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 29
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 29
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 29
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 29
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The cornerstone of the Y. M. C. A. building was laid Septem- ber 30, 1884, and just a year and ten days later ground was broken for the present High School building which was dedicated June 5, 1888. The first board of trade formed March 9, 1887. The cornerstone of the post office building was laid September 4, 1888.
The poles of the telephone were first erected in Genesee Street in 1889 and the line opened to the public April 17, just thirteen years after the telephone had been patented by Bell. Auburn's first electric trolley car wound its way down Seymour Street and up State on January 17, 1890, and by the following month a line had extended to Owasco Lake. Auburn's trolleys were abandoned for busses in 1927.
Auburn claims the oldest furniture house in the United States. The house of Richardson was established in the year 1800 in Marietta, Ohio, by Col. John Richardson, who at the time was engaged in the furnishing of the castle of Herman Blener- hasset on the island bearing his name. It was afterwards re- established in 1812 at Auburn, New York, where it has continued in business to this day.
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Men of courage and vision who were educational, industrial and commercial leaders from the time of Auburn's founding played their part in the upbuilding of the city. David M. Os- borne, born in Rye, Connecticut, December 15, 1822, was one of these. He was the founder of the great D. M. Osborne & Co. farm implement factory, later the Auburn Works of the International Harvester Co.
One of the earliest industrial enterprises was founded in 1818 by Joseph Wadsworth, father of the Wadsworth Scythe Company which is doing business today.
Col. Edwin D. Metcalf, born in Smithfield, Rhode Island, March 14, 1848, was one of the industrial giants of Auburn, founding the Columbia Rope Company. He was drawn to Au- burn as vice president and general manager of the D. M. Osborne Company, which he built up to a marked degree.
Erastus Case was the founder of the Case family in Auburn, a family whose benefactions have been felt in every strata of society. Willard E. Case, once a lawyer, gave up the profession to become a scientific investigator and writer, whose papers were read before the Royal Society of London, England. He estab- lished the Case Laboratories, now conducted by a son, Theodore W. Case, inventor of the tube which made possible the talking movie. The Case Memorial public library is one of the benefac- tions of the Case family.
Few towns in early days had a greater number of taverns than Auburn, a well known stopping place for travel over the Genesee turnpike. Today, in the busy rush of present-day life, it is interesting to locate these places of ancient conviviality in respect to present structures which have during the years crowded the old hostels from the landscape.
Just beyond the city limits out West Genesee Street stands a brick building built in 1804 by Zenas Huggins and used for thirty years as a tavern. It marks the site of the first settlement on the Genesee turnpike between Elbridge and the Cayuga Ferry. The original tavern before the present structure was built in 1791 by John Huggins, father of the builder of the brick tavern.
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The Center House was located at the corner of Genesee and Market Streets. It is the site of an early tavern erected in 1805. Here Gov. Enos T. Throop had a law office. The First Presby- terian Church organized here in 1810 and here the first white Sabbath School in the settlement was formed in 1819. In 1829 the building was removed to 50 Fulton Street, where it is used as a dwelling today.
On the north side of Genesee Street, on the site of the Metcalf Building, stood the Willard Tavern, built in 1810, rebuilt and called the American Hotel in 1828-1830. The American was a four-story structure erected by Isaac Sherwood, Skaneateles hotel man and innkeeper, and was nearly square. It was con- sidered the elite public house for miles around before it burned down in 1879. So "luxurious" were its cuisine and service that bottles of brandy sat every three feet on the table at all meals.
Bostwick's Tavern stood on the west corner of Exchange and Genesee Streets where the present Smith and Pearson hardware company stands. It was built in 1803 and rebuilt in 1824. Then it was named the Western Exchange Hotel. The building was razed in 1868. Here Lafayette was entertained in 1825.
Demaree's Tavern was located on the present site of the Na- tional Hotel in East Genesee Street. The tavern was first opened in 1817, and therein was opened the first bank in Auburn, prede- cessor to the Auburn-Cayuga National Bank and Trust Company.
Not far distant to the west stood Auburn's first freight depot, in front of the present site of the Schreck furniture store. It was the terminus of the Auburn & Syracuse Railroad, built by Charles W. Pomeroy in 1836. Here William Fargo, organizer of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, served as freight agent. The building was later used as the Genesee Opera House.
