorporated as a village known as Van Ettenville Nov. 27, 1876. At that time the town of Van Etten had a population of 1,732 and a voting population of 491.
In the early days many things were made by hand such as mus- kets, iron bear traps, swords, officer's dress parade uniforms and spinning wheels that spun wool. Soap was hand made as was the "Old Oaken Bucket" which had no nails, screws, or pieces of metal. The first saw mill was on Shepherd's Creek in 1800. Later there were several saw mills and grist mills, also woolen mills. Supplies were barged up the Susquehanna River to Tioga Point and then drawn by oxen to Van Etten and Swart- wood. In about 1820 the stage coach came through this area en route from Owego to Seneca Lake.
As time went on, more industry came to the community. In 1868, H. J. Hixon and Company established an extract works with a 60 horsepower engine, manufacturing 35,000 barrels of extract of hemlock bark per year. This company also had a steam sawmill with turning lathe attached which produced two million feet of lumber per year and employed 25 men. When the first railroad went through, in 1871, there were several saw mills.
In 1891 the Valley Breeze, a weekly newspaper, began to pub- lish the news. A marble and granite works started operation in 1894 but was soon gone. Stores and hotels came, some left and others remained, but slowly farming became the main oc- cupation of the area. In 1895 the first grain binder was intro- duced doing away with hand labor. Lumbering that had thrived for so many years ceased almost entirely by 1904.
Like all communities Van Etten had its entertainment. In the middle 1800's it had its race track. Lodges like the GAR, Masons and the YMCA were formed and the churches had their
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social gatherings. In the 1890's and early 1900's the third floor of the "brick block" was used for "the opera house." Stock companies put on plays, stayed for a week and moved on. The admission was twenty-five cents. Baseball became a popular sport, costing the spectator ten cents a year. The highlight of Van Etten history was in 1902 when 7,000 people came from five counties to attend the annual Soldiers and Sailors picnic at Hickory Grove in commemoration of the Spanish-American War. Horse and surrey taxis were used to take people the three- quarters of a mile from the railroad station to the picnic, at the cost of two cents.
Van Etten was an important railroad junction. In 1871 the first railroad, the Ithaca & Athens R.R. was built and was bought by the Lehigh Valley in 1890. The Utica, Ithaca, and Elmira railroad was opened in the Fall of 1873, conveyed to the Lehigh Valley in February, 1895, and by 1900 there were eight trains going westward and seven going eastward. The Elmira and Cortland branch had three eastward trains.
Since then, the advent of automobiles has changed transporta- tion. The Lehigh Valley still runs its main line through Van Etten with an Ithaca branch. Other changes have taken place too. Population has decreased, but since 1950 it seems to be on the rise again.
The change in the last half century is better noted by this com- parison: In 1903 the town of Van Etten had three churches, a newspaper, public library, two hotels, four lodges, two flour mills, a saw mill and the Lehigh Valley had direct communica- tion with all large cities. The business men had a Dun and Bradstreet rating. Now it has three churches, two small hotels, a mobile feed service, hardware store, and a part-time saw mill.
However progress is best shown by the growth of the school system. The first school was taught in Isaac Swartwood's log house in 1803. In 1804 the second school was upstairs in the present Palmer house. In 1823, the amount of money received for school use was $50.77, of which the state paid $25.77. In 1878 the village had a district school with three departments. In 1916 the large, brick Union Free School was built. In 1941 a centralized school system was established.
The 1960 population of the Town of Van Etten was 1,285.
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TOWN OF ELMIRA
Since the early history of the Town of Elmira was concurrent with the development of the Village of Elmira, the early events are chronicled in the City of Elmira chapter in this book. The story of the very first inhabitants-the Indians-is told in the first chapter of the book.
Col. John Hendy was the first settler, arriving in 1788, and his daughter, Rebecca, is believed to have been the first white child to put her feet on the ground in what is now the Town of Elmira. She jumped from the boat as soon as it touched shore and ran to see her new home. On seeing the shanty which was across from what is now Rorick's Glen, she sat down and cried, for she had expected to see as fine a house as she had left in Tioga Point.
Col. Hendy was a farmer. His main crops were grains. He exported much wheat, shipping it down the Chemung River and the Susquehanna to Baltimore. He also shipped out lumber and potash which he obtained from clearing some of his land.
The Hendy farm was one mile square-north of the present Hendy Ave. to Fitch's Bridge. Many original farms were taken from this area. Some of these were the Beechers, Currens, and Lovells. Some farms east of the Hendy Farm, but west of the village (later city) of Elmira were those of Demarest and Car- roll. Another was the Starr family who owned the area near the present Morningside Drive.
