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 19
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 19
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 19
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 19
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Central New York communities which installed the teletypes are Ithaca, Elmira, Corning, Cortland, Auburn, Waterloo, Canandaigua, Newark, and Hornell. Ithaca abandoned her con- nection a few months after installation.
PROFESSORS ANTHONY AND MOLER.
Electrical engineering found birth at Ithaca, Tompkins County, when Profs. William A. Anthony and George S. Moler of Cornell University built the first electric dynamo constructed on this continent in 1875. The dynamo supplied current for the first outdoor electric lights in America-two arc lights on the university campus. The power was transmitted to the arc lights by underground cable, the first time in American history that such a procedure was accomplished. At the Centennial Exposition more than a half century ago, the first dynamo con- structed at the Cornell shops was exhibited and received nation- wide recognition. The dynamo was driven by an engine designed by Prof. John E. Sweet of the Cornell engineering staff. At the World's Fairs at Chicago in 1893 and at St. Louis in 1904 the dynamo attracted interested attention.
With this initial development at Cornell, birth was also given to the teaching of electrical engineering for the first time in any
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American college. Eight years after, in 1883, the Cornell trus- tees authorized establishment of an electrical engineering degree resulting from studies in the department thus formed.
Moler, professor emeritus of physics at Cornell, was also responsible for numerous other inventions, but never commer- cialized them. He was credited with having taken the first X-ray photographs after news of the discovery of the X-ray was cabled from abroad. Prof. Moler was born in Columbus, Ohio, and received arts and engineering degrees from Hedding Col- lege and Cornell. He was honored by several governments. Scientists gathered in Ithaca in October, 1931, to honor him on the 100th anniversary of Farad's discovery of the dynamo and also on the sixtieth anniversary of engineering at Cornell. Moler died May 30, 1932, at the home of a daughter in Trenton, New Jersey. His collaborator, Prof. Anthony, died several years before.
TELEPHONE.
Ithaca boasts one of the earliest telephone lines. Two years after Dr. Alexander Graham Bell had constructed the first line in 1876, the village had a line running to the college campus. Early telephones sounded their calls at all terminals on the line. Selective ringing was first used in Ithaca.
GEORGE M. PULLMAN.
The Pullman sleeping car had its conception in the mind of a man born in Auburn, Cayuga County. George M. Pullman was born in Owasco Street, Auburn, but when a little boy, the Pull- man family removed to Westfield, New York, where the son grew to maturity. He was in his sixties before he began making the famous sleeping car in a small way and later established Pull- man, Illinois, the home of the industry. Pullman's mother in later years visited Auburn, making the trip in the first Pullman car manufactured.
JOHN JETHROW WOOD, INVENTOR OF IRON PLOW.
In 1814, John Jethrow Wood, a well to do farmer living in Moravia, Cayuga County, invented the world's first cast iron
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plow, replacing those of wood. The first was defective and in 1819 he patented another, the perfect one, and he received the congratulations of Thomas Jefferson. Wood sent one of the plows to Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, before the days of the steam- ship and the telegraph. As French was then the diplomatic lan- guage the inventor asked his friend, Dr. Samuel Mitchell, presi- dent of the State Society of Natural History and Sciences, to write a letter in that tongue to accompany the gift. The Czar of all the Russians sent back a ring valued at from $7,000 to $15,000 to the inventor. But the letter writer got the royal gift. Wood appealed to the Russian minister in Washington, but Wood never received the ring.
Manufacturers stole Wood's patents and in 1834 discouraged with trying to gain reward for his invention, he died, pecuniarily ruined. His son Benjamin received the patent as a legacy and fought on for the patent protection. Clay, Webster, and John Quincy Adams all aided the son, as did William H. Seward, but it was 1845 before the courts finally declared Wood sole owner of the patent rights. The son of the inventor died within a year and it was found that less than $550 was all that the invention ever netted the Woods, who had spent much more upon the im- provement than the sum received.
THE MOVIETONE.
Perfection of the Movietone, or talking movie, is largely due to the inventions made by Theodore W. Case, millionaire inventor of Auburn and president of the Case Research Laboratory, Inc. During the World War Mr. Case researched for the United States Navy in a civilian capacity at the Naval Experiment Station, New London, Connecticut, and perfected a system for invisible light signaling and telephony. This and previous work led to development of the Movietone a few years later.
