History of Cayuga County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 9

Author: Storke, Elliot G., 1811-1879. cn
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 762

USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Cayuga County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 9

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SOUTHERN CENTRAL RAILROAD .- This road extends from Fair Haven, on Lake Ontario, to the village of Sayre, Pa. It is one hundred and

twenty miles in length, opening a very direct and easy communication between the great centers of trade, New York and Philadelphia, and the fertile and productive region bordering upon, and tributary to the road, including the western part of the Dominion of Canada. It has not only opened to much of this region a means hitherto wanting, of railroad communication with the commercial centers ; but has also been the means of cheapening transportation over all the competing lines ; and, when we take into ac- count the large annual shipments both ways over these several routes, and the gain to the shippers in the reduction of freights, the neces- sity and value of the road can be clearly seen.

It is largely a coal road, penetrating the Pennsylvania coal region and connecting it by a short and direct route with central and western New York and Canada ; its coal carriage is im- mense. The fisheries of the lake, the lumber of Canada, and the merchandise and grain of the tributary region furnish a large and increasing volume of business, for the proper transaction of which the officers of the road have assiduously prepared, by a careful ballasting and improve- ment of the road-bed, supplying rolling stock, reconstructing bridges, erecting warehouses and elevators, and by improved facilities for handling coal and grain.

Like most of our early efforts in the construc- tion of railroads, those directed to the work of building a road over this line were a failure. As early as 1852 an effort was made by the organization of a company entitled the " Lake Ontario, Auburn and New York Railroad Company," with a capital of $1,500,000, of which the directors were : President, Thomas Y. How, Jr. ; Secretary, B. F. Hall ; Treasurer, Joshua Burt ; Directors, Roland F. Russell, Worthing- ton Smith, Hiram S. Farrar, Moses T. Fell, O. C. Crocker, Lyman Murdock, Isaac Bell, David Cook, Robert Hume ; Engineer, Levi Williams. The route was surveyed and established upon what is familiarly known as the Murdock Line, its southern terminus being Pugley's Station and Fair Haven its northern. The right of way was procured over most of the line, contracts made, and about $375,000 expended in grading. So many of the original subscribers defaulted that funds for its continuance could not be procured and the enterprise collapsed.

CAYUGA SOUTHERN.

The effort was renewed in 1858 and a company organized to construct the road and work began on the line from Weedsport to the lake, on which about $450,000 were expended. Opera- tions were suspended by the rebellion, and not efficiently renewed until 1865, when a rëorgani- zation of the company was effected, and the loca- tion of the southern line of the road changed by adopting the route through Moravia, Groton and Dryden. The several towns on the line issued the necessary amount of bonds to secure the completion of the road, which was rapidly effected. The officers were then as follows : Cyrus C. Dennis, President ; J. J. Taylor, Vice- President ; William H. Seward, Treasurer ; George I. Post, Secretary ; Thomas C. Platt of Owego, William Lincoln of Newark Valley, Hiram W. Sears of Dryden, H. K. Clarke of Groton, William Titus of Moravia, Charles P. Wood, William C. Barber and George J. Letch- worth of Auburn, and John T. Knapp of Cato, Directors.

The road was completed and trains moved over it in 1869. The business of this road is constantly and largely increasing. For the year ending December Ist, 1877, about 240,000 tons of coal were transported over it, and the passen- ger and general freight traffic was also large. Its facilities have been greatly increased and its advantages as they become more widely known are better appreciated, and its patronage thereby extended.

It is the policy of the managers to keep the road in perfect order. In extensions and repairs they have used during the past year over $1,000,- 000 feet of lumber, 50,000 ties and four miles of steel rails. The company has now sixteen loco- motives, nine passenger coaches, five baggage cars, eight cabooses, forty-nine box cars, eighty- two flat cars, twenty gondolas, and two hundred and forty-eight coal cars. The rolling stock is mostly new and in good condition. The road has always been operated with exceptional care and accidents upon it have been of rare occur- rence.

The advantages of this road to the people of the County, by whose funds mainly it was con- structed, have already yielded a full return for the investments made in it, and its permanence is fully assured.

The following are its present officers : Elmore

P. Ross, President ; T. C . Platt, Vice-President ; J. N. Knapp, Secretary ; C. L. Rich, Treasurer ; Henry D. Titus, Assistant Treasurer ; J. G. Knapp, General Superintendent ; and Charles A. Warden, General Freight and Passenger Agent.

