USA > New York > Wayne County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 10
USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 10
USA > New York > Seneca County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 10
USA > New York > Ontario County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 10
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May 14, 1845, the Chemung Railroad Company was incorpo- rated and commissioners named to solict subscriptions for stock. The Elmira & Williamsport Railroad was incorporated in 1832, before the New York & Erie, but did not materialize until about twenty years after. Between Canandaigua and Williams- port there were three separate railroad companies: The Jeffer- son & Canandaigua between Watkins Glen (Jefferson) and Canandaigua, which was forty-six miles long; the Chemung Railroad, from Elmira to Watkins, of seventeen miles, and the Elmira & Williamsport, about seventy-five miles long. These three subsequently came under control of the Northern Central Railroad, now a part of the Pennsylvania system and known as the Elmira Division.
This Northern Central Railroad originated as the Canandai- gua & Corning Railroad. On March 12, 1845, publication was made of application for incorporation. The bill passed May 11, 1845. The capital was to be $1,600,000. Total cost of building and finishing the road was estimated as $950,100. Breaking of ground toward commencement of the work took place at Penn Yan on July 4, 1850. Within a year the enterprise was under full headway. June 25, 1851, a thousand men were employed laying rails from Penn Yan to Watkins Glen, and in grading near Canandaigua. The road was opened from Canandaigua to Watkins Glen in September, 1851, the New York & Erie fur- nishing engines, cars, etc., for a specified rate per mile. Later the line purchased its own rolling stock.
The Utica, Ithaca & Elmira Railroad, later named the Elmira, Cortland & Northern, now a branch of the Lehigh Valley, entered Elmira over the rails of the Erie road until the branch from Van Etten was built to Elmira.
The Elmira & State Line Railroad, now the Tioga division of the Erie, was completed in 1876.
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The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad entered Elmira with its first train April 2, 1882.
The Southern Central was completed from Auburn through Freeville to Owego in 1869, in which year a charter was secured for the Ithaca & Cortland Railroad to meet the Southern Central at Freeville and to pass on to Cortland.
In 1870 a charter was granted for the Ithaca & Athens Rail- road to Athens, Pennsylvania, to connect with the Lehigh. These three roads later merged with the Lehigh.
The Geneva & Ithaca Railroad opened in 1872 and the same year the Cayuga Lake Railroad from Ithaca to Auburn. These, too, were taken over by the Lehigh and now operate.
Swinging over the eastern section of the Central New York counties, early roads are there found operating.
The Salina & Port Watson Railroad Company was incorpo- rated in 1829, the charter permitting the propulsion of cars by steam or animal power. In the spring of 1836, agitation was revived to secure a railroad, resulting in the incorporation of the Syracuse, Cortland & Binghamton Railroad Company. The same year an incorporation was effected to build a railroad be- tween Cortland and Owego. It was not until the completion of the Syracuse & Binghamton Railroad, opened for traffic Octo- ber 18, 1854, that anything was done in railroad construction in Cortland County.
Enthusiasm was stimulated in 1865 over prospects of a Mid- land connection direct from Auburn. Four years later the Ithaca & Cortland Railroad Company was formed and a road completed between those communities, now a part of the Lehigh Valley system, which was opened in 1872 and eventually extended to Elmira. A charter for the Utica, Chenango & Cortland Rail- road Company, dated April 9, 1870, was obtained with the idea of operating a road to connect with the DeRuyter and Norwich branch of the old Midland (New York, Ontario and Western) Railroad, which was then operating, but has since been abandoned.
Interesting little anecdotes are numerous in the story of early railroading in the region. One such is connected with the Sodus Point and Southern Railroad, projected in the fall of 1851 from
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Stanley, thirty-four miles northward to Sodus Bay to tap the Lake Ontario shipping trade. Interested parties had difficulty keeping the project alive and it was not until 1876 that work was completed and trains placed on the tracks. The road was acquired by the late E. H. Harriman and the first train run was a light engine sent to Stanley to take Mr. Harriman to Sodus Point. On arrival at Sodus, Harriman gave the engineer ten dollars with instructions to divide with the fireman, John Bay- less. This road was sold to the Northern Central branch of the Pennsylvania and is now the Sodus Bay division.
The Geneva & Southwestern was originally built from Naples to Stanley. It now traverses Middlesex in Yates County, Naples in Ontario and was originally intended to have its southern ter- minal at Hornellsville on the western border of Steuben County. The road was finally bought by the Lehigh. Great excitement prevailed at Stanley when the line was to cross the Northern Central Railroad. An engine was held in readiness to pour hot water on the workmen should they attempt to cross the right-of- way of the Northern Central and the operator on duty was in- structed to report each hour the progress that the opposing road was making. After a time friendly feeling overcame the differ- ences and both roads united to lay the crossover at Stanley.