Out of this work Case created the Thalofide Cell, a new photo- electric substance. With this as a basis, the talking movie of perfected type was possible, and Mr. Case became a member of the Fox-Case Corporation, which produced the Movietone, later
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taken over entirely by Fox. Mr. Case is author of numerous scientific works and has lectured before scientific bodies on two continents.
THE SUNDAE.
The birth of the sundae, an event which stirred the soda foun- tain industry from coast to coast, is credited with having taken place on a warm summer morning in 1891 in the back of the drug store which of late years has been the Christiance-Dudley Pharmacy in Ithaca. A certain local preacher was fond of a dish of ice cream on warm summer Sunday mornings. Stores were closed but on invitation of C. C. Platt, then owner of the drug store, the clergyman was wont to repair to the rear of the pharmacy and quietly have his ice cream. One Sunday, the pastor asked to have cherry soda syrup on his cream. Two col- lege boys present saw the unique dish. The idea made an instant hit. And in deference to the day, the minister suggested that ice cream with flavoring syrup be called Sunday. "Sundaes" then went wherever Cornell students went. They arrived as a recog- nized soda fountain delicacy.
BLOOMERS.
On July 23, 1851, Mrs. Amelia Bloomer of Seneca Falls, Se- neca County, sallied forth upon an astonished world in a skirt as short as those worn by women today, and a pair of "trousers" extending to the ankles and drawn in by an elastic band. This new "invention" made its "official" appearance a little later. The bloomer bloomed first in the City of Lowell, Massachusetts, on the occasion of an evening party. Among those present was our heroine, Amelia of Seneca Falls, editor of The Lily, a temper- ance magazine and the designer of the costume already described. The garment has ever since borne her name.
The National Dress Reform Association was organized in 1855 and an old hotel at Glen Haven, Cortland County, on Skaneateles Lake, was its headquarters. Amelia, as a vice presi- ยท dent, was instrumental in having this organization push the
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bloomers hard. Since then the word had entered every dictionary. But much water has run under fashion's mill and the bloomer, then a revolutionary idea, is today not even reactionary. It is an antique.
THE ADDING MACHINE.
A lecture heard in school by a boy of twelve years fired the ambition of an Auburn bank clerk and led him on to a success that terminated in the invention of the adding machine and the founding of a company valued at $73,000,000. When William Seward Burroughs, in the winter of 1871-'72 decided he'd like to go to the old Genesee Street No. 2 school to hear a talk on "Math- ematical Short Cuts," he little realized that he was to be fired with an idea that would revolutionize clerical office practice throughout the world.
The next day young Burroughs started experimenting. The results are more than 1,200,000 of his adding machines today are in use in every nation on the globe. William H. Seward, his boy- hood inspiration, died the year after William came to Auburn in 1871. The boy- left school after two years in High School. His first job was in the post office, then located at No. 7 Exchange Street. Then he went to the Cayuga County National Bank as discount clerk and broke down from overwork. After a long ill- ness, he started making his adding machines and lost all he had. Undaunted, he removed to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1881, and spent twelve years in perfecting his machine. He organized his manufacturing company under the name of the American Arithmometer Company, a cognomen reflecting the impress of the old lecture on short turns in arithmetic. The world's first practical adding machine was on the market.
TILE DRAIN.
On the sloping shores of Seneca Lake, there is a farm of his- torical significance in the agricultural development of America. On this farm, of late years owned by Charles R. Mellon, the first tile drain in America was laid. In 1835 John Johnston, a Scotch-
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man, imported a few tile drains from his native heath and placed them in the wet clay of the farm. By 1851 he had laid sixteen miles of tile drain on his own farm and within five years more had increased it to fifty-one miles. His wheat, the principal crop, increased from indifferent yields of fifteen and twenty bushels to more than forty bushels an acre.
THE REVOLVING TURRET.
In Meridian, Cayuga County, the house is still standing where Theodore R. Timby, the inventor of the revolving turret, first used on the famous battleship, the Monitor, lived from about 1849 to 1860. The Monitor gained its fame in the engagement with the Merrimac in 1862 off Hampton Roads, an engagement which lasted for four hours. Though the Monitor was unin- jured, the Merrimac, of the Confederates, gave up the contest, so disabled she had to be towed to port. As the first battle of iron clad warships, the encounter created much interest in all maritime nations, though nowhere except in the United States was the Monitor adopted as a distinct type of warship.
