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 35
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 35
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 35
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 35
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46
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first courthouse in 1794, including the second courthouse erected in 1824 and lastly the splendid county building erected in 1858 and rebuilt and enlarged in the beginning of the twentieth century.
Canandaigua's first public house was a log cabin opened by Joseph Smith immediately after the place had been designated as the Phelps and Gorham headquarters. Gen. Israel Chapin, government Indian agent and a leader in the community, was a lavish entertainer at his home, but the first regular tavern was that opened by Nathaniel Sanborn in 1790, on the site of the present post office. Another was that of Capt. Martin Dudley, built in 1796 in lower Main Street, and leveled by fire in 1811. Of particular popularity during the War of 1812 was the hostelry of Phineas Bates, erected in 1791 on upper Main Street.
Of all the taverns the principal one was the historic Blossom House, constructed in 1818 on the site of the present Canandaigua Hotel, as a stage headquarters. It was destroyed by fire in 1851 and rebuilt in 1853, the structure forming the basis for the pres- ent remodeled and modern hotel. Other noted old taverns were the Northern Retreat, the Southern Retreat, the Ontario House, the Washington Hotel and the Niagara House.
Records show that the first religious service in Canandaigua was simply the reading of the church of England burial service at the funeral of Captain Caleb Walker in August, 1790. Meet- ings that same year were held in a log barn. The first real step toward organized worship, however, took place with the forma- tion, February 25, 1799, of the First Congregational Church. The first pastor was Rev. Timothy Field, who received $500 a year salary. This pioneer meeting house, with enlargements and im- provements, is still in use and provides a characteristic example of Colonial architecture. The Gothic chapel was erected in 1872-73.
It was in May, 1904, that the Rochester & Eastern trolley line connected Canandaigua with Rochester to the west and Geneva to the east. It was abandoned a few years ago.
The Thompson Memorial Hospital, the gift to the village of Mrs. Mary C. Thompson, was started in 1903 and dedicated June
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14, 1904, at a total cost of $200,000. The Canandaigua Hospital of Physicians and Surgeons, formerly known as the Beaham Hos- pital, was first opened in 1898. the name being changed in 1903. Brigham Hall is a hospital for mental and nervous disorders, founded by Dr. George Cook in 1855. The Ontario County Or- phan Asylum was founded in July, 1863.
For more than half a century the tide of western migration passed through Canandaigua as a focal point, along the old Gene- see Turnpike, now New York's Greater Broadway, the main motor road between Albany and Buffalo.
Aside from the chronological review of the development of Canandaigua, there are several sporadic, unusual events in its early history, which have little connection with the sequence of village growth. However, they stir interest as a revelation of the antiquity of the settlement when it was an outpost of civilization.
In 1793 when, owing to the retention by Great Britain of certain posts which she had held since the close of the Revolu- tion, there was fear of another war, a block-house was erected at Canandaigua. Two years later the first jury trial held west of Utica took place in the Canandaigua courthouse when a man faced the bar of justice on a charge of stealing a cowbell. As late as 1803 Canandaigua had the only postoffice between Geneva and Fort Niagara.
Canandaigua was a point early visited by Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries, who were the first to come into the country of the Senecas, carrying the cross. Their labors were so contested and their dangers so great that little permanent value resulted from their courageous defiance of death and torture. The work of these French priests about Canandaigua would fill a volume. Two monuments erected to their memory recount on their bronze tablets something of the Jesuits' connection with the district.
Probably by the opening of 1933, the biggest institution in Canandaigua will open its doors, when the new United States Veterans Hospital, being constructed by the Federal Government receives men mentally disabled from the World war, for com- plete rehabilitation. The hospital is the outstanding government institution of its kind in the country and to date the United States
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has spent on it one and a half million dollars. The hospital, headed by Col. C. M. Baines, will have a salary list of $420,000 per year; an annual subsistence cost of $100,000, two thirds of which money will be spent within an area of thirty miles of Canandaigua. The institution will house 468 patients, its recrea- tion building alone seating 500. Its personnel will total 270 and the sanitarium is expected to bring 400 new residents into the city.
GENEVA.