CAYUGA SOUTHERN RAILROAD .- This road extends from Cayuga to Ithaca, a distance of thirty-eight miles. This company was first or- ganized in 1865, as the Cayuga Lake Railroad Company, with the following directors : Henry Wells, E. B. Morgan, T. Delafield, J. J. Thomas, D. Anthony, A. Beardsley, C. H. Adams, L. A. Pelton, Samuel Adams, J. H. Burr, H. J. Grant, Joseph Esty, B. B. Howland, Henry Wells, President ; C. H. Adams, Secretary ; and T. Delafield, Treasurer.

The line was surveyed by George Geddes, of Syracuse, who recommended the shore-line, on account of its favorable grades, and as dispens- ing with one line of fencing. Work was begun upon the road in 1871, and completed and trains run over it in 1873. But the panic of the latter year embarrassed the finances of the company, and the property was sold by a foreclosure of the second mortgage bonds. The company was then reorganized as the Cayuga Lake Railroad Company, with a capital stock of $400,000, and a bonded debt of $800,000. The President of this company was T. Delafield ; Vice-President, F. Collins ; Secretary and Treasurer, James Stillman. Directors : James Stillman, D. B. Coe, F. Collins, G. C. Morris, James R. Cox, A. H. Goss, E. H. Patterson, Horace T. Cook, J. J. Thomas, T. Delafield, J. Lewis Grant, H. Grant.

Under this management the road was run un- til 1877, when, as the earnings of the road were only sufficient to meet its running expenses, there was no alternative except the sale of the road by a foreclosure of the first mortgage bonds, and it was bought in by the bondholders, who sold the property to Judge Packer for $425,000 of the stock of the Geneva, Ithaca & Sayre Rail- road.

An organization was then made under the title of the Cayuga Southern Railroad Com- pany, and is run by R. A. Packer in the interest of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company. The length of the road is thirty-eight miles, and its original cost, including equipments, was $1,450,-

RAILROADS AND CANALS, COMPARATIVE RESULTS.

000. Of this sum the bonds of the town of Springport were issued for $100,000, and the town of Lansing for $75,000, in exchange for the stock of the company. The latter was blotted out by the sale of the road. The failure of this enterprise was due to a non-fulfillment of the original plan of a connection with the Ithaca & Athens Railroad.

The Erie Canal has now been in use a trifle over a half century, and it has been a work of national importance. It opened a cheap and capacious means of communication between the populous East and the nearly unoccupied West, by which the manufactures of the former and the productions of the latter could be readily exchanged. The settlement of the West was by that means, rendered not only possible but profitable. To its broad and fertile prairies, the labor and the capital of the East and of Europe was speedily turned, and its settlement and gen- eral improvement was rapid beyond all former example. Beyond reasonable question, the set- tlement and development of the country was advanced a full quarter of a century beyond what it could have been without the Erie Canal. With- out it, the same settlements and improvements would doubtless have been made ; but at a much later period. Railroads, after experience had perfected them, would have produced similar results, but their construction would have been delayed. The passengers and the freight to be transported between the East and the West, were the outgrowth of the Erie Canal improve- ment, that had populated the latter.

In 1827, the Hon. Francis Granger, a man of large experience, and so far as time had devel- oped results, of generally sound views, predicted that railroads could never successfully compete with canals, but would become valuable tribu- taries to them. He could not, however, foresee the changes which a half-century would produce, and in the light of present facts would doubtless have revised his conclusions.

The New York Central Railroad in 1877, car- ried 6,803,680 tons, of which 4,300,coo was eastern bound freight, a quantity sufficient to load one of the largest canal boats of to-day every fifteen minutes, day and night during the entire season of canal navigation. The New York Central is but one of six trunk lines run- ning from the West to the seaboard, and their

united eastern bound freight would require a fully loaded boat to depart every two and a half minutes. Were all these lines but tributaries of canals like the Erie, they would over-tax the capacity of a full half dozen of them ; but the present facilities for the transportation of passen- gers, have not only kept fully even with those for the movement of freights, but, in many respects, have surpassed them. Wherever the face of the country will permit it, air-line railroads have been constructed-connecting the main points of the country by the shortest practicable routes ; the road beds are carefully graded and firmly ballas- ted ; steel rails have taken the place of iron, securing safety and durability ; strong locomo- tives with an extreme power of movement of little less than one hundred miles per hour ; coaches that combine comfort and even luxury, wherein days and nights may be spent, the lodging and the larder nearly equaling those of a good hotel, in which may be reached in a few days the farthest bounds of the continent. In 1817, four days were required to reach Auburn, by stage, from Schenectady, 157 miles. In 1879, in the same time, the passenger can travel over 2,500 miles.

