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 16
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 16
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 16
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 16
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The famous old manse where Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer, politician and free thinker, was born August 11, 1833, still stands in Dresden, Yates County. Hundreds of visitors have entered its doors to see where the Civil War officer and author came into the world to spread wide his agnostic beliefs. The manse was restored to good condition and on August 11, 1921, the eighty- eighth anniversary of Ingersoll's birth, was offered to the village as a community house. The Ingersoll family retained title, how- ever. Until recently the house provided a civic center, with cit- izens, regardless of church affiliations, serving on the board of managers. It has been used alike for business conferences, Sun- day School Christmas exercises, rehearsals, missionary meetings, concerts, lectures, card parties and even as a headquarters for tax collectors. The house was called manse because it was occu- pied by Ingersoll's father, a Presbyterian church pastor.
On the state highway along the west shore of Owasco Lake, Cayuga County, in the heart of a cottage colony, stands a com- fortable farm house in which a negro farm hand named Freeman murdered the entire VanNess family, escaped and was captured in Moravia. At the trial William H. Seward, then a young Auburn lawyer, entered a plea of "not guilty," setting up the defense of insanity, introduced for the first time in America. The negro was found guilty and executed. An autopsy revealed
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that Freeman was not normal and thus gained vindication of Seward's defense.
The most historic house in Auburn is the ancient "Seward Mansion" in South Street, erected 1816 by Hon. Elijah Miller, an early judge of Cayuga County, who moved to Auburn in 1808 and who was the father of Miss Frances A. Miller, who became the bride of William H. Seward. The great house has been the home of four generations of Sewards. During the Civil War many of the most distinguished Americans and foreign visitors of the period were guests there. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, died there October 10, 1872. In the great garden, Seward waited in 1860 the returns of the National Republican Convention, in which he was a candidate for the presidential nomination. On the second ballot he received 1841/2 votes and on the third Abraham Lincoln was nominated. Priceless relics and souvenirs of Seward's trip around the world are among the heirlooms of "the mansion."
What is characterized as the "Perfect Masonic Temple" was built in 1819 in the village of Aurora, Cayuga County, and dedi- cated by Governor Dewitt Clinton, "father" of the Erie Canal. Scipio Lodge, No. 58, F. & A. M., Ledyard, received its warrant March 22, 1797, as one of the first if not the first Masonic Lodge west of Albany. The lodge was chartered and built its meeting- house in 1806 in Aurora, a structure now used as a tea room. Then thirteen years later the present "perfect" temple was erected. It is a room within a room, the space between permit- ting sentries to patrol the inner room. It is in use today.
Canandaigua, Ontario County, is a city of historic homes, but none is more interesting than the Granger homestead, still standing. It was built in 1818 by Francis Granger, postmaster general under President William Henry Harrison. His appoint- ment to this office came after he had been candidate for governor and vice president. He died in Canandaigua in 1868.
Geneva has numerous old landmarks. Out the main highway westward just past the city limits stands the old Tuttle Tavern, remodeled into a dwelling house. This is faced with cobblestones said to have been brought from Lake Ontario. The structure was built probably as early as 1796. On Main Street on the
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corner opposite the Geneva First Presbyterian Church are the Pulteney Apartments, rebuilt from the Geneva Hotel opened in 1796. This was for years the most famous hostelry west of Albany. A French gentleman named Maude, who visited Geneva in 1800, said : "As respects provisions, liquors, beds and stabling, there are few inns in America equal to the hotel at Geneva." Passing around the corner of Washington Street, the third house on the right with Colonial pillars served as the first Geneva Post office in 1796 and later as a land office. Those driving a short way north on the road to Phelps will pass an old house back from the road on the right, which was built in the clearing of an old Indian village in 1794-96. Back of this house in the field there used to stand a magnificent double elm, that was known as the Seneca Council Tree, with a circumference of twenty-five feet and a spread of 120 feet.
Where Genesee and East Genesee Streets, Auburn, join was the site of the first log dam and mill built on the Owasco River by John L. Hardenbergh in 1793. The building was en- larged in 1802 and the present ancient stone mill erected in 1824.
At No. 50 Fulton Street, Auburn, there still stands the an- cient Center House, a tavern erected in 1805 at the junction of Genesee and Market Streets. It was removed to its present site in 1829.