Kanadesaga, now Geneva, comprising 2,400 acres was ac- quired of the Indians in 1787 for twelve dollars. Geneva village was founded in 1794 by Messrs. Annin and Bartin, incorporated June 8, 1812, and incorporated a city in 1898. It is built upon the side and summit of an eminence overlooking Seneca Lake, making it one of the most beautiful cities in America. It has 20,000 population, excellent educational facilities efficiently man- aged public utilities, over fifty acres of parks and squares, a wealth of playgrounds, a municipal bathing beach, promenades, golfing, twenty-seven miles of paved streets, and state highways leading in all directions.
The ground where Geneva stands was first known to the white man in the middle of the eighteenth century, when Gen. William Johnson there built in 1756 a stockade fort and block- houses, to be occupied by Seneca Indians and British, should they be forced to defend themselves against the French. Even prior to that time Kanadesaga, an important Indian village, stood two miles northwest of Seneca Lake on what now forms part of the grounds of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. At a later date during the early years of the Revolution, Col. John Butler, in command of the English Tories at Fort Niagara, erected within the present limits of Geneva a barracks and store- house which stood near the canal bridge. It was from here that the Indians marched to the battle of Oriskany and to the bloody Wyoming massacre. The village was destroyed in the memorable march of Sullivan in 1779.
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The civic life of the white man in Geneva began in 1787, with a "solitary log house and that not finished, inhabited by one Jen- nings." This house of Elark Jennings was probably the first tavern in the place. It stood a little south of what is now the junction of Washington and Exchange streets, along the Indian trail to Kashong. Within a year a line of straggling huts dotted the trail, the largest being a trading post established by the so- called Lessee Company and occupied by Dr. Caleb Benton, its representatives.
From this post the Lessee company carried on nefarious projects against the state. Here on November 30, 1787, the com- pany agents held a conference with the Indians, leasing the lands of the red man for 999 years. This move was designed to prevent New York State or Massachusetts from acquiring possession of any of the lake country, except through the Lessee company. The following year, however, the Legislature declared the long lease void, but the power of the Lessee company was not destroyed and it remained an annoying element for years. Its agents at- tempted to foment a movement for declaring a new state set off from New York and the attempt was crushed only in 1793.
The first plan for a village was laid out by Capt. Charles Wil- liamson. The original village green is now Pulteney Park, named after him and located in 1796 just above the cluster of houses and a tavern which had previously been built on the lake shore directly between this spot and the lake. It was Williamson who surveyed Main Street which was his pride. It was his intention that no buildings be erected on its east side, so that there would be no obstruction to a clear view to the lake and that the lake- shore might be laid out in terraces and gardens in the old English style. This street has been characterized as the most beautiful old Colonial thoroughfare outside New England.
In 1796 when the street was first completed, the famous old Geneva Hotel, costing $10,000 in those days of scanty money, was erected on the present site of the Pulteney Apartments, on the corner opposite the First Presbyterian Church. This was for years the best and most famous hostelry west of Albany. A French gentleman named Maude visiting Geneva in 1800, said:
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"As respects provisions, liquors, beds and stabling, there are few inns in America equal to the hotel at Geneva."
At the south end of the street, Mile Point House was erected at a cost of $5,000. This structure was later demolished on the ground that it was haunted. Around the "Green" were the busi- ness houses of the village.
Facing the park on the south side near the corner of a small alley once known as Bank Alley, but now called Park Avenue, stands a brick house covered with ampelopsis vine to which the first Geneva bank (opened in 1817 on Main Street) was moved a little later. Around the corner is the site, on the right now occupied by a church manse, where the original Land Office of the Pulteney Estate was built in 1796. This was one of the first brick buildings in western New York. The third house on the right with the Colonial pillars served as the first post office in 1796 and later as the Land Office.
The first decade of the nineteenth century and a few years preceding were marked by several important events in Geneva. The old Genesee Turnpike, the first road built into the western wilderness after the Revolution, entered Geneva by way of the present East North Street, which was known in early days as the Turnpike. This road was completed from Fort Schuyler (Utica) to Geneva during the summer of 1797. The first stage started its journey from Utica September 30, 1779, and reached the Geneva Hotel in three days with four passengers.