About one mile south of Hall Station on the Pennsylvania railroad is a pine tie placed in service April 28, 1875, and is still in use. This tie is reputed to be the oldest in active service on the Pennsylvania system and perhaps in the United States. It was placed by Jeremiah Driscoll, section foreman for more than forty years.
Any sketch of railroading in Central New York would be incomplete without mention of the old Fall Brook line locomotive No. 13, more often known as Sam Patch. On August 6, 1873, the engine jumped at full speed into Seneca Lake, at Watkins Glen. At that time there was a double track coal trestle facing the lake. Engineer M. S. Stratton jumped from his cab when the engine bumped some coal cars. The collision opened up the throttle and the engine went up the trestle at a thirty-mile clip
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and then dived into the lake, "leaping" over two canal boats and dropping into fifty feet of water.
The locomotive was salvaged and on January 7, 1874, it ran off the track at Tioga, Pennsylvania, stove in the station, moved the structure two feet off its foundations and caused a panic among attendants at a prayer meeting in the depot. Again in 1880 the Sam Patch took to the water, making a plunge into Se- neca Lake at Geneva. In the same year, while doing duty as a double-header it left the rails near Post Creek, went down a bank and into a swamp. Then it was overhauled and a great horse- shoe forged and placed over the pilot. Thereafter it had no more wild escapades.
The story of other roads which have helped to build the prosperity of Central New York might be chronicled, but those here mentioned give a sufficient conception of the railroad expan- sion. There have been successes and failures, the latter being exemplified in the Short Line or Central New York Southern Railroad built in 1909 from Auburn to Ithaca and torn up when in receivership in 1924.
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32930
UNITED STATES POST OFFICE, ELMIRA, N. Y.
NEW MAIN STREET BRIDGE, ELMIRA, N. Y.
CHAPTER X
AVIATION
HAMMONDSPORT, THE "CRADLE OF AMERICAN AVIATION"-DEVELOPMENTS BY CURTISS-FAMOUS FLIERS AND THEIR CONNECTION WITH REGION-EARLY BALLOON ASCENSION-PRESENT DAY AIRPORTS AND FLYING FIELDS.
Wings that have brought new horizons to mankind fluttered as fledglings over Central New York before the World War dem- onstrated that man-made machines could roar through night and storm. A world flies today but veteran aviators remember that the "Cradle of Aviation" centered around Hammondsport, Steu- ben County, at the head of Lake Keuka.
Something happened in that little lake village July 4, 1908. The late Glenn Hammond Curtiss there announced that he would make the first public airplane flight in America. He did. He flew a mile. The boy bicyclist, motorcycle mechanic and racer became the world's greatest developer of aviation. He became a millionaire, but first of all he became a creator of wings and the allied nations in the World War still look upon his Central New York home as the center from which aviators of many na- tions flew democracy to victory. Today Pleasant Valley, where he experimented, has been proposed for a commemorative air- port. A brief sketch of dates and events reveals why Ham- mondsport has been called the "Cradle of Aviation."
In 1907 Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, close personal friend of Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley, and an observer of the experiments in mechanical flight carried on by Langley, organized the Aerial Experiment Association for the purpose of carrying on scientific experiments with flying machines.
He invited as a member of that group Glenn H. Curtiss, who since 1903 had been the outstanding American designer of light engines. Since 1903 Mr. Curtiss had held National motorcycle
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championships; in 1904 he had established a world's speed record for ten miles that stood for ten years; one of his engines had been fitted to Capt. Thomas S. Baldwin's dirigible, the "California Arrow." All dirigibles in the country were using Curtiss engines. All of them were made in Hammondsport. This work had at- tracted the attention of the United States Government and an order was placed with Captain Baldwin for the first big dirigible balloon for the Signal Corps and marked the beginning of military interest in aeronautics in America. This balloon was built and tested in Hammondsport, in 1905. It was driven by a four-cylin- der Curtiss engine designed for the purpose. Curtiss and Bald- win operated the machine on its test flight.
Because of his prior experience with engines and aeronautics, Dr. Bell made Mr. Curtiss director of experiments for the Aerial Experiment Association. Each member of organization was to build and fly a machine after his own designs. The other mem- bers of the organization were: J. A. D. McCurdy and Casey Baldwin, young Canadian engineers; Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, United States Army, observer for the United States Government.