The dwelling at 145 Dunning Avenue was a school estab- lished prior to 1796 and removed to its present site from a loca- tion to the north about 1820 or 1822 by Joseph Wadsworth, maternal grandfather of David M. Dunning, after his purchase in 1818 of the farm on which the school then stood.
The Waring place, still standing in Scipio, Cayuga County, was originally built as a tavern in 1806. Here was held the first meeting of the Scipio Morning Star Lodge, 169, F. & A. M., 1811- 1814. The upper story was used from 1822 to 1842 for lodge and the lower story for a school.
Judge Gary V. Sackett (1790-1865), judge of the Court of Common Pleas and promoter of the canal and lock system, lived in a hospitable home standing in Bayard Street, Seneca Falls. Here the rich table service that graced the White House during President James Monroe's administration saw service.
CHAPTER XVI
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
AIDING ESCAPING SLAVES-FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW-METHODS OF AIDING SLAVES -GERRIT SMITH-HARRIET TUBMAN-UNDERGROUND STATIONS-ELMIRA AN IMPORTANT STATION.
Across Central New York, the Underground Railroad for a half century was secretly engaged in helping fugitive slaves to reach security in free states or in Canada. Touching unselfish- ness, simple magnanimity and glowing love of freedom caused scores of early residents of the region to become law-breakers on principle. This secret Underground Railroad developed in a sec- tion of the country rid of slavery. For sixty years before the Civil War Central New York was traversed by secret pathways leading from southern bondage to Canadian liberty. New York State emancipated slaves in 1799. The underground began shortly after and was a wide-spread "institution" before 1840.
By enactment of the first Fugitive Slave Law the aiding of fugitive slaves became a penal offense. The measure laid a fine of $500 on any one harboring escaped slaves or preventing their arrest. But the drastic law only added to the number of slaves helped to freedom. In 1850 Congress met the case by substitut- ing the second Fugitive Slave Law. Under it any person hinder- ing the claimant from arresting the fugitive or attempting the rescue or concealment of the fugitive became "subject to a fine of not exceeding $1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding six months" and was liable for "civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct in the sum of $1,000 for each fugitive so lost."
To the penalties of law abolitionists engaged in the Under- ground Railroad were forced also to undergo the contempt of neighbors and the espionage of persons interested in the rewards
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for returning slaves. In this district much of the communica- tion relative to fugitives was couched in guarded language. Spe- cial signals, whispered conversations, passwords, messages couched in figurative phrases were the common modes of convey- ing information about "underground passengers" or about parties in pursuit.
In early days of the Underground, fugitives were usually men. It was scarcely thought necessary to send a guide with them unless some special reason for so doing existed. As the number of refugees increased and women and children were more frequently seen on the "Road" and pursuit was more common, the practice of transporting fugitives on horseback or by vehicle was introduced. Even railways were used. Abolitionists who drove wagons or carriages containing refugees were called "conductors."
Night was the only time in which the fugitive and his helpers could feel even partially secure. Most slaves who started for Canada had learned to know the North Star as a guide. After reaching the initial station on some line of the Underground the fugitive found himself provided with accommodations for rest and refreshment. After an interval of a day or more he was conveyed, usually in the night, to the house of the next friend. Sometimes, when a guide was thought unnecessary, the fugitive was sent on afoot to the next station, minute instructions for finding it having been given him. The faltering step, and the light uncertain rapping of the fugitive at the door, was quickly recognized by the family within and the stranger was admitted with a welcome sincere and subdued.
Persons of all classes, many of them lowly, were engaged in operating the Railroad. But at least one of the prominent Aboli- tionists who had "Stations" in Central New York was a mil- lionaire-Gerrit Smith, American philanthropist born in Utica, March 6, 1807. He took up his residence in Peterboro, Madison County, devoting himself to the care of vast estates in Central New York. He gave pecuniary aid to John Brown, in whose affair at Harpers Ferry, he, however, is thought to have had no part. He was nominated for governor of New York in 1840 and
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in 1858; was a member of Congress in 1853-54, but resigned after one session. With Horace Greeley, he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis in 1867. Smith died in New York City Decem- ber 28, 1874.