At this period Trinity Church was organized and the Exposi- tion, the first permanent, newspaper in the place, was estab- lished. In 1807 Ark Lodge of Masons was formed.
The same year petition was presented to the Legislature for the incorporation of the historic Geneva Academy, but a charter was not issued until 1813. The first public school in the village was opened in 1815 and the following year the first fire company organized. In 1817 the first bank, the Geneva National, opened.
Hobart College, chartered in 1822, was the successor to the old Geneva Academy. Its story is told in the section of this book devoted to schools.
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In 1828 the construction of the Seneca and Cayuga Canal was finished, with eleven locks and eighty-three and a half feet of lockage. Increased commerce swelled the population of the village.
The Geneva Lyceum, a young men's school, was founded in 1831 and subsequently offered to the Synod of Geneva for a col- lege. The offer was rejected and the lyceum passed out of ex- istence in 1842.
The Geneva Medical College was chartered in 1834 as a de- partment of Hobart and three years later a special building for the medical school was built. The medical department was dis- continued in 1872 and the building destroyed by fire in 1877.
The public or district schools of Geneva were consolidated in 1839, into a union school.
The Union School was incorporated in 1853 and authorized to maintain a classical department and to instruct a normal class. In 1869 its corporate title was changed to the Geneva Classical and Union school, the first union school so raised in the state.
Although the first nursery at Geneva was noted in 1817, the first real development of this phase of agriculture came in 1846 when the Smith nursery became the fore-runner of many which have made Geneva famous. Nurseries about Geneva today em- ploy nearly 3,000 persons.
Village improvements progressed rapidly in the next few years. In 1841 systematic planting of trees along the village streets was begun as a prelude to the present city of shade. In 1874 the Village Improvement Society was formed to give added zest to this beautification movement. The parks system was begun just before the turn of the half century, during a period when public utilities also made their bow.
In 1841 the first train entered Geneva over the old Auburn Road. A great concourse gathered to witness its arrival. The track was made by spiking wooden timbers on the ties and a flat bar of iron, about as heavy as a farm wagon tire, was fastened on the wooden rail. At nearly every crossing there was a pile of wood. When the engine stopped to "wood up," male passengers ran forward and helped the fireman.
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In 1843 the first express facilities were provided and in 1848 Geneva was linked with the world by telegraph. Illuminating gas was first used in Geneva in 1852 and two years later streets were lighted by this means. Electric lights did not come until 1883.
Shipping facilities were enlarged in the seventies by the open- ing of the Geneva & Corning and the Geneva & Lyons railroads and in the following decade the Smith Observatory and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station were established at Geneva.
Some of the outstanding dates in Geneva's history include : 1873, Geneva & Ithaca Railroad completed; 1877, Geneva & Corn- ing Railroad opened; telephone service inaugurated; 1880, paid fire department established, Thirty-fourth Separate Company formed; 1882, paid police department organized; 1883, first elec- trical plant established; 1886, Young Men's Christian Associa- tion organized; 1892, Medical and Surgical Hospital incorpo- rated, Buffalo extension of Lehigh Valley completed; 1893, street paving begun; 1894, Naples Railroad opened and trolley line to Waterloo projected; 1897, Salvation Army Post opened; 1898, Geneva City Hospital opened, Geneva Country Club formed; 1902, Chamber of Commerce organized; 1903, Humane Society formed.
Geneva is believed to have been named after the noted Swiss city of the same name, because of its exquisite setting upon a lake. So far as known it was first called Geneva by Dr. Caleb Benton in dating a letter October 14, 1788.
Organization of the churches of Geneva spans generations back to the Eighteenth Century to show the spirit of worship marked frontier life among the pioneers.
The First Presbyterian Church society was formed in 1798; the North Presbyterian was formed by a union of the United Presbyterian and the Bethel Society, in 1870; Trinity Church Society was organized August 18, 1806; St. Peter's Church in 1867; Methodist Episcopal in 1818; the United Presbyterian in 1826; the Protestant Reformed Dutch Church in 1831; the Uni-
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versalist Church in 1834; the First Baptist in 1826; St. Francis De Sales in 1832.
