USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Cayuga County, New York > Part 5
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HISTORY OF CAYUGA COUNTY
Champlain's Tavern. March 4, 1818, Zenas Goodrich advertises for sale, the well known farm and tavern stand, situate one mile and a half north of Auburn, on the old Genesee road, (North street) containing eighty-four acres of land, with stone quarry. A few rods beyond stood another tavern on what is now the Sears farm. Both have long since disappeared.
Mention should be made of the old Sexton tavern, which stood near the southeast corner of Genesee and Division streets, opposite the present works of the E. D. Clapp Manufacturing Co. May 10, 1817, John M. Daboll advertises that he has taken this tavern of Z. and D. Hall and locates it as three-quarters of a mile west of Auburn. Sexton seems to have occupied it as early as 1828, for the One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Regiment is ordered to rendezvous at Sexton's Inn, September 10th of that year.
In 1833, the Demaree block on Genesee street, near the entrance to Market street, was built, and in August, 1839, the three stores in the center of the block were fitted up and opened as a hotel by Horace A. Chase. This was known as the Auburn House. It was for many years a popular house, its large and commodious assembly room making it an especial favorite with the dancing public. Jenny Lind patronized this house in her visit here in 1851. About 1854, it was abandoned as a hotel and a school was opened there. It was burned in the winter of 1856, if I recollect right, and being refitted has since been occupied by stores.
This record would be incomplete without some mention of the Bank Coffee House, located on Genesee street, some four or five doors west of the corner of State street. Here the Auburn Artillery are ordered to rendezvous July 16, 1828. Bacon and Maxwell are the proprietors. Here "the Old Line Mail, Pilot, Eagle and Tele- graph Stages from the east, the Pilot and Telegraph from the west, and the Ithaca, Homer and Canal coaches arrive and depart daily."
Colonel Wm. H. Seward, Thirty-third Regiment Artillery, orders a court-martial at the Bank Coffee House in May, 1830. Colonel
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Seward seems to have been so faithful and deserving a soldier as to have secured promotion, for under date of February 19, 1825, is an order of Colonel Gridley, Wm. H. Seward, Adjutant, calling a meeting of the One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Regiment at the house of Azor Brown, which was situated on North street where the Columbian block now stands. This house seems to have been a unique institution, peculiar to those days, part garden, part theatre, and part eating house. Here in 1820, the celebrated Edmund Kean played Othello.
At this time and for some years previous "coffee house" was a favorite and innocent sounding synonym for tavern, and every place of any importance had one or more "coffee houses."
It is said that there were no less than fifteen taverns within a radius of five miles of Auburn, exclusive of those within the corpo- rate limits of the village. There were eight between Auburn and Cayuga Bridge, in fact the famous Genesee turnpike was literally lined with them. All the principal roads leading into the village were lonesome if one could not find a tavern as often as once in three miles. What supported such a multitude of these houses? Transient travel mainly. Emigrants on foot, on horseback, in wagons, poured in a steady and continual stream from the east to the then wilderness of western New York and Ohio. Stages loaded within and without with prospectors or with settlers, tore through the country at the rate of three or four miles an hour in "good going" and stopped at each tavern to water the horses, if for nothing more.
Another important interest was teaming. Loads of merchan- dise, in transit from Albany to Buffalo and intermediate points, and returning cargoes of grain were constantly passing over the great turnpike. In the then condition of the turnpike, three, four and often seven or eight horses were required to drag the loads over the heavy roads. At Reed's Tavern, a short distance west of Auburn, as many as one hundred of these draught horses were often
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stabled in a single night. Man and beast must be fed and sheltered, and the tavern rose to the emergency. True, the income was not extravagant, a shilling for a "meal," six-pence for lodging, eighteen pence for stabling and feeding the team, three cents for "three fingers of whiskey." sixpence for a draught of brandy, was a slow process of accumulating a fortune, but the age of millionaires had not set in.
When the canal was completed, the tavern became nervous and settled into a decline. When the railroad came thundering through the tavern gave up in despair. The old stage coach was stored away in the shed and the grass grew green in front of the tavern where but yesterday the swift wheels of the coach raised clouds of dust. The numberless hosts from the old world were flying through the land on swifter wheels. The age of steam had dawned and the tavern of the early day had fulfilled its mission.