On the front of the Cayuga County Court House at Auburn is a bronze tablet, at whose top is the likeness of an aged colored woman and beneath are these words:
"In memory of Harriet Tubman, born a slave in Maryland about 1821; died in Auburn, New York, March 10, 1913; called the Moses of her people. During the Civil War, with rare cour- age, she led over 300 Negroes up from slavery to freedom, and rendered invaluable service as nurse and spy.
"With implicit trust in God, she braved every danger and overcame every obstacle, withal she possessed extraordinary fore- sight and judgment so that she truthfully said: 'On my under- ground railroad I nebber run my train off de track and I nebber los' a passenger.'
"This tablet is erected by the citizens of Auburn. 1914."
This "Aunt Harriet," born in slavery as one of eleven chil- dren and upon whom, dead or alive, there were rewards of $40,000 offered in the South, made Auburn one of the famous centers for the underground railroad. Here homes were opened to runaway slaves who were fed and started on their way to the Canadian frontier. William H. Seward, later Lincoln's Secre- tary of State, often paid the fare of Negroes to Suspension Bridge and Canada. And it was Harriet Tubman, who, as a girl, was often beaten until ill, who led slave fugitives to freedom.
At the start of the war Governor Andrews of Massachusetts appointed her a spy, scout and nurse in Northern army forces. In the four years of the war Harriet Tubman drew only twenty days rations but she nursed to health hundreds of soldiers, both black and white. Years later, through efforts of Congressman Sereno E. Payne of Auburn she was granted a pension of twenty dollars a month by the government.
Her little home out South Street, near the city limits, was a haven for the destitute and afflicted of her race after the war. Through the generosity of Auburnians she was able to buy food
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for her charges. The little home and twenty-five acres of land that belonged to Aunt Harriet was deeded in 1903 to the A. M. E. Zion Church and in 1908 was opened as a home for indigent Negroes. Of late years it has been closed as an institution.
The unveiling of Aunt Harriet's memorial tablet took place June 12, 1914, in the Auditorium Theater here, when Booker T. Washington delivered the oration, Mayor Charles W. Brister spoke a eulogy of the Moses of Her People and former Mayor E. Clarence Aiken presented the memorial. The mass meeting was held under the auspices of the Business Men's Association and the Cayuga County Historical Society.
One of the headquarters for the Abolitionists, Daniel Webster and Gerrit Smith, in operating the underground railroad, was at Glen Haven, at the head of Skaneateles Lake, Cayuga County.
The Pratt homestead at Little York, Cortland County, was once known as the Orrin Cravath station on the underground railroad. In the county were several hundred Abolitionists, who collected a few hundred dollars, purchased a second-hand outfit and started publication of the Liberty Herald, whose "red hot" editorial writer was John Thomas. James W. Eels and Nathaniel Goodwin were the original publishers. The publication was short lived.
The Chemung Valley, once the passage for the Indians on their way to Fort Niagara or the Genesee Valley from the south, was in slavery days the path followed by black men from the Virginia line northward bound. Elmira was a busy station on the underground railroad. Towner says: "It wasn't much marked and there was little known of it, for the passengers came in the night and went in the night, but there are barns standing that could tell tales of having harbored beneath their roofs many a trembling but hopeful fugitive, who was making the shortest cut toward Canada and freedom. The part the valley played in such times is worthy of everlasting remembrance for humanity's sake, although if what we know now had been generally known, the whole town would have been torn to pieces with indignation."
Many of the fugitives who came by the "underground" re- mained in the valley and became good citizens of Elmira. The
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city's colored population thus had its beginning. Among those coming there to stay may be mentioned Sandy Brant, Primus Cord, Anderson Murphy, John Washington, George Goings, Francis Jackson, John W. and George Jones and Jefferson Brown.
The Elmira route, which connected Philadelphia with Niagara Falls by way of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was made use of from 1850 to 1860. Its comparatively late development is explained by the fact that one of its principal agents was a fugitive slave, John W. Jones, who did not settle in Elmira until 1844, and that the line of the Northern Central Railroad was not completed until about 1850.