Geneva's first newspaper, though short lived in that com- munity, was the Ontario Gazette and Western Chronicle, issued in 1796; others include the Expositor, 1806; Gazette, 1809; Im- partial Observer and Seneca Museum, 1809; Geneva Palladium, 1816; Geneva Chronicle, 1828; Independent American, 1831; Geneva American, 1830; Geneva Courier, 1830.
The Miscellany and the Asteroid, 1878; Miscellaneous Regis- ter, 1822; Christian Magazine, 1832; Young Ladies Mirror, 1834; Literary Magazine, 1834; Herald of Truth, 1834; Geneva Democrat, 1840; District School Journal, 1840; Geneva Adver- tiser and Mechanics' Advocate, 1841; Geneva Budget, 1854; On- tario Whig, 1850; Geneva Independent and Freeman's Gazette, 1851; Geneva Ledger, 1857; Geneva Daily Union, 1858; Geneva Advertiser, 1880; Geneva Times, the community's present enter- prising daily.
One of the first courts in Central New York was at Geneva. The first term of Oyer and Terminer and general gaol delivery was held at Petterson's tavern there on June 18, 1793. As there was no business before the court, adjournment was taken and the next court in Ontario County was the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions at Canandaigua, the following year.
About 1790 the first physician in the place arrived, in the person of Dr. William Adams, who died in line of duty during the epidemic of dysentary in 1795, Geneva's first recorded epidemic.
During the past few years impetus has been given to park development in Geneva to such extent that it has become one of the first cities in Central New York in park facilities. The latest and most pretentious such public recreation center is Seneca Park, which extends practically the entire distance around the northern end of Seneca Lake and affords one of the finest ap- proaches to a city that can be found anywhere. In 1929 the city acquired unimproved lands and began improvements which are still underway. At the east end of the tract, buildings and amusement features were erected and a tourist camp opened.
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One of the finest bathing beaches on the lake was made available to the public and an extensive landscaping program was insti- tuted.
The oldest park is Pulteney Park, laid out and dedicated to the public about 1796 by Sir William Pulteney. Up to 1862 cat- tle were pastured in this public square.
Genesee Park, formerly known as Franklin Park was given the community by executors of the Sanford R. Hall estate Jan- uary 27, 1849. In 1904 a band stand was here erected and later removed.
Lakeside Park, at the foot of Castle and Franklin Streets, gave signs of becoming a park when in 1912 the city issued $20,000 in bonds to acquire the property. Funds to develop it were raised through public subscriptions, tag days, lawn socials, etc. The park's development is largely due to the work of former Mayor R. H. Gulvin.
Gulvin Park, named after him, is on land that was formerly known as Marsh Creek swamp. The area was filled in as a city dump and in 1915 purchased by the city for $6,000. Here the playground work of Geneva began.
The city also maintains a number of playgrounds and in 1930 purchased the Laws property in North Street and opened a public skating rink, where previously such a venture had been con- ducted as a private enterprise. .
The last federal manufacturers census in 1929 an average of 1,777 wage earners for the year, who drew $2,595,823 in wages and turned out products valued at $12,088,338.
CLIFTON SPRINGS.
The village of Clifton Springs, Ontario County, with a popu- lation of 1,808, was at one time called Sulphur Springs, because of its noted mineral water. Though the site of the community was visited as early as 1790 by a Scotchman, Donald Stewart, on an explorative trip, the first pioneer settler was John Shekell, a Marylander, who came ten years later. He built his log house on east hill, where now stands the Balcom boarding house, and a year later opened it as a tavern. Shekels brought three slaves
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with him, the first introduced into the township. The second settler was William Hanna and the third Arnold Warfield, both bringing their families with them from Maryland.
It is the famous springs which have made Clifton Springs noted throughout America. An account of the development of these medicinal waters is given in the section devoted to the med- ical profession. It is worthy of note that in 1806 a hotel was erected here as a dispensary.
When and why the name of the village was changed from Sulphur Springs to Clifton Springs is a question; possibly the odor in the town was not a pleasant reminder. But the fact re- mains that these sulphur springs have made the community a great resort for invalids seeking health and quiet, while the natural beauty of the village and its environs draw the tourist and pleasure seeker. Growth of the place is due largely to the vision of Dr. Henry Foster, who founded Clifton Springs Sani- tarium in 1849.