On the site of 187 East Genesee Street the Hunter Tavern was built in 1808 by Francis Hunter. Here under a great elm were held many councils between the whites and the Indians. Other landmarks abound in the city.
On the site of the present new fire headquarters in Market Street, John L. Hardenbergh, Auburn's founder, erected his first
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log cabin in 1793, and here was held a year later the first Aurelius town meeting.
The present old stone mill at the junction of Genesee and East Genesee Streets was erected in 1824 but it occupies the site of the first mill built on Owasco River by Hardenbergh in 1793.
Auburn Prison, at the corner of Wall and State Streets, occu- pies ground where the Indian village of Wasco once was located.
At the corner of Lake Avenue and Camp Streets was a mili- tary depot camp during the Civil War.
The old North Street Cemetery, the principal one in Auburn until 1852, contains the remains of most of Auburn's pioneers and many Revolutionary soldiers.
On or in the vicinity of 191 Genesee Street was a military barracks in the War of 1812.
The first sermon in what is now Auburn was preached in 1798 by Rev. Asa Hillyer, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Orange. During the next three years there was occasional preaching by missionaries who came through Central New York on horseback.
The First Congregational Church of Aurelius was organized in 1801, with four preaching stations: Hardenbergh's Corners, now Auburn; Half Acre, Grover Settlement, now Fleming, and Cayuga, the pastor preaching at each church every month. On September 17, 1810, a meeting was held in the Center House, an Auburn tavern located near the junction of Genesee and Market Streets, and the First Congregational Society was formed. In 1814 active measures were taken for erection of a church edifice. This was the same year that Auburn was incorporated as a vil- lage, having a population of a thousand, and thirty shops and stores. Col. John L. Hardenbergh, Auburn's founder, gave a lot and $8,000 was pledged for building. In 1815 construction work began and the church dedicated March 6, 1817. Total cost was nearly $17,000. This same edifice was used until 1869 when it was removed to the corner of Capitol and Franklin Streets, where it became the Calvary Presbyterian Church and is still used, the oldest church structure in Auburn. The first Sunday School in
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Auburn was organized in this church in 1817. Calvary, which took over the building, was organized as a church November 30, 1870.
The First Baptist Church of Auburn was constituted Feb- ruary 17, 1819, by a council of delegates from the First Church of Aurelius and the churches of Mentz, Brutus and Owasco. First worship was conducted in the court house; later a church was built at the corner of South and Exchange Streets on the site of the Richardson furniture store. A revival resulted in the build- ing of a new church in 1833 in Genesee Street. This structure was of stone. It was occupied for fifty years and was then re- modeled and today forms the principal part of the Traub furni- ture store. The present church at James and Genesee was built in 1887 at a cost of over $70,000.
Organization of the Universalist Society of Auburn took place April 12, 1821, in a school house. Worship was in the court house, academy and other public places until the society suc- ceeded the Baptists in their abandoned church on the site of the Richardson store. It was in 1847 that the Universalists moved into their present church across the street.
The First Methodist Church of Auburn was organized April 24, 1819, when Auburn was included in the Cayuga Circuit.
The first Roman Catholic Church in Auburn was Holy Fam- ily, the cradle of Catholicity in the region. First Catholic set- tlers came in 1810 and lived six years without a priest. Then Rev. John Gorman came by stage from New York and conducted services in the home of John O'Connor. Catholics came from Geneva, Seneca Falls, Waterloo and Ithaca to worship. Holy Family Church, occupying a structure formerly owned by the Methodists in Chapel Street, was dedicated in September, 1830.
Auburn has extended itself in welfare activity beyond the scope of most cities of its size. One of the most far-reaching welfare influences is the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, the result of a vision of service of Miss Emma A. Luce. Its constitution was adopted April 11, 1882, when officers were elected. Three rooms at 10 Exchange Street for reading and entertainment were opened November 3, 1882, and in October,
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1884, Miss Frances Fiero was engaged as the first paid welfare worker.
In 1887 the Union moved into a new home of its own at 16 William Street. Twelve years later the property was sold and a second home purchased at 25 William. In 1907 the Union moved into its present handsome building at 25 South Street, erected as a memorial building by the late Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne, who also gave an endowment of $50,000 and refunded a building fund of $22,000 raised by women of the Union. A gym and cafeteria were added and twenty-two rooms made avail- able for self-supporting women.