Fugitives put aboard cars at Elmira were furnished with money from a fund provided by the anti-slavery society. As a matter of precaution they were sent out of town at four o'clock in the morning and were always placed by the train officials, who knew their destination, in the baggage car. Jones, the fugitive slave who became an agent of the Road, a year after arrival in Elmira succeeded in aiding two of his younger brothers in Vir- ginia to make their way to freedom in Elmira. He was aided materially by Jervis Langdon and other local Abolitionists. Jones was in regular correspondence with William Still, the agent of the central underground station in Philadelphia, who frequently sent him companies of "passengers" requiring immediate trans- portation.
The Underground Railroad, which flourished in Central New York and about which few facts have been left for posterity, was one of the strongest forces which brought on the Civil War and destroyed slavery.
CHAPTER XVII
MEDICAL PROFESSION.
LEGISLATION-THE PIONEER DOCTOR-MEDICAL SOCIETIES-FIRST WOMAN PHYSICIAN-MEDICAL SCHOOLS-HEALTH RESORTS.
The story of the medical profession in Central New York is a chapter of service to humanity. Into the frontiers shortly after the Revolution came the first doctors, with their bulky saddlebag and its calomel, opium, antimony, guiacum, Peruvian bark, roots and herbs. And with them came steadfastness of purpose, the spirit of service and tireless courage, to wilderness places by the bedside of death and birth.
Since these first physicians braved the hardships of a new land to minister to others, the profession has steadily risen to higher standards of practice. And in Central New York great sani- tariums and other institutions to bring new health to mankind have arisen.
On April 4, 1806, the State Legislature enacted a law to in- corporate county medical societies throughout the state, for the purpose of regulating the practice of physic and surgery. This was the first law in the state to establish a regular legal standard for physicians and surgeons and it marked the parting of the ways for the educated doctor and the popular charlatan.
On August 7 of the same year this law was passed twenty physicians of Cayuga County gathered at the Daniel Avery Tavern in Aurora and organized the Cayuga County Medical Society, the oldest in Central New York, the second oldest in the state, and itself the founder of the Central New York Medical Association. Cayuga County at that time had been formed only seven years before from the great Montgomery tract, out of which Onondaga County had been taken one year earlier. In this con-
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nection it is interesting to note that Dr. Samuel Crossett, the first physician to settle in Cayuga County, proposed the name "Auburn" for the metropolis of the county and it was selected for the hamlet which before had gone under the name of Harden- bergh's Corners.
This pioneer medical society is older by ten years than the village of Auburn and forty-two years older than the corporate City of Auburn. Officers elected at the organization meeting were: Frederick Delano, Aurora, president; James McClung, vice president; Jacob Bogart, Fleming, secretary; Consider King, Ledyard, treasurer. At a meeting in November, 1806, Dr. Bar- nabas Smith, Poplar Ridge, was chosen delegate to the first meet- ing of the New York State Medical Society. A tax was also levied of four dollars per capita to establish a medical library for the society's use. The library was located at Scipio.
Drs. Iddo Ellis, Joseph Cole, Ebenezer Hewitt, Nathaniel Asperwall and Consider King were named as a Board of Censors, to examine and judge of the qualifications of all who desired to practice medicine in the county. Medical societies were legally authorized to grant licenses and diplomas then and to recognize those legally granted in other states; to see that they were prop- erly registered with the county clerk; to enforce all medical legis- lation, to prosecute irregular and illegal practitioners and to protect the public from quackery. The first candidate granted a license to practice by this pioneer society was L. Q. C. Fuller.
How the Cayuga County Medical Society proposed the forma- tion of the Central New York Medical Association is shown in the following resolution adopted at a meeting in Auburn July 10, 1867:
"Resolved that the Medical Society of Cayuga County propose through its secretary to the Onondaga County Medical Society to unite with them in forming a Medical Society of Central New York, to hold meetings alternatively at Syracuse and Auburn, the number of meetings annually to be determined by the society when formed." This was amended with the addition of Seneca, Wayne, Ontario and Monroe counties to the list. At the January meeting in 1868, cordial responses were read from all these soci-
SENECA COUNTY HOME
WATERLOO MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, WATERLOO, N. Y.