For the benefit of those whose memory does not extend back to the palmy days of the rural tavern, the following description is ventured of one which is typical of all those old caravansaries.
A long, two-story frame building, set flush with the highway, with a "stoop" or platform extending the entire length, for convenience of getting into and out of the stage-coach. A door, midway of the long front, opens into a hall, which extends through the main building to the dining room in the rear. At the left as you enter, a door leads to a plainly furnished ladies' sitting room. Just beyond this door the stairs, leading to the "long room which usually comprised the entire second floor of the main part. Opposite the door to the ladies' sitting room, a door from the hall leads to the bar room, but an outside door, usually at the end of the house, is the more common entrance to this popular resort. On one side of this room a large open fireplace affords ample room for big blazings logs in winter. The bar in one corner exhibits decanters labeled "Whiskey," "Brandy," "Gin," "Rum," etc., in gilt letters. To add to the effect, between the decanters of
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liquors are ranged glass cans of striped peppermint, or red-tinted wintergreen candies, and lemons. The assortment is completed by a few clay pipes, dull blue paper packages of fine-cut smoking tobacco, and perhaps on the top shelf one or two boxes of cigars, these latter only in later times. Adjacent to the tavern in the rear, or across the way in front, stood the commodious barns, and ample sheds, under which any one might shelter his team and feed without cost, if he brought his own fodder. Prominently in front of the tavern was the well, with its wooden pump and pail for watering the horses of any who chose to avail themselves of the privilege. If the "lay of the land " admitted, as was not unfrequently the case, the waters of a spring on a neighboring hill were enticed through pump-logs to the end of the long stoop where a "pen-stock" poured the limpid water into a log trough set at a convenient height for watering a horse. Not unfrequently three or four speckled trout would be imprisoned in this trough, so plentiful were they in our streams in the early days. One thing more must not be forgotten. In front was the sign post. This was a post some twelve feet in height, surmounted by an oblong or an elliptical sign-board, decor- ated usually with some kind of trimmings, and here appeared the name of the proprietor, "CANFIELD COE, INN." Sometimes simply the proprietor's name, sometimes simply: "TAVERN." Sometimes in black letters on a white background, sometimes in gilt letters on a dark blue background. Such was the tavern.
The host of the tavern of early days is an extinct species. He was a man of character, and respected in his community. He neither desired, nor sought promotion outside the line of his work. His aim in life was to make his guests comfortable and "keep tavern" well. He silently disappeared when the old-fashioned tavern gave way to the hotel.
Who were the frequenters of the taverns in those days, aside from the transient guests? Everybody, more or less regularly, who lived in the vicinity. Day time and evening during the dull season
4
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HISTORY OF CAYUGA COUNTY
of winter, the oracle of the village occupied the best seat in front of the fire, and others were ranged around in the order of importance. The Ishmaelite usually stood leaning against the bar, or hanging on to the mantel over the fireplace, but rarely said anything unless spoken to. Politics were discussed, and crop prospects and local matters talked over. A game of checkers was usually in progress in some part of the room. When "the spirit moved," one would approach the bar and take his bitters, drawing from the depths of his pocket the required three coppers to pay the expense. Then he resumed his seat or went home. He rarely asked anybody to drink with him. It was a free show and any one was at liberty to buy his own whiskey.
Was there as much drunkenness in those days as at present? Upon this point opinons differ-the weight of evidence seems to be that there was not. The tavern had not become a resort for drink- ing, saloons were unknown. Still every household had a supply of liquors. A barrel of whiskey was regarded essential to the campaign of haying and harvesting, as much so as a mower and reaper is to- day. Nearly everyone drank more or less, but the number who drank to excess was limited. With the decline of patronage from teaming and staging, resulting from the completion of the canal, the taverns which continued in operation were forced to resort to various devices for keeping up their income. Dancing parties became more frequent and at these and other gatherings immoderate drinking was rather encouraged, especially at taverns of waning fortunes. The natural result was the agitation of the temperance question. On the 2d of April, 1828, a number of citizens of a neighboring village met "according to previous agreement for the purpose of considering whether anything can be done for the suppression of vice and immorality, and particularly intemperance." "After much discus- sion a committee was appointed to draft resolutions," which were reported and adopted. The first was as follows:
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"Resolved, That we will not use distilled spirits as a fashionable beverage, or suffer them to be used in our families or by our work- men, unless it shall appear to be necessary for the preservation of health."