Clifton Springs was made a post office in 1850 and by 1850 the population had so increased that the community was incorpo- rated as a village.
Indicative of the age of Clifton Springs is the age of its churches. St. John's Church dates back to 1806-07, when organ- ization was perfected and a church edifice begun. Before the building was completed it was sold to the Methodists and St. John's parish became extinct until revived in 1866. A new edi- fice was consecrated in 1871 by Rt. Rev. Bishop Coxe.
The Methodist Church was organized in 1808 under the mis- sionary labors of Rev. John Baggerly, and at once the society bought St. John's building, which it occupied from 1810 to 1841, when fire leveled the structure. Another church was built in 1843-44 and two years later the society reorganized as the Third Methodist Society in Manchester. In 1867 a brick edifice super- ceded the older one.
The First Universalist Church was organized April 1, 1852, with twenty original members. The first house of worship was erected in 1852-53.
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St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church was organized and a church built in 1856. The Baptist Society of Clifton Springs came next.
HOLCOMB.
Holcomb, Ontario County, was incorporated in 1916, the same year as East Bloomfield. The last 1930 census gives it a population of 294, although in 1920 it boasted 488 population and in 1925 a total of 328.
To the casual traveler passing through, Holcomb appears as a part of East Bloomfield. The East Bloomfield High School, between the two villages, serves both and the main street of both communities is a continuous one. The school was erected twenty-five years ago.
The village has four churches, Catholic, Congregational, Methodist and Episcopal.
The Ontario County Tuberculosis Hospital, also known as Oak Mount Sanitorium, was established at Holcomb January 28, 1911.
MANCHESTER.
Manchester, Ontario County, incorporated as a village in 1892, has the distinction of being one of the largest railroad freight transfer points in America. Though its population in 1930 was but 1,428 it is better known to railroad men than many a city a hundred times its size. In early days, a pioneer woolen mill in the community caused the townspeople to name the place Manchester, in illusion to the great manufacturing city of the same name in England.
The original settler was Valentine Coon, for whom the local- ity was first called Coonsville. By the time of incorporation the town had 450 population. But its start toward prosperity came in 1891, when the Lehigh Valley was built through the place. Extensive round houses went up near the villages and machine shops followed.
The first Baptist Church of Manchester was organized as the First Baptist Church of Farmington (before the division of the
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town) and dates back to 1797, although not until 1810 was the first log meeting house built, followed by a stone chapel in 1815. In 1822 Farmington was divided and Manchester formed, where- upon the society took the name of the First Baptist Church of Manchester. A church was erected in 1849. The Methodist Church also had its origin in pioneer times, but records fail to reveal the exact date.
In the War of 1812 a number of the Manchester residents participated in the expedition against Quebec and Montreal, and Manchester soldiers were also in action at Queenstown Heights, and at Fort George, Upper Canada.
Free Masonry had an early start, a charter being granted November 20, 1816, signed by DeWitt Clinton, Grand Master; Martin Hoffman, Deputy Grand Master; and John Wells, Grand Secretary. The lodge was known as Manchester Lodge, No. 269. The last annual meeting of the lodge was on December 17, 1828, and the final parley was held on March 18, 1829.
From the time the first settler located at Manchester, up to the year 1891, Manchester was practically a farming center. But with the construction of the railroad of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company west from Sayre, Pennsylvania, to Buffalo, New York, Manchester jumped into importance, especially in the railroad world, as it was made a divisional terminal point. The Lehigh Valley Railroad opened up the road in 1892 and a great influx of railroad employes was the result, not only in Manches- ter, but Shortsville and surrounding villages reaping a benefit.
In 1914 the Lehigh constructed their Manchester Freight Transfer, having a capacity of nearly 400 cars at the platform, with additional trackage room for empty cars adjacent to the platform. This was the largest railroad freight transfer in the world, and held this position until a western railroad constructed one that has more car space.
The same year the Lehigh commenced running trains, saw the incorporation of the Village of Manchester, with Dr. John R. Pratt, president of the Board of Trustees.
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