Judge Hiram Gray came into this area about 1825. He cleared the land where Cobbles is today and built his house, farming the area around it. Gray St. was named for him.
In this same area we also find other historic places and names. One of these is the Doolittle house which has become a land- mark of the 1200 block of West Water St. However, the Harlan Wheadon home at 1212 West Water Street is probably one of the oldest houses still standing in the present town of Elmira. The original two rooms were built around 1800.
The names of many streets have come from the names of some of these early families. A few are Guinnip, Dininny, Warner, Austin, Coleman, Fitch, Foster and Hoffman. One of the older farm homes in the east and southeastern area of the town of Elmira was that of the Diven family. It is the famous Willow- brook, located on the Lake Road just north of the city line.
Another older farm in this area, later made famous by Mark Twain, was the Quarry Farm. The Cranes and Langdons owned this area. Mark Twain's Study was originally located on a hill of this farm overlooking the valley, before it was moved, in 1953, to the Elmira College campus.
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The Greatsingers were among the early settlers of the southern area of the Town of Elmira as was Archibold Jenkins and Dr. Bancroft.
In the northern part of the town Samuel M. Carr owned a forty acre farm. Jacob Compton had an eighty-six acre farm.
In 1809 John McCann came to this country from Ireland. He did not come directly to this town, but later purchased three hundred twenty acres of the Thomas Whitney Patent. The site of the New York State Reformatory is part of this area. In 1890 the Reformatory along with Eldridge Park and Carr's Corners were taken from the town and given to the City of Elmira.
Other early industries were many. Some of them included sev- eral tanneries, and hide and tallow companies, which collected wastes from the butchering on the farms. Hans Peterson had a blacksmith shop on West Water St. As sheep were raised on the slopes back from this valley, wool carding was another early industry.
The first and largest woolen mill in the town of Elmira was established in 1842 on the Newtown Creek by Daniel and Ran- som Pratt. These brothers were Scotchmen. They found the water power furnished by Newtown Creek very fine. They were the first to introduce the power loom and wool-condensing machines into this county.
John Arnot was an early settler. His wealth helped set up mills. One was run by Stephen Tuttle. Located near the foot of East Water Street, this mill was built in 1819. In 1828 Isaac Baldwin built a dam across the Chemung River and erected a flour mill. This dam was near College Ave. which was then called Mill Street.
The Indians raised tobacco in the town. Some of the first white farmers to plant large amounts of tobacco in the town of Elmira were the Lovell Brothers, Ruben, George, and William; and John and Joseph Hoffman. Because of the rolling of cigars in the downtown district of Elmira, tobacco growing continued to increase until the early 1900. Today it is a very small in- dustry, the land now being used for the growing of garden truck or dairying.
By 1792 the town of Newtown was formed from the town of Chemung. It was much larger than today, for it went from the Pennsylvania line to Seneca Lake. Since then some of the northern part has been taken off to help form Schuyler County and six other townships have been created from the town of Elmira.
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The present town of Elmira is bounded by the Chemung River on the south, Forest Hills Drive on the west, Hillcrest and Eighth St. on the north and circles between the village of El- mira Heights and the City of Elmira over Jerusalem Hill to the town of Baldwin. It extends into the northern part of the New- town Battle Reservation (Sullivan's Monument area).
The first school within the present limits of the town of Elmira was held in a log schoolhouse, which stood on the farm of Archibald Jenkins, in 1798. At that time there were seven school districts in the town, four hundred seventy-one children being taught by sixteen teachers who received the average wage of one hundred dollars a year.
With the growth of population the school which was located at the foot of Coleman Ave. was moved to Hendy Avenue in 1906. It has been enlarged many times. None of the original building remains.
The present population of the Town of Elmira is 8,413-divided thus: Elmira Heights area 1,374; West Elmira area 5,763; with the remainder, 1,276, scattered about the town. This repre- sents quite a growth since 1850 when the town and city had the population of 8,166.
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TOWN OF BIG FLATS
Town formed from town of Elmira April 16, 1822
Area 26,097 acres; population (1960) 3,665
Long before the white man lived in what is now the Town of Big Flats, the red man called this area his hunting grounds. The Seneca Nation of the Iroquois hunting village Runonvea, was located east of the village, near the present Corning Glass Works plant. Indians lived in the Big Flats area until the Pickering Treaty, signed at present Elmira in 1791, extinguished their title to the land.