A prominent physician being a member of the committee per- haps accounts for the saving clause in the resolution.
Regarding the dancing parties of early days given at the tavern, it should not be understood that these were always scenes of dissipa- tion. On the contrary, public dances in those days were quite the thing, and our best citizens did not hesitate to countenance and take part in them. Particularly in our rural taverns the entire neighbor- hood turned out to these festivities. The Fourth of July was a favorite day for a ball. Carriages would come streaming up to the tavern at noon, and early thereafter the "long room" would be a place of gayety which often continued until sunrise of the following day. These were not "Germans," but old-fashioned, solid dances, "Money Musk," "Scotch Reel," and later the staid cotillions inter- spersed with "The Tempest," "Spanish Dance," etc. The lady or gentleman who could not spring at least a foot from the floor and "cut a pigeon wing," was not counted an expert.
The following notices which appeared in a journal of the early days will bring back pleasant memories to some of the older residents.
"MR. ANDREWS' PUBLIC.
"Mr. John C. Andrews respectfully informs the Ladies and Gentlemen of Auburn that his first Public will take place on Thurs- day, the 20th inst., at the Western Exchange, at 6:00 o'clock P. M.
"Parents and guardians are respectfully invited to attend.
"Auburn, 11th March, 1828."
"AUBURN ASSEMBLY.
"The Managers give notice that the third COTILLION PARTY will be held at the Western Exchange on Thursday evening, January
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29, 1830. Carriages will be in readiness at 5:00 o'clock P. M." These cards of a later date may not be without interest :
"DOCTOR PERES' COTILLION PARTY.
"You are respectfully invited to attend a COTILLION PARTY at the WESTERN EXCHANGE, in Auburn, on Thursday next, at 7:00 o'clock P. M.
"October 31, 1842.
"Carriages in attendance at 7:00 P. M."
"W. B. SMITH'S
"SCHOOL AND POLKA HOP.
"THE LAST FOR THE SEASON AT THE "AUBURN HOUSE SALOON.
"Your company is respectfully requested at the Auburn House, on Monday evening, March 9, 1846, at 6:00 o'clock.
"The Polka, Polka Quadrille and Love Chase Waltz, will be performed by a number of Mr. Smith's pupils during the evening.
"Auburn, March 2, 1846."
The "Third Annual Ball of the Auburn Guards" is announced for January 22, 1847, at the Auburn House.
Mr. A. M. Cobleigh announces that his dancing school will commence at the Auburn House Tuesday, November 7, 1848, and adds this modest note.
"A. M. C., deeming it unnecessary to enter into particulars with regard to the advantages his school may possess, or dwell upon his own qualifications as a teacher, would simply refer those who may be desirous of patronizing, to his former friends. At the same time he would suggest, that a teacher of dancing should not confine his exertions merely to the movements of the feet, but should endeavor to give to his pupils that confidence and ease, with a graceful carriage of the body, so necessary for their intercourse with genteel society. "
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The American Hotel was built in 1828-30, upon the site of the old Willard Tavern. This tavern must have been built prior to 1810, as it doubtless is one of the four referred to by DeWitt Clinton in his letter descriptive of Auburn in that year. The first proprietor whom I have been able to trace was Watrous Pomroy, who took charge about 1810, and continued proprietor during the war of 1812-15. A recruiting officer was stationed here at this period. Mr. Pomroy was succeeded by Zadoc Hall. The inn though limited in accommodations, was popular with the traveling public and well known throughout the length of the turnpike. Loring and Emmory Willard being the proprietors for many years, Emmory being the proprietor from whom it took the name of "Willard's Tavern." Loring transferred his interest to Emmory in 1824, and in August 1827, Emmory sold the property to Justus S. Glover, father of Mrs. C. H. Merriman, for $5,000.
In 1828, Issac Sherwood, who was an inn-keeper at Skaneateles and his son John M., both of whom were interested in the important line of stages through this section, projected the American. The Willard Tavern building was removed to Clark street, where St. Mary's church now stands. When that lot was purchased for the church, the old tavern building was removed to West Seymour street, opposite, but a few doors east of the present Seymour street or No. 5 School.