March 12, 1908, first public flight made by Casey Baldwin over the ice of Lake Keuka, in aeroplane Red Wing, designed by Lieutenant Selfridge.
May 22, 1908, Curtiss flew aeroplane White Wing a distance of 1,017 feet in nineteen seconds on the old Champlain Race Track at Pleasant Valley. Machine designed by Casey Baldwin, July 4, 1908, Curtiss flew the June Bug for a mile to win the first leg of Scientific American Trophy. This was the first pre-announced flight in America and was observed by all who cared to come. Aero Club of America was represented by Stanley Y. Beach, Allan R. Hawley, Augustus Post, Charles M. Manley, chief of Doctor Langley's engineers, Christopher J. Lake, George H. Guy, secretary of the Engineering Society of New York, and many others.
July 17, 1909. Curtiss won second leg for Scientific American Trophy, flying nineteen times around a circular course, a distance of twenty-four and seven-tenths miles, at Mineola.
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August 29, 1909. Curtiss won Gordon Bennett International aeroplane contest at Rhiems, France, with machine and motor de- signed and built at Hammondsport, thus bringing to America the first international aviation speed trophy.
May 31, 1910. Curtiss flew from Albany to New York down the Hudson River, winning Scientific American Trophy for the third and final leg, also New York World's $10,000 prize.
During 1910 the first flights from and to the deck of a battle- ship were made by associates of Glenn H. Curtiss.
November, 1910, the Secretary of the Navy accepted Mr. Curtiss' invitation to send some officers of the United States Navy to him for instruction in flying, at no cost to the government.
During 1909 and 1910 numerous experiments with water- flying machines conducted by Curtiss on Lake Keuka.
January 26, 1911, first successful flight of hydro-aeroplane.
July, 1912, demonstration of the first real flying boat on Lake Keuka.
May, 1913, flights of the first Amphibian type of machine, de- signed to start from and alight on either land or water. Flown by Lieut. B. L. Smith, United States Marine Corps.
April, 1914, first tests of the twin-motored flying boat, "America," built for the late Rodman Wanamaker for a trans- Atlantic flight test, later developed into the famous NCs or Navy- Curtiss machines.
May, 1914, flight of the rehabilitated Langley machine which was wrecked in launching in 1903. Brought to Hammondsport from the Smithsonian Institution, restored and flown under the supervision of Dr. Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smith- sonian Institution; Dr. A. P. Zahm, scientist, of the Smithsonian Institution ; and Charles M. Manley, one of the Langley engineers who supervised the original construction of the machine.
In this short sketch there is no room for description of the many experiments with tetrahedral planes, helicopters, ornithop- ters, and other types worked upon at Hammondsport; nor of the work done here by the officers of the United States Army and Navy, who had their first taste of aviation at the Curtiss camps.
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To complete the record of the Curtiss Hammondsport accom- plishments it is necessary to go a little beyond the World War. Overlooking the fact that the machine produced and used in great- est numbers by World War aviators was the little Jenny, there remained one thing Curtiss had started which was not accom- plished until after the war. That was the trans-Atlantic crossing in comparative safety.
Following the Armistice the United States Navy assigned Commander John H. Towers to prepare a fleet of flying boats to make a crossing of the ocean from America to Europe. This was not to be a desperate hop in the dark but the flight of a squadron of machines to make the trip on schedule. He worked with other commanders and with the advice of Curtiss produced the fleet of Navy-Curtiss flying boats. Starting from New Foundland the N-Cs 1, 3 and 4 flew safely to within a short distance of the Azores. There they encountered fog and two of the boats descended and were unable to rise again, owing to the rough sea. The N-C 4 reached Horta in safety. The N-C 4 continued the flight to Spain and thence to England without mishap; the first time that a scientifically scheduled trip across the Atlantic had been made with a flying machine.
One landed in the sea and was damaged but all occupants were picked up unharmed.
Today some of the aviation devices made at Hammondsport are being carried to the two poles.
When Commander Richard E. Byrd, and his three compan- ions, bound for Paris in the great monoplane America, were spilled into the sea off the French coast, they put out from the wrecked plane in an Airaft, manufactured by Airships, Inc., of Hammondsport. The Airaft is a portable rubber boat that was part of Commander Byrd's equipment, not only on the New York to Paris flight, but on the expeditions in which he flew over the North Pole and the South Pole. Lindbergh carried an Airaft on his famous New York to Paris flight as did the Chamberlin- Bellanca expedition.