In 1911 a vacation camp for girls was opened at Buck's Point on Owasco Lake and the next year Mrs. James J. Storrow, daugh- ter of Mrs. Osborne, purchased Edgewater, farther up the lake, and gave it to the Union as a permanent camp.
The Union's first extension work was a lunch room for fac- tory women at the Canoga Button Works. Next year a club house was purchased at 63 Wall Street and in 1916 funds were raised for constructing the fine Union Neighborhood House at 77 Wall. In 1915 Pomeroy Park was added as a gift of the heirs of the Pomeroy estate. In February, 1922, the Osborne Memorial Association gave to the Union the property and build- ing at 25 South Street, together with an endowment fund of $80,000.
In 1923 the new south wing was built at a cost of $75,000, with its fine Dulles Pool and twenty-five more rooms for employed girls. Today the Union is a combination of school, gymnasium, club house, restaurant, home, library, social center, employment bureau and business office.
Auburn has thirty-five acres of parks and an area of eight and a half square miles, with 120 miles of streets, of which seventy are paved.
Auburn of today is a prosperous city of 8,719 families with 1,544 of its citizens paying a federal income tax in 1928. The population is divided: Native white, seventy-seven and seven- tenths per cent; negroes, one and four-tenths per cent; foreign born, twenty and nine-tenths per cent; English reading, ninety-
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five and three-tenths per cent. There are twelve public grade schools, one Junior High School, one Senior High School and five parochial schools, with the students totaling about 7,000. The city has four Baptist Churches, one Christian Science, two Epis- copal, one Hebrew, four Methodists, four Presbyterians, six Roman Catholic and six miscellaneous. It boasts one legitimate theater, four moving picture houses and three other auditoriums with an aggregating seating capacity of 9,250.
According to the federal census of manufacturers for 1929, the last taken, Auburn has 6,568 wage earners whose annual payroll amounts to $7,941,366 and who turn out products an- nually valued at $37,245,055.
AURORA.
Aurora was the first county seat of Onondaga County. In 1799, when Cayuga County was organized, the Court of Common Pleas was held at Cayuga Ferry, but in 1804 the county seat was moved back to Aurora and here the first court house was erected. Today Aurora is chiefly known as the home of Wells College.
Around Aurora began some of the first settlements of the county. Roswell Franklin, second settler in the county, came as the first white man in Aurora. Jonathan Richmond settled next in Aurora in 1791; Walter Wood in 1794, Eleazur Barnham in 1799 and Christopher Morgan in 1800. Aurora's site orig- inally comprised lot number thirty-four, then in the township of Scipio. It was originally purchased by Judge Seth Phelps for $600.
First evidences of the educational advantages which were to be a distinctive feature of life in Aurora were apparent as early as 1799 when the Cayuga Lake Academy was founded and chartered and built two years later. The original academic building burned in 1805, but Glenn Cuyler opened his house to students and classes were not interrupted while a new school was being constructed. In 1836 the wooden school was removed and converted into a Methodist Church, and a brick school erected with a capacity for 100 pupils. Today this building is still used as a public school.
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One of the first executions in Cayuga County took place in Aurora. In 1803 an old Indian known only as John murdered Ezekiel Crane, a Seneca County settler. The Indian was cap- tured and at first held in the jail under the eastern abutment of Cayuga Bridge. For safer keeping he was transferred to the jail in Canandaigua and finally in 1804 was tried at Aurora and sentenced to be hung. When on the scaffold, it was noticed that a pipe and tobacco leaf were in his belt, prepared, he informed officers, to smoke the calumet of peace with his victim.
One of the earliest Masonic lodges west of the Hudson was formed in Aurora in 1797. In 1819 they erected a fine lodge, still extant. A Royal Arch Chapter formed in 1819. Aurora's first church was the Congregational, organized in 1802. Services were held in the Academy Hall until 1819 when a place of wor- ship was built. In 1818 the organization was changed to the First Presbyterian. The church was razed in 1860 and the cor- nerstone of the present one laid the same year.
Aurora boasts of having had the second oldest mercantile house in the state-that of R. Morgan & Son. The business was established in 1801 by Christopher Morgan. The name of Mor- gan as well as Wells, Zabriskie and others have for generations been synonomous with progress in Aurora. Reference to some of these men is made in the chapter devoted to great men of the region and also in the Who's Who section.