The American was a "four-story" stone building, nearly square, with two piazzas extending across the front and east sides, supported by columns of the Ionic order of architecture. The top of the sec- ond piazza afforded an uncovered promenade for the fourth story. A modest cupola completed the architecture of the hip roof. The central entrance opened into the main hall; on the left front was the guest's parlor or reading room, on the right the bar room. The ladies' parlor was on the second floor. The second and third floors were devoted to boarders and transient guests, the fourth to servants except that when the house was overcrowded, it was utilized for
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HISTORY OF CAYUGA COUNTY
guests. The front hall opened into the dining room in the rear. The house stood well up from the street. Steps led to the front entrance and another pair to the front entrance of the bar room. In the southeast corner of the basement was the stage office, the realm of the dignified Consider Carter, in the palmy days of staging. When staging ceased, the office was transformed into a barber shop. There was no long room or ball room, but a select few were occasion- ally granted the use of the dining room for a social hop. It will be seen at once that the American differed materially from the old tavern. Its habitués marked the distinction more forcibly. The magnates of the village, men of leisure in those slow-going days, sauntered up and seated themselves upon the veranda for social converse. Judges holding courts and lawyers from a distance made it their headquarters. The style of the house, its appointments, the character of its guests, rendered the American rather forbidding to the masses. Of course its charges were higher, and it lacked the democratic element which characterized its compeers and made them successful. The American was never a pecuniarily profitable institution, after stage coach travel ceased, about the year 1842.
In the papers of the day are found frequent notices of political caucuses, notices of foreclosure sale under mortgage, and other notices of transactions at the different public houses of the city, but rarely one at the American.
The house was quite a favorite place for boarding, especially with those who were disposed to pay liberally. I am told by a gentleman who boarded there in the early days of the hotel, that bottles of brandy were placed upon the dining table, at intervals of three or four feet, and that this was the uniform practice in all first class hotels of the day. The bottles were rarely touched, however, except by a transient guest.
The American Hotel was opened to the public on the first day of January, 1830, as appears from the following local in the Cayuga Republican of January 6, 1830:
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" The new stone edifice recently erected in this village by the Messrs. Sherwoods, has been opened for company by the name of the American Hotel, under the superintendence of Mr. Thomas Noyes, formerly of Rochester. On New Year's day by invitation many gentlemen visited the establishment and dined with Mr. Noyes, and in the evening several who had been detained by attendance at the Anti-Masonic Convention also went over, and were cordially re- ceived and entertained. All felt highly gratified at the politeness and hospitality of the host, and expressed many good wishes for the success of the establishment, which is indeed a credit to our village. In short, we doubt whether any place in Western New York can boast of two more splendid and well kept public houses than the Western Exchange and the American Hotel."
It is not necessary to trace the different proprietors of the Ameri- can down to the time of its dissolution. Joshua Jones succeeded Noyes. Wm. B. Wood was an early proprietor and was succeeded by William Gamble in 1846, who adds to his modest card "N. B. Passengers conveyed to and from the cars-Free." Jonas White, Jr., succeeded him, and after White came Benjamin Ashby, who was the irate projector of Alvah Rude from the front steps, on the day of the Kossuth reception. Hiram L. Swift was proprietor in 1864.
When purchased by Mr. Shimer about 1870, it was unoccupied. The last proprietor, Mr. S. P. Chapman, who took it of Mr. Shimer in 1870, struggled hard to restore the fading fortunes of the house but in vain, and in 1879 he abandoned it in despair. From that time on it remained untenanted as a hotel. The furniture, beds and bedding remained as if awaiting the coming of a new lord-but none came. Meantime the owner entered upon a series of archi- tectural experiments, extending the front out flush with the street and fitting up three stories therein. Unostentatiously and slowly, but persistently, the work went on, with the avowed determination of the architect that he would run her clean through to Clark street.
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But, alas! his ambition was checked before fruition. One dull, sombre afternoon in March, a dense smoke was seen issuing from the rear, which soon burst into flames. The elements seemed to regard the situation with complacence. The wind started up sufficiently to encourage the flames, and then died down. Lest adjoining property might suffer, a heavy rain set in, and continued until the fire had exhausted itself, and nothing but the blackened stone walls of the old American remained.