CHAPTER IX.

HISTORY OF THE PRESS - NEWSPAPER AND BOOK PUBLISHING-MEN OF THE PRESS.

GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN PRESS-IMPROVE- MENTS - AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN, COM- PARED-PERFECTION OF THE MODERN PRESS- PRESS HISTORY OF THE COUNTY-NUMBER OF LOCAL JOURNALS-THE FIRST NEWSPAPER- THE LEVANNA GAZETTE - THE WESTERN LUMINARY-THE AURORA GAZETTE - THE CAYUGA TOCSIN-THE FIRST NEWSPAPER IN AUBURN-THE VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS PUB- LISHED - BOOK PUBLISHERS - BOOKS PUB- LISHED -- MEN OF THE PRESS.

T HE Press of this country has had a marvelous growth. In 1840 there were in the whole United States but sixteen hundred and thirty-one newspapers, of all kinds, now we have over seven thousand. The circulation, of all the newspapers

THE EARLY PRESS.

in 1840 was one hundred and ninety-five million copies a year, but it is now over two thousand mil- lions. More than ten times greater than in 1840, and an average annual increase, for nearly forty years, of about 30 per cent. ; but in the gain in the size of the sheets now published, in the amount, quality and variety of the matter, in the number and character of the illustrations, in the quality of the paper and the perfection of the letter-press, the progress has been greater still. In the number of newspapers published, the United States are far in advance of any of the old nations. We issue more newspapers than four principal nations of Europe, viz : Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy. This fact is important as indicating the comparative reading habits of our people and those of Europe.

The mechanical facilities for the neat and rapid production of press-work, have kept even pace with, if they have not led, the other departments of mechanical progress. The contrast is sur- prising between the rude presses of seventy years ago, and the marvelous perfection of the press of to-day. The former would print a few hundred small sheets daily, by the severe toil of two strong men ; the latter 20,000 mammoth sheets in a single hour, and fold and direct them ready for the mails, all by mechanism, aided only by the slender fingers of delicate girls.

The Press history of Cayuga County extends through a period of eighty-one years. Since the issue of the first newspaper, there have been pub- lished in it over sixty different local journals, and hundreds of thousands of standard and miscel- laneous books issued by the two publishing houses which flourished here from 1848 to 1856. The first settlements made in the County were at or in the vicinity of Aurora, Levanna and Cayuga. The early courts were located at one or the other of these places, and in this part of the county-then part of Onondaga-the first newspapers were published.

The first newspaper, was the Levanna Gazette and Onondaga Advertiser, issued at Levanna on the 20th of July, 1793, by John Delano. With the exception of the Ontario Gazette, issued the year before at Geneva, it was the first paper printed in the State west of Whitestown.

The Western Luminary, was started at Wat- kins' Settlement, now Scipioville, on March 24th, 1801.

The Aurora Gazette, edited and owned by the brothers Henry and James Pace, was issued at Aurora on April 30th, 1806, and continued less than two years.

The Cayuga Tocsin was started at Union Springs in 1812 by R. T. Chamberlain.

These four were the only newspapers issued in the county, outside of Auburn, until after the completion of the Erie Canal, in 1825.

THE FIRST NEWSPAPER IN AUBURN .- The Paces, not having succeeded at Aurora, and the county seat having been removed to Auburn, came hither and started

The Western Federalist, on June 7th, 1808. It was printed on a blue tinted sheet, not much larger than cap paper, and very coarsely executed. The type had seen service in England, whence it had come with the owners, and was very badly worn. On the questions which led to the war of 1812, these Englishmen sided with the mother country, offending many of their readers ; but as theirs was the only local paper, in which all legal advertisements must be inserted, they continued the publication until compelled to yield by the decline of federalism and the rivalry of the Cayuga Patriot and the Auburn Gazette.

The Cayuga Patriot was first published at Auburn by J. G. Hathaway, in 1814. He was succeeded by Samuel R. Brown. The Patriot was politically opposed to the Federalist, defend- ing the supporters of the war, and sustaining Daniel D. Tompkins, in opposition to DeWitt Clinton. It was the organ of the party of which Enos T. Throop was a leading representative. It was a small quarto, coarsely printed ; but conducted with fair ability and well sustained. Its office was over a wagon-maker's shop on the west side of the river, near what is now Me- chanic Street, and here that veteran journalist, Thurlow Weed, was a type-setter in 1814. James Beardsley published the Patriot in 1817 and David Rumsey-father of the present Justice of the Supreme Court of that name-in 1819. At the later date, U. F. Doubleday bought the establishment. Isaac S. Allen hecame a partner eight years later, and on April Ist, 1827, bought out Mr. Doubleday, who had been elected a member of Congress. Willett Lounsbury be- came a partner December 30th, 1833, and so continued until his death, May 18th, 1843. Mr. Allen then became the sole owner. On June

EARLY AUBURN PAPERS.