Aurora was incorporated May 4, 1837, chiefly to secure the name and prevent its incorporation by Aurora, Erie County. The village was the birthplace and is the American home of Edwin V. Morgan, present American ambassador to Brazil. Wells College boasts among its distinguished alumnae such names as Mrs. Grover Cleveland, Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes and Mrs. Cleveland H. Dodge.
CATO.
Cato, a village of 403 population in the northern Cayuga County, is the natural center of fertile country, abounding in fruit, grain and other products. It was incorporated in 1880. It lies within two miles of three beautiful small lakes-Cross,
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Otter and Forest Lakes. The first settlement at the head of Cross Lake was made as early as 1800.
Settlement in Cato was commenced in 1805 by Platt Titus, who remained only two or three years. The first permanent set- tler was Dr. John Jakway, who arrived about 1809. Long the settlement was known as Jakway's Corners. The first post- master was Augustus F. Ferris. In 1878 Adelbert P. Rich, now a retired Supreme Court Justice who also served in the Appel- late Division with distinction, began manufacture of cigars in Cato. Justice Rich still has a Cato residence and his sons have created there a beautiful public golf course, opened in 1930. George R. Rich was the first lawyer in Cato. George Humphreys from Auburn began practice in Cato in 1844 and was chosen county judge in 1844. Frank Rich, son of George, began practice in 1855, and Stephen Olmsted, son-in-law of George R. Rich, commenced practice there in 1863.
Cato Lodge, No. 141, F. & A. M., was organized June 11, 1849.
CAYUGA.
Cayuga, a village of 344 population and the hub of an exten- sive cottage colony near the foot of Cayuga Lake, was settled the earliest of any place in Cayuga County. It was incorporated as a village as early as 1857. From time immemorial it has been on a line of travel westward. The Iroquois, the early Jesuits and later the soldiers of Sullivan all knew well this strategically located spot, from which the great Cayuga bridge as early as 1797 flung its planking westward to carry caravans of pioneers.
The first ferry ever operated across one of the Finger Lakes was that of John Harris, who in 1788, settled on the Cayuga Indian Reservation and built his cabin just off the ancient Indian trail south of what is now Cayuga village. He was the first white settler in the county, according to Frank S. Skillton, genealogist. The Cayuga Patriot of November 17, 1824, in an obituary notice of Harris' death on October 15 preceding, says: "He was one of the first men who explored the country and settled on the east side of Cayuga Lake in May, 1788." Many early historians cred-
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it Roswell Franklin, who came to the district in 1789, with having been the county's first settler.
With Harris in the project of this early ferry was James Bennett, who had settled on the opposite or west side of Cayuga Lake across from what is now Cowing Point, from which the ferry started. With a rough boat, propelled sometimes by oars and sometimes by sail, this pioneer enterprise early transported whites and Indians alike as they headed toward the sunset down the Iroquois trail. A year later two more ferries opened, one westward out of Cayuga village and a third, "the Cayuga ferry," at what is now Mud Lock.
After the ferries came the great bridge which was the grand highway of emigration until the Erie Canal checked the turnpike tide. The county seat was located at Cayuga on the first organi- zation of the county. Here also the Indians made a treaty with the governor in 1794, selling their reservation.
The pioneer Harris opened the first store in 1789, keeping it until 1814, on the lot just south of the Presbyterian Church. In 1890 he also opened the first Cayuga Inn. Dr. William Harrison opened a store about 1806, but six years previously Daniel Mc- Intosh had opened a store, which he kept until 1836, when he sold to his son, John, who continued until about 1860.
Dr. William Franklin was the first physician, coming in 1797 and practicing until his death in 1804.
The Presbyterian Church, organized May 30, 1819, in the school house. Its first plain wooden meeting house was dedi- cated in 1823. The First Methodist Church was organized in 1830, St. Joseph's Roman Catholic in 1853 and St. Luke's Epis- copal in 1871.
In 1799 the court house was built at Cayuga and the Court of Common Pleas held there. In 1804 the court was removed to Aurora and in 1809 to Auburn.
Though this community which has been on the line of Indian and white travel for three centuries is now off the main trunk line Route 5 and 20 across the state, good connecting roads and the New York Central Railroad make it easily accessible.