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eties and delegates were named to meet with those of the other county societies for organizing the Central New York group. This regional society was formed the same year with the follow- ing officers: Dr. Edward W. Moore, Rochester, president; Dr. T. S. Brinkerhoff, Auburn, secretary; Dr. Alfred Mercer, Syra- cuse, treasurer.
Another early group of doctors were those who organized the Cortland County Medical Society August 10, 1808, at a meeting at the home of Enos Stimson in the village of Homer. First offi- cers were: Dr. Lewis Owen, president; Dr. John Miller, vice president; Dr. James Searl, secretary; Dr. Robert D. Taggart, treasurer. Not one of the charter members resided in Cortland. Two years later the society conferred its first license to practice medicine upon Dr. Levi Boies of Cortland. Dr. Miles Goodyear of Cortland was the first member of the society who ever received the degree of M. D. It was conferred upon him by Yale Medical College in 1816.
The Ontario County Medical Society was formed in 1806, but fire destroyed early records so that very little information is available, as to proceedings prior to 1842. The society was sub- stantially reorganized in 1852, but dissentions arose among mem- bers, as the supposed result of unfavorable legislation, and no meetings were held until 1857.
The Homeopathic Medical Society of the Counties of Ontario and Yates was organized at an informal meeting of homeopathic physicians at the office of Dr. O. S. Wood in Canandaigua, Octo- ber 16, 1861. This name continued in use until October 16, 1889, when the society became the Homeopathic Medical Society of Ontario County.
The Society of Physicians of the Village of Canandaigua organized December 20, 1864, with ten charter members.
Though the first physician to settle in Chemung County came there as early as 1788, the Chemung County Medical Society was not organized until May 3, 1836. Dr. Joseph Hinchman, who came from a family of physicians, migrated to the Chemung Valley in 1888, settling on the Lowman farm in the town of Chemung, where he remained until 1793, when he came to New-
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town. He served as sheriff of Tioga County from 1795 to 1799. He died in 1802 and was the first to be buried in the Baptist bury- ing ground.
Dr. Amos Park came from Orange County in 1793 and erected the first frame house in Newtown on the bank of the river near what is now High Street, Elmira. He was a preacher by avoca- tion, the first in Newtown.
A county medical society existed in Seneca County at an early date, but the organization was abandoned about 1840. Records of this pioneer organization are lost but the transactions of the State Medical Society show that at a meeting February 6, 1810, Dr. Oliver C. Comstock presented his credentials from Seneca County and took his seat. In 1829 the state society acknowledged receipt of two dollars from the Seneca County society through Dr. Caleb Loring, its secretary. After a period of twenty-five years the present society in the county was organized August 1, 1865. The county's first physician was Dr. Silas Halsey, who shortly after the Revolution started from Connecticut in a skiff, stopping at Lodi Landing, which he called home.
The Tompkins County Medical Society was organized in 1818, but the records of early officers and meetings is lost. The organi- zation continued until 1844, when regular meetings ceased. Then in October, 1862, there was a revival of interest and the society reorganized.
The Schuyler County Medical Society was formed at the Mon- tour House, Havana, December 29, 1857, with Dr. Nelson Winton as first president.
The Schuyler County Homeopathic Medical Society was or- ganized in Watkins July 9, 1872, with Dr. William Gulick as first president. This organization calls attention to the contro- versy which in early years waged between Homeopathics and Allopaths. The Homeopathic branch of the medical profession did not acknowledge "any as regular physicians except those who have received a medical degree or license from some institution authorized by law to confer such a degree or license."
Thus in this state Homeopaths were legally qualified to de- mand and retain membership in the county medical societies, but
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because of intolerance of the Allopathic physicians they were compelled to apply to the Legislature for relief. Therefore, the Legislature, during the session of 1857, passed an act incorporat- ing homeopathic medical societies under the general law, passed April 10, 1813.
The Yates County Medical Society was formed March 4, 1823, with twelve members, and with Dr. Joshua Lee, president, and Dr. John Hatmaker, secretary.
Among the first societies in the state was the Tioga County Medical Society, organized October 13, 1806, with Dr. Amos Park, president, and Dr. William Benson, secretary. On the fol- lowing December 24 the society met and adopted a fee bill which is of interest in comparison with the schedule of prices in vogue in 1932. All members agreed to abide by the schedule, which follows :
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