12th, 1845, Mr. Doubleday bought the paper, and on November 17th, transferred it to Henry A. Hawes and Henry M. Stone who published it under the firm name of Hawes & Stone, until June, 1847, when it was consolidated with the Tocsin, under the title of the Cayuga New Era. The Patriot was published here over thirty years.

The Auburn Gazette was first issued in June, 1816, by Skinner & Crosby,-Thomas M. Skinner and William Crosby. It was published as a neutral paper, pending the reorganization of parties, after the decline of federalism. After two years it was changed to the Cayuga Republican, Mr. Skinner being really the sole owner and publisher ; yet, for political reasons, appearing only as printer of the paper. It soon became a leading and thorough party organ, advocating the principles of the " Clintonians." Mr. Skinner conducted the Republican for fifteen years, when in May, 1863, it was united with the Free Press.

The peculiarity of the Republican was that its editors were seldom announced, and local depart- ments not regularly maintained. The latter feature was a general characteristic of the country press of that day. There were also few original articles except when important elections were pending, the journals being made up mostly of extracts from eastern city papers.

The Evangelical Recorder, a weekly religious magazine, was started in January, 1818, by Rev. Dirck C. Lansing, and continued for one year.

The Advocate of the People was issued in 1818, and discontinued at the end of a year.

The Free Press was the next paper issued in Auburn, in 1824, by Richard Oliphant. His brother Henry bought the paper five years later, and published it till its union with the Republican, as stated above, the combined papers taking the name of the Auburn Fournal and Advertiser.

The Free Press was an influential, a well managed and successful journal. It was the largest newspaper in the State west of Albany, and a strong rival of the Cayuga Patriot, to which it was politically opposed.

The Gospel Messenger was started in Auburn in 1826, by Rev. John C. Rudd, D. D., rector of St. Peter's Church, and principal of the Auburn Academy. It was a weekly paper, devoted to the advocacy of the doctrines of the Episcopal Church, but was liberal to all sects. It was 8

ably edited, Dr. Rudd having been one of the clearest and most forcible of writers. From Auburn the paper was removed to Geneva, and from there to Utica.

The Gospel Advocate was started in Auburn by Doubleday & Allen, January Ist, 1828, Rev. L. S. Everett, Universalist, editor. It was 8vo. in form, published semi-monthly, and continued for three years. Rev. O. A. Brownson was one of the contributors, then of the Universalist denomination ; he subsequently joined the Catholic Church, and became a distinguished writer and editor of a review. He was a man of vigorous talents, but of changeable views, having been first a Presbyterian, then a Univer- salist, and finally a Catholic.

The Diamond was commenced in 1830, and continued for a short time only.

The Cayuga Democrat was started by Fred- erick Prince in 1833, but was succeeded in 1835 by

The Auburn Miscellany, by the same pub- lisher. In 1839, he discontinued the Miscellany, and became foreman in the office of

The Western Banner, started in that year with Francis S. Wiggins as editor. Its name was changed in 1841, to

The Auburn Banner, and sold to the Metho- dist Book Concern in New York.

The Primitive Christian, by Rev. Silas E. Shepard, Disciple, was started in 1835, and con- tinued for six years. It advocated the religious views of that sect. For nearly a year a discus- sion was maintained through this journal of the tenets of the Disciples and Universalists, by its editor and the Rev. G. W. Montgomery. The discussion was able, courteous and quite in- teresting. Mr. Shepard was the author of

The Prison Chronicles, which were published here anonymously at this time, and in which the alleged cruelties practiced in the Auburn Prison were scathingly rebuked, and their authors most severely reprobated ; but who wrote or published these articles could not be discovered, although the most vigorous and searching efforts were made by the victims to discover the author. Suits were instituted against the supposed pub- lishers without discovering the true originator of them, and the matter remained a mystery for over forty years. In the biographical notice of Mr. Shepard, who died at Troy, Pennsylvania, in Oc-

AUBURN PAPERS, 1837-'48.

tober, 1877, the fact of his authorship of the chronicles was confessed. The chronicles were ' ably and vigorously written, in the Biblical style, and were very personal and scathing .*

The Conference Record was commenced in Au- burn by Rev. J. S. Chamberlain in 1837.

