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 43
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 43
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 43
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 43
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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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seclusion, at the same