DR. WILLIAM R. BROOKS, ASTRONOMER.
In Geneva, Ontario County, resided Dr. William R. Brooks, whose laboratory was in the rear of his attractive home. Doctor Brooks at his death had established a record as a comet hunter in that he discovered twenty-seven comets, a record equaled by only one other astronomer. The most brilliant of the comets with which his name was connected and which were among the most brilliant ever recorded, were the Pons-Brooks comet of 1883 and the Olbers-Brooks comet of 1887.
JOHN ALDEN LORING, NATURALIST
Reporting on the migration and habits of birds and animals at Owego, Tioga County, John Alden Loring, internationally known naturalist, began working at his vocation at the age of thirteen, when he did voluntary work for the United States Biological Survey. Though born in 1871 in Cleveland, Ohio, the
Armory, Cornell University Ithaca, N. Y.
ARMORY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y.
Library, Cornell University - Ithaca.N
LIBRARY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y.
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family moved to Owego two years later. When he was eighteen years old, Loring applied to the United States Biological Survey for a position as field naturalist. Two years later he received a commission and spent seven years collecting specimens in this country, Mexico, Canada and Alaska.
He spent the year 1898 studying at the London Zoological Gardens and then was commissioned by the Smithsonian Insti- tute to collect specimens of birds and mammals in continental Europe. He traveled through Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Bel- gium, Holland, France, Italy and Austria and in two months collected 913 specimens, at that time the largest collection ever brought to America after such a short search.
Soon after his return Loring accepted a position as curator of mammals at the New York Zoological Park. In that capacity he was sent to Alaska in 1903 to capture specimens of lambs of the white Alaskan mountain sheep, and Kadiak bear cubs. He captured four lambs in the mountains near Cook's Inlet, a feat never before accomplished, but they failed to survive.
In 1905 Loring was sent by the New York Zoological Society and the United States Department of Agriculture to the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma to select a suitable tract for a preserve for breeding bison. In 1909 he accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on his hunting expedition to East Africa.
His experiences were related in numerous magazine articles and later were published in book form under the title "Through Africa with Roosevelt."
In 1916 he was commissioned to go to South Africa and pur- chase wild animals for New York, Philadelphia and Washington. He returned early in the following year with 200 birds and ani- mals. He spent the summer of 1920 on Lake Athabasca, Canada, on behalf of the United States Biological Survey, studying the habits of waterfowl in their breeding grounds. Two years later Loring made a 1,300-mile trip down the Frazier and Peace Rivers to Lake Athabasca, also for the Survey.
DR. FLOYD KARKER RICHTMYER.
Dozens of experts at Cornell University are internationally known for their achievements in scientific fields. As a physicist,
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Floyd Karker Richtmyer is recognized on two continents. Re- search and study of X-ray phenomena brought him in 1929 the Leavey Medal at Franklin Institute. In 1927 he spent a year in study and research at Gottingen, Germany, and Upsala, Sweden. In Gottingen he worked in the laboratory of Professor Siegbahm, the noted X-ray specialist, and there conducted in- vestigations which led to his formulation of the laws of absorp- tion of X-ray in matter.
Doctor Richtmyer developed protective screens of various metalic substances which are recognized as of great importance in the medical profession.
He was born at Cobleskill, New York, October 12, 1881, a son of Robert and Elmina Karker Richtmyer. In 1904 he re- ceived his A. B. degree from Cornell University and in 1910, the degree of Ph. D. From 1904 to 1906 he was instructor in physics at Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, after which he went to Cornell University where he became professor of physics in 1918, a posi- tion he still held in 1930 when he was elected dean of the graduate school, succeeding Dean Rollins A. Amerson.
Doctor Richtmyer was chairman of the division of physical sciences of the National Research Council at the time he became dean and had been identified with the council since its foundation ten years earlier. His textbook, "An Introduction to Modern Physics," was widely used by students studying the advanced phases of this science.
In the summer of 1915 he was physicist with the Bureau of Standards at Washington. In 1919-20, he was an investigator in the General Electric Research Laboratory. During the war Doctor Richtmyer was a radio engineer in the signal corps of the United States Army and in 1925 was appointed major of the ordinance reserve corps.