The Cayuga Tocsin, second, was started April 5th, 1839. It became the organ of the Free Soil, or Barn-burner division of the Democratic party.

The Patriot, sustained the Conservative or Old Hunker division. These distinctions were kept up until 1847, when a partial truce was made, and the two papers were united under the name of the Cayuga New Era, which will be de- scribed in its proper place.

The Tocsin was first published by Miller & Hine, into which the Genoa Spy was merged, Gelam Hine having published the latter paper at Genoa. Miller & Stowe, and Merill & Hollett were successively its publishers and Thomas Y. How, editor.

The Northern Advocate, Methodist Episcopal, was first started by Rev. John E. Robie, in April, 1841, with Revs. F. G. Hibbard and Wil- liam Hosmer, editors, and continued as a private enterprise until May, 1844, when it was pur- chased by the Methodist General Conference, and continued here as

The Northern Christian Advocate for twenty- eight years, under the following editors : Rev. Nelson Rounds, from 1844 to 1848-four years ; Rev. William Hosmer, from 1848 to 1856- eight years ; Rev. F. G. Hibbard, from 1856 to 1860-four years ; Rev. Isaac S. Bingham, from 1860 to 1864-four years; and from 1864 to 1875, by Rev. D. D. Lore, D. D.,-eleven years, and until his death. The paper was, however, removed to Syracuse two years before his death. William J. Moses was the agent and business manager of the paper here for twenty-eight years.

The Star of Temperance was started here by L. H. Dewey, in 1845, and removed to Roches- ter in 1848.

The Auburn Fournal and Advertiser, Weekly, was first issued here in May, 1833. In March, 1846, Mr. Oliphant issued the weekly under the title of the Auburn Fournal, and the daily under that of the Daily Advertiser, the second daily paper issued in Auburn.

The telegraph wires were first brought into Auburn in May, 1846, and made a great change in the transmission and publishing of news. Hitherto several days had been required to bring news from the seaboard, which now required only as many minutes, and if the news was sent, it must be distributed promptly, creating the ne- cessity for a daily paper at all important business centers, and the Daily Advertiser was quickly followed by the Daily Tocsin. The telegraph gave a great impulse to interior newspaper pro- gress.

On September 14th, 1846, Mr. Oliphant sold his papers, the Weekly Fournal and Adver- tiser, to Henry Montgomery, who, in about twenty months, assigned to Charles T. Ferris. Mr. Ferris afterwards bought the papers and published them until August 22nd, 1849, when he sold them to George W. Peck, Oscar F. Knapp taking a one-half interest therein, Mr. Mont- gomery and Mr. Peck, editors, and Mr. Knapp business manager, the firm being Knapp & Peck. Afterwards Mr. Peck became the editor-in-chief. That arrangement continued, the former gentle- man being aided, in later years, by his son Hor- ace J., and the latter by his two sons, Henry D. and George R. The firm so continued until the death of George W. Peck, in July, 1878, when his sons succeeded to their father's interest in the two papers, under the same firm name.

These papers have been published the longest of any in the County under one ownership, and have been signally prosperous. They hold a prominent place amongst the larger and more important journals in the interior cities of the State.

The Cayuga New Era, formed in 1847 by the union of the Patriot and Tocsin, the two Demo- cratic rivals, was designed to heal the old di- visions in that party on the subject of slavery extension ; but time only widened the breach and increased the bitterness of the contest, which finally culminated in the terrible and disastrous events of a four years' war. This journal was published for nearly ten years, first by Merrill, Stone & Co., and afterwards, successively, by Stone, Hawes & Co. Finn & Hollett, and William L. Finn, and discontinued in 1857.

The Auburn Daily Bulletin, the first of that name, was issued as a campaign journal, in 1848, by Stone, Hawes & Co.

* See article, Auburn Prison.

AUBURN PAPERS 1849-'74.

Auburn's Favorite was first issued by N. P. Caulkins, in 1849, and the Masonic Union by Finly M. King, in 1850. A few monthly numbers only of the latter were issued. The Spiritual and Moral Instructor in 1851, the Farmer and Mechanic in 1856, changed in 1857 to the Teach- er's Education Fournal, both by P. B. Becker, and the Spiritual Clarion, in 1856, were unsuccessful experiments and of little public importance.

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History of Cayuga County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 9

Author: Storke, Elliot G., 1811-1879. cn Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 762

Author: Storke, Elliot G., 1811-1879. cn
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 762