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FAIR HAVEN.
Where Lake Ontario begins to turn to the north, lies Fair Haven, a village of 562 population at the northern tip of Cayuga County. The community extends the whole length of Little Sodus Bay, one of the best harbors on Lake Ontario, and is a terminus of the Auburn branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. To the general public its most distinguishing feature is Fair Haven Beach State Park, described in the State Parks section of this book. But for generations it has been a great lake ship- ping point, particularly for coal to Canada. As many as 170,000 tons of coal a season have been shipped from Fair Haven.
Today the village, incorporated in 1880, has several thriving stores, three hotels, and a prosperous bank. Fair Haven light- house and pier form the water gateway to the community. In olden days shipping out of Fair Haven was even greater than today. From April 11 to December 4, 1877, the number of ves- sels coming into the port was 360 with an aggregate tonnage of 68,516.
UNION SPRINGS.
Union Springs, a village of 791 population, and incorporated in 1837, is situated on the east shore of Cayuga Lake. It derives its name from the many springs found within its borders. Two of the largest of these springs have been dammed to form pools and were the source of the earliest industries. Others have a strong taste of sulphur and still others contain iron and other minerals.
The first whites venturing into the vicinity were Jesuit priests. Except for the Sullivan campaign, not until 1789 did whites come again. Then Edward Richardson, in 1789, dammed the north spring and started a log grist mill. However, as he had settled on Indian land, he was compelled to leave, so it was not until 1800 that the first permanent settlers took up their claims. Today grants of land given settlers are still held by their descendants. The Carrs of Carr's Cove are examples. Also there came Quakers from New England and Pennsylvania.
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In 1800 the first post office was established on the site of the present Town Hall, with Dr. John Mosher, the village's first physician, as postmaster. The mail came in on horseback and later by four-horse coach and each postmaster along the route selected his mail from the bag.
The earliest stores were general stores, and one of the first, dating about 1810, was owned by Laban Hoskins. It stands yet opposite Park Street, as does his home across the street. The cornerstone of the store known as Mersereau's was laid in 1827 and the business begun by them was carried on by members of the family for over a hundred years.
In 1816 there came from Dutchess County with his family Philip Winegar, who before many years started a saw mill and a woolen mill at the south pond.
At the north pond there had been a small grist mill which had saved the people many miles of travel, but the one which now stands was begun in 1835. The mill was built by George How- land, a Quaker from New Bedford. A canal leading to the lake was constructed close to the building and this saved much cartage and enabled him to get flour out easily by water. It was shipped in oak casks made close by and these casks came back from their trips filled with oil.
On the opposite side of the canal Robert Howland owned a bending works which employed many men.
Of the religious bodies, the Quakers were the first to organize, 1803-04, and built a meeting house in 1816, next to the present Quaker cemetery. The permanent building of the Orthodox Friends was built much later and is now the Public Library. The first church was the Presbyterian built in 1840, and the others followed: the Roman Catholic in 1851; the Christian, the Meth- odist, the Baptist, and the Episcopal.
In early days the village was a sporting community. Here Willard A. Hoagland, one time world champion heel and toe walker, staged matches. Here, too, Charles E. ("Pop") Court- ney, Cornell rowing coach, lived and made his winning shells.
Oakwood Seminary, established in 1858 and incorporated by the Regents in 1860, was long conducted under the auspices
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of the New York Yearly Meeting of Orthodox Friends. Today it is the property of the Seventh Day Adventists who conduct it as a school.
MORAVIA.
Moravia is a village of 1,295 residents. As early as 1789 set- tlers from adjoining towns came to the meadowland of the valley for hay. The following year the "visitors" came and planted eight acres of corn and cut another crop of hay. But the first permanent settler was John Stoyel, who moved to the valley in 1791 and purchased a large tract, including the site of the vil- lage. He built the first mill and was the first postmaster, having been appointed in about 1800.
Three years later he was followed by his brother, Amos, with Wilslow Perry and Jabez L. Bottom. The first child born in the village was the son of Wilslow and Rachael Perry in 1794; the first marriage was that of Jonathan and Elbridge Wright in 1796; the first school was taught by Levi Goodrick in 1797; the first inn was opened by Zadoc Cady in 1801 and the first mer- chant was Cotton Skinner, who opened a store about the same year.
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