He was a member of the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, of which he was president in 1920, the Amer- ican Association of University Professors, Sigma Xi, of which he was president in 1924-25, and of Gamma Alpha, graduate frater- nity.
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WALTER FRANCIS WILCOX.
Walter Francis Wilcox, a statistician, at Cornell University, was saluted in one national publication in 1932 as a "veteran statistician of the very first international rank." Since 1891 he was a member of the university faculty and became professor of economics and statistics in 1901. He is author of numerous sta- tistical works.
He was chief statistician for the twelfth United States census, 1899-1902; statistics expert for the War Department in the census for Cuba and Porto Rico, 1899-1900; special agent United States Census Bureau since 1902; and consulting expert for the New York State Department of Health since 1907.
He represented the United States as delegate to these meet- ings of the International Statistical Institute, Berlin, 1903; Lon- don, 1905; Paris, 1909; Brussels, 1923; and Rome, 1925.
Other connections included: President of the American Sta- tistical Association, 1911-12; American Economic Association, 1915; vice chairman of the executive committee and president of the section on Demography, International Congress on Hygiene and Demography at Washington in 1912; vice president of the International Statistical Institution since 1923; member of the American Council of Learned Societies of which was vice chair- man since 1926; honorary member of the Royal Statistical Soci- ety of England, the Statistical Society of Hungary; an associate of the International Institute of Sociology (Paris).
DR. EUGENE C. SULLIVAN.
Official recognition as one of the leaders in the field of chem- ical research came to Dr. Eugene Cornelius Sullivan, chemist of Corning, Steuben County, when in 1928 he was awarded the Perkins Medal for research and, jointly with William C. Taylor, an associate, the Howard N. Potts Gold Medal for "invention of super-resistant glasses. In 1908 Doctor Sullivan resigned from the staff of the chemical laboratory of the United States Geolog- ical Survey to become chief chemist at the Corning Glass Works.
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1
In 1920 he was made vice president and was in charge of manu- facturing until 1928 when he was elected president.
Despite his business affiliations, Doctor Sullivan devoted a great deal of his time to research work, applying his attention particularly to the development of iodine compounds; the in- fluence of one substance in solution on the solubility of another substance ; reactions of minerals and water solution, and the rela- tion between chemical composition and the physical properties of glass.
DR. HENRY PHELPS GAGE.
Scores of modern appliances in which glass is used bear testi- mony to the work of Dr. Henry Phelps Gage, another Corning man. Doctor Gage, staff scientist at the Corning Glass Works, has received renown in the scientific world for the development of scientific glass, particularly as regards its therapeutic value.
Born in Ithaca, October 4, 1886, the son of Simon Henry Gage, a biology professor at Cornell University, and Susanna Stewart Phelps, he obtained his early education in the public schools of that city. In 1908, he was graduated from Cornell University with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in 1911 ob- tained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the same college.
In the same year he was placed in charge of the optical labora- tory at the Corning Glass Works and from that time made the development of glass his life work. He assisted in the develop- ment of special lenses for railway signals and signal apparatus, colored glass for scientific work, "Conophore" lenses for auto- mobile headlights, a new type of condenser for motion picture projection, "Daylite" glass for color identification and reading lamps, and many other special forms of glass.
Doctor Gage took special interest in the development of ultra- violet glass and took an active part in the experiments conducted at Cornell University to determine the therapeutic value of ultra- violet rays in the treatment of common colds. He was widely known as a lecturer before scientific societies.
CHAPTER XX
NATURAL GAS AND SALT.
FIRST GAS WELL-OTHER PRODUCTIVE WELLS-DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY- PRESENT PRODUCTON-CONSTRUCTION OF PIPE LINES-USE OF SEISMO- GRAPHS-SALT.
Derricks sprouting skyward, truckloads of iron pipe moving over highways, grimy workmen with dinner pails, the steady throb of machinery, clouds of steam from pounding engines- that is the picture painted in the last two years in Steuben, Schuy- ler, Yates, and Chemung Counties as a result of a great natural gas boom, the latest development in Central New York.