As a publicity stunt for the Finger Lakes Association on June 30, 1926, from the Hammondsport flying field a hundred carrier
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pigeons were released as a plane roared skyward. Both men and birds headed toward Auburn, the pigeons taking a fifty-mile air- line path and the plane a sixty-two-mile route, in the first pigeon- plane race in America. The first bird in reached its Auburn cote just three minutes after the plane landed. The same day the results of the race appeared in the press of America and radio announcers in California recounted the victory of Curtiss' wings over those of the birds.
Generations ago, when even the gas balloon was in its in- fancy, the lake district witnessed one of the first aerial flights in America, when for an hour and a half John Wise, one of the pioneer aeronauts on this continent, soared above the region at a height of two miles, from which thirteen lakes were visible. So far as known this ascension from Auburn, July 24, 1847, is the earliest described in detail by any aeronaut. However, Hum- boldt experimented with a balloon in this country a few years before Wise, and the first balloon ascension in the world in which human beings went up was in Paris in 1783, only sixty-three years before the Auburn ascension.
On January 24, 1925, an astronomical expedition from the University of Michigan attempted a balloon ascension at Geneva in a fifty-mile gale to photograph the total eclipse of the sun that day. Just before the start, the 80,000 cubic foot gas bag tore and the aerial photographic test was over.
The village of Waterloo claims as a resident the first woman ever to have been married in an aircraft. She was Mrs. Mary A. Boynton, who was married to Dr. John F. Boynton, celebrated geologist of Syracuse, in Prof. Thomas S. C. Love's balloon "United States," on the eighth day of November, 1870.
On May 21, 1917, the government established at Cornell Uni- versity, Ithaca, a United States Army School of Military Aero- nautics, a "ground school" to train officers for service in Europe. Cadets there received in the war period eight weeks of intensive training, with instruction given in thirty subjects under these main divisions: Descriptive and military studies, engines, aero- planes, aids to flight, gunnery, aerial observation, signalling and wireless.
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Paul R. Redfern, who hopped off in the late summer of 1927 on a 4,600 mile flight to Brazil and was never seen again, was once a Central New York pilot. While stationed that same summer at the Finger Lakes Airport, Geneva, he made eighty- three flights in one day, carrying as many passengers.
William S. Brock, pilot of the "Pride of Detroit," which made a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Croydon, London, received his early training in Ithaca. He entered Thomas Broth- ers Aviation School as a pupil when it was connected with their factory in Bath. In 1916 when the company and school were transferred to Ithaca, he went there to complete his aerial train- ing. Brock was a pupil of Frank Burnside, former Ithacan and later a United States air mail pilot.
The biggest air fleet which ever visited Central New York up to that time descended at the Finger Lakes Airport, Geneva, on June 28, 1927, when about forty planes and 150 pilots stopped on the National Air tour, which had started from Detroit the previous day.
Elmira, Chemung County, has become known as the "Glider Capital of America" and the "Wasserkuppe" of this continent, because in 1930 and 1931 it was the scene of the first two Na- tional Gliding and Soaring Contests in this country. As this is written the third such national contest is slated for Elmira on July 18-31, 1932. The peculiar lay of the land and the nature of the air currents make the Chemung Valley community one of the most ideal in the world for this pastime of piloting motorless planes.
Today airports and landing fields dot Central New York. Many of the smaller private ones are not listed by the federal authorities. The Airway Bulletin issued September 1, 1931, the last issued by the aeronautics branch of the United States De- partment of Commerce, lists the following airports and landing fields in Central New York, with the descriptions given below :
Corning .- Scudder Field, auxiliary, one mile west of Corn- ing, and one-half mile south of Painted Post, New York. Alti- tude, 925 feet; field rectanguar; 140 acres; dimensions, 2,300 by
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1,500 feet; surface, sod; slightly rolling; natural drainage. Trees on all sides; buildings on east. No servicing facilities.
Cortland .- Cortland County Airport, municipal. One mile west. Altitude, 1,125 feet. Irregular shape, 155 acres, 4,000 feet N./S. and 1,600 feet E./W., gravel, level, natural drainage. Cortland Airport on hangar roof. Trees on northwest and north- east edges, pole line on west. Facilities for servicing aircraft, day only.
Elmira .- Elmira Airport, commercial. One mile south of business section. Altitude, 857 feet. Rectangular, eighty-seven acres, 4,200 by 2,800 feet, sod, level, natural drainage; two run- ways, 3,100 feet NE./SW. and 2,800 feet NW./S.E .; entire field available. Elmira on hangar. Pole line to west and trees to east and south. Facilities for servicing aircraft, day only. Radio, receiving set only.