The curious throng who had gathered to witness the holocaust, sought shelter in their homes from the drenching rain, and darkness closed down around the flickering flamelets, which seemed deter- mined to enjoy to the utmost the last revel in the old hotel.
The American was no more.
The tavern of the past was an index of one phase of social life, peculiar to a past generation, which no longer exists. The slow- going means of travel made frequent houses of entertainment a necessity. The more expeditious canal, followed swiftly by the hurrying railroads, blighted forever the prospects of the tavern, and its doom was fixed. Scattered all over our country to-day may be seen these sleepy old monuments of a bygone age, some hastening to decay, weatherbeaten, neglected, solitary-others transformed into pleasant, rural homes, not one of them a tavern as of old. Were the proud stage coach of three quarters of a century ago to come rattling over the Genesee turnpike to the Auburn of to-day, the passengers would find no vestige of the hospitable inns they were wont to see, unless possibly some might recognize the old Parmlee Tavern in the homelike National Hotel.
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CHAPTER VI.
Village Growth and Improvements - Silk Industry-Early Newspapers -The Patriot War-Auburn Prison Troubles-Raise of the Woolen Industry-Auburn Incorporated as a City.
The War of 1812 left a spirit of militarism in the country from which Auburn was not exempt. But as years rolled by the old militia system lost favor, the public regarding it as more or less of a farce. The Legislature would neither do anything to improve the obsolete military regulations, nor to institute a new system, so the people of Cayuga County undertook to rectify the matter so far as they were concerned. Five companies were recruited to form a regiment of artillery, in 1829, and the organization was known as the Thirty-Third Artillery. The officers were: Colonel, William H. Seward; Lieutenant-Colonel, John Wright; Major, Lyman Hinman, Adjutant, Oscar S. Burgess; Quartermaster, John H. Chedell; Pay- master, Nelson Beardsley; Surgeons, H. L. Markham and Blanch- ard Fosgate.
The gun house was situated on the north side of Water street, near State. This regiment seems not to have excited the public sense of ridicule. But it was short-lived, going out of existence in 1842. But this cannot be said of the regular militia, which had become an object of derision all over the state. So ridiculous did the old system become that bodies of men, fantastically dressed, found delight in holding parades to mimic the militia. Two such were held in Auburn: the first September 11, 1833 and the second on the 18th of the same month. It is claimed that the parades of these fusileers, so called, caused a revision of the old military laws.
The Cayuga County Bank was established in 1833, although its charter was applied for in 1825. A full account of this institution is given under a separate head.
In 1837, on the night of January 2Ist, Auburn was visited by
a destructive fire, which consumed fourteen buildings in the
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HISTORY OF CAYUGA COUNTY
business district. The night was intensely cold and the fire buckets and engine were ineffectual against the flames. Most of the buildings were low, wooden structures, but a great quantity of goods was consumed as well as the fourteen store buildings. The loss was estimated at $100,000. The fire burned from near North street westerly on the north side of Genesee street to within about four doors from State street.
The streets of Auburn were first lighted on the night of December 31, 1836, by oil lamps.
The town hall was completed in 1837 at a cost of $30,000, and an ordinance was enacted requiring all the butchers in the village to rent stalls in the lower story of the building, and there expose their meats for sale. Vegetable wagons were to stand on the sides of the square in front of the town hall until 9 o'clock A. M., and a market clerk was appointed to see that the market laws and regula- tions were observed. This system lasted only eight years. In 1845 John E. Patten started an independent market and the court sustained his rights in a suit brought against him by the village trustees.
During the year 1838-9 the management of the Auburn prison fell under public censure. Captain Elam Lynds was then the agent. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 and had ideas of his own regarding prison discipline and feeding of the convicts. He abolished the table system and served their meagre rations to the prisoners in their cells, where they were compelled to eat their food without knife or fork. The convicts vainly protested against the new rule, and finding their complaints unheeded, became rebellious. This gave the keepers a pretext for using the lash, which they did unmercifully. The citizens petitioned the prison inspectors to remove Lynds, but the request was ignored. Then the Grand Jury took up the matter and indicted the agent of the prison. The indictment was quashed, but the public kept up its fight, and their cause was unexpectedly strengthened by a death in the prison which
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