Exploration and drilling in of new producing wells have been weekly occurrances, with the discovery of the Wayne-Dundee field where the first well was bottomed in the town of Tyrone, Schuyler County, in 1930. Discovery of the gas in the hills about the heads of the Finger Lakes has brought an extensive leasing campaign by capitalists who see new wealth from the soil of the district. In Schuyler County out of a total area of 215,040 acres, 139,215 are under lease by gas or oil interests; in Steuben County the leased acreage is 336,215 out of a total of 894,720; in Chemung County 116,772 out of 260,480. Other counties of the district also have much land under lease, Central New York having an estimated acreage of between three and four million seen as prospective gas or oil lands.
The new Wayne-Dundee field, which the past year made sub- stantial deliveries of gas to pipe lines, lies a little east of Lake Keuka on a line between Penn Yan and Corning, about twenty miles north of the latter place. Its limits are included mainly within the town of Tyrone, Schuyler County, but they reach north for a short distance into Barrington, Yates County, and
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west into the town of Wayne, Steuben County, including the site of Wayne village.
After the original discovery was made by the Belmont Quad- rangle Drilling Company about March 1, 1930, leasing and drill- ing progressed rapidly and the entire field has now been fairly explored and its bounds have been determined with measureable detail. The productive area is approximately 6,000 acres or slightly under ten square miles. The discovery, or No. 1 well, was put down on the Pulver farm in the eastern part of the field known as the Dundee area. The well came in with an indicated flow of about 6,000,000 cubic feet a day. The rock pressure was 730 pounds. The gas bearing formation in which the well was bottomed at 2,075 feet (569 feet below sea level) was sandstone lying directly below heavy limestone beds, identified as Onondaga limestone.
A second well, one-half mile northeast, on the Litteer place, was completed two months later for an open flow of 10,000,000 cubic feet. No. 3 well, on the Losey farm, one-fourth mile south- east of No. 2, gave on a test flow of 6,000,000 cubic feet. Rapid drilling in this field with such success that within a year four- teen producing wells for an average initial flow of 6,000,000 cubic feet were completed. At present there are about thirty producing wells in the Dundee or sour gas area. The surface elevations in this part of the field range from 1,300 to 1,600 feet and the depth of the holes between 1,900 and 2,200 feet.
With the progress of exploration, the productive territory was extended west and northward into Wayne and Barrington townships. This is known as the Wayne area. Wells were put down two miles east of Wayne village by the Tyrone Oil and Gas Company. They were followed by the drilling of Biglow No. 1 in Wayne village area of Steuben County. This well, start- ing at an elevation of 1,207 feet, reached the Oriskany sand at a depth of 1,747 feet and tapped a flow of 10,000,000 feet of gas. With its completion in March, 1931, the progress of exploration in the Wayne area was rapid. Competitive drilling, particularly in Wayne village and environs, has brought overdevelopment,
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according to State Geologist D. H. Newland and his assistant, C. A. Hartnagel.
The number of wells completed in the field December 31, 1931, was 111, of which total ninety-three were productive and eighteen dry. The open flow of the productive wells ranged from a mini- mum of a few hundred thousand to 12,000,000 cubic feet a day.
A feature of interest in connection with the Wayne-Dundee field is the presence of both "sweet" and "sour" gas, and the separation of the two into distinct areas. Sulphur free or "sweet" gas is confined to the Wayne area, whereas "sour" or sulphurous gas is met within the Dundee area.
One estimate of the yield in the district at a total of 16,990,- 000,000 cubic feet, on the basis of calculation by volumetric method. Of this total, 11,750,000,000 is assigned to the Dundee gas area and 5,240,000,000 to the Wayne division. A second estimate by Frank Brewster, president of the Belmont Quad- rangle Drilling Company, the holder of the largest single interest in production, puts the original reserves by the pressure drop method at 17,282,529,000 cubic feet, of which the Wayne area had 4,413,485,000 cubic feet and the Dundee 12,869,044,000 cubic feet. As of October 19, 1931, an estimated total of 126,000,000 cubic feet had been removed from the Wayne area and 665,943,- 000 cubic feet from the Dundee area.
Outlet for the gas from the Wayne-Dundee field has been pro- vided by the construction of pipe lines. The Iroquois Gas Corpo- ration has recently completed an eight-inch line from the Wayne field to Livingston County, where it connects with the older line of the company leading to Buffalo. The Home Gas Company has laid a pipe line from the Dundee area to Horseheads, where con- nection is made with the trunk line extending into New Jersey. Gas from the Dundee area is delivered as far east as Bingham- ton. A local line supplies Dundee village. Another pipe line to the village of Bath is planned.
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