Geneva .- Finger Lakes Airport, commercial. One-fourth mile west, at junction of two concrete highways. Altitude, 544 feet. L shape, fifty acres, sod, level, tile drainage; two landing strips, 3,000 by 1,800 feet; entire field available. Pole line to east, trees and houses to southeast, woods to west, pole line to north, orchards to north and west. Geneva on hangar. Facil- ities for servicing aircraft, day only.
Hammondsport. - Mercury Field, commercial. One mile southwest. Altitude, 750 feet. Rectangular, eight acres, 1,500 by 250 feet, sod, level, natural drainage; fields to north and south, also available for landings when not in cultivation. Trees to south and southeast. Facilities for servicing aircraft, day only.
Hornell .- Hornell Airport, commercial. Two and one-half miles north. Altitude, 1,170 feet. Irregular shape, sixty-five acres, 2,635 by 1,754 feet, sod, level, natural drainage; entire field available except extreme southwest. Hornell on hangar roof. Pole line, trees, and buildings on north, depression to southeast, trees to southwest. Facilities for servicing aircraft, day only.
Ithaca .- Ithaca Airport, municipal. One and one-half miles northwest of center of city, at south end of Cayuga Lake and west of inlet. Altitude, 400 feet. Irregular, 115 acres, 2,600 by
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900 feet, sod, level, natural drainage; two runways, 2,600 feet N./S. and 3,000 feet NW./SE .; entire field also available. Hill to west, woods to west, south and east. Facilities for servicing aircraft, day only.
Newark .- Department of Commerce intermediate field, site 28B, Cleveland-Albany Airway. One and three-tenths miles northwest of city. Altitude, 465 feet. Irregular, forty-three acres, 1,850 feet NW./SE., and 1,650 feet E./W .; sod, slight slope; natural drainage. Pole line to north; blinker tower in northeast corner. Directional arrow marked "28B C-A." Beacon, boundary, approach, and obstruction lights. Beacon, green, flash- ing characteristic "8" ( -... ). No servicing facilities. Tele- type.
Red Creek .- Red Creek Airport, municipal. One-half mile southeast, just north of Red Creek Lake. Altitude, 355 feet. Rectangular, forty-seven acres, 3,150 by 2,000 feet, sod, level, tile drainage; three landing strips, 2,200 feet NW./SE. and NE./SW., 2,000 feet N./S., all 100 feet wide; entire field avail- able except for portion to west. Red Creek Airport on hangar roof. Orchard on south, cemetery in southwest corner. Hangar, minor repairs, aviation fuel, day only.
CHAPTER XI INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION
CORNELL UNIVERSITY-STATE COLLEGES AT CORNELL-STATE VETERINARY COLLEGE-GENEVA EXPERIMENT STATION-AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMI- NARY-HOBART COLLEGE AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGE-WELLS COLLEGE -ELMIRA COLLEGE-KEUKA COLLEGE-STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT CORT- LAND.
With five colleges or universities and one theological semi- nary, as well as a state normal school, Central New York is pro- vided with unusual advantages in higher education. The oldest institution is Auburn Theological Seminary, having been founded in 1818 and the newest is William Smith College, Geneva, the women's school connected with Hobart College. This was opened in 1908.
In connection with Cornell University, one of the largest in the country, are three state colleges, an outline of which is given in this chapter.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
Cornell University, founded in 1865 and opened to students in 1868, now has a staff of instruction, research, and extension numbering more than 1,100 persons and an enrollment of 5,600 students. Its campus of 360 acres in the eastern part of the town of Ithaca contains more than sixty buildings devoted to the university's work. Altogether, including land acquired and used for purposes of experiment and demonstration, the university owns 4,000 acres in Ithaca and near it. A part of this domain is the Arnot Forest of 1,800 acres in the town of Cayuta.
The university comprises a graduate school, a college of arts and sciences, a medical college, a law school, and colleges of en- gineering and architecture, besides the three New York State colleges of agriculture, home economics, and veterinary medicine
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and surgery. The State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, with experimental farms in Chautauqua County, in the Hudson River Valley, and on Long Island is also a part of Cor- nell University. Recently the medical college, which was estab- lished in New York City and Ithaca in 1898, has become asso- ciated with New York Hospital in a new medical center at York Avenue and Sixty-eighth Street overlooking the East River.
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