Several white men passed through the valley-through Atsing- netsing (place of the great stone) as the Delawares called the area that is now "Big Flats". Etienne (Stephen) Brule, a Frenchman, came through in 1615, accompanied by Huron warriors.
Another interesting individual who visited Atsingnetsing was John Johnson, son of Sir William Johnson, intendant of Indian affairs to the British Crown.
In 1779, the Clinton-Sullivan expedition destroyed Runonvea.
"In the spring of 1787, . Christian Myneer (Minier), ac- companied by his wife and seven children, came up the river and landed upon the north side, where he built a cabin and planted corn for their bread," says Towner's history. "To him is accorded the honor of being the first settler as well as planting the first orchard, building the first log house, and erecting the first frame building in the town." The name Minier is preserved today in the leading grocery store of the village. This store was established in 1873.
By 1800, others had come to stay.
An intersting citizen of the mid-19th century was William Mapes. He came to the town as a rather elderly veteran of the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign. Mapes is buried in the cemetery adjacent to the Presbyterian Church. According to the in- scription on the marble shaft, Mapes was "five years a drum- major in the continental Army, was present at the surrender of Cornwallis, and received an honorable discharge written by the hand of Washington." What made Mapes so unusual was that he lived longer into the 19th century than most veterans of the American Revolution. His stories of the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign held the interest of the residents, probably es- pecially boys and girls. Mapes died on April 1, 1856 in his 103rd year.
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The first school, a one-room log building, erected in 1814, was the ancestor of the modern brick and steel and glass school which Big Flats boys and girls now attend. The 1814 building was replaced in 1837 by a one room "red school" which was replaced in 1853 by a two-room school which in turn was re- placed in 1897 by "old brick," the school which stands unused at the north edge of the cemetery. The present building was constructed in 1953, and an addition was completed in 1960. It is one of the schools of the Horseheads Central School district.
A 1892 description in Towner's history says: "The village (of Big Flats) is located near the stations of the Erie and D. L. & W. Railroads. There are 5 churches, a school of 2 de- partments, a dry goods store, 4 groceries, a store of millinery and fancy goods, a drug store, a wagon shop, several black- smith shops, a bakery, harness shop, Masonic Hall and a hotel. There are also a grist-mill, saw mill and a cigar manufactory." The cigar manufactory employed 10 hands.
For many years the cultivation of tobacco was a leading in- dustry. Big Flats tobacco was used as binder and filler material in the manufacture of cigars. The loamy soil mixed with river silt was perfect for the tobacco plant.
Sanford Elmore came from Connecticut in 1850 bringing to- bacco seed. He settled near Big Flats, cleared land, planted the seed, and became the first known white man to place under cultivation a staple commodity in the Chemung Valley.
The cultivation declined during the latter part of the Civil War; but by 1868 it was on the rise. In 1892, 400 acres were under cultivation. Peak production was reached between 1908 and 1918 when up to 2,000 acres were under cultivation.
The decline of the industry started after the end of World War I, and was rapid because of the rise in popularity of the cigar- ette and because of increased government regulation. The last tobacco in the area was grown in 1957 by Charles Theurer.
Located in the east-west valleys, the town of Big Flats has been an avenue for commerce and travel as long as man has known the region.
The canoes and trails of the Indians gave way to the white man's wagons and horses. Roads were laid out and bridges built.
The Feeder Canal was built in 1833, and was abandoned in 1878. Horses pulled the small boats and their loads of glass products from the Corning Glass Works and lumber from the surrounding hills. The canal connected at Horseheads with the Chemung Canal.
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The canal was put out of business by the railroads. The Erie was built in 1849; the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western in 1882. For many years the two railroads, which ran nearly parallel to each other in this area, were rivals. But in 1959 the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western abandoned its tracks, and began to use that of the Erie. In October 1960 the companies merged into the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad.
The electric interurban trolley in the form of the Elmira, Corn- ing and Waverly Railway passed through Big Flats, running in the street in the village. Hard surface highways and auto- mobiles put the trolleys out of business after only 19 years of existence-from 1911 until 1930.
A new four-lane Route-17 was constructed during 1955 and 1956 replacing a two-lane highway.
Aviation has played an important part in the history of the town. The Chemung County Airport is located on a 400 acre tract in the eastern section of the town, which was developed from 100 acres that American Airways (American Airlines) leased in 1926-1927 as an emergency field. Chemung County later took over and the airport was opened, mostly for military use, in 1944. A new control tower and terminal were dedicated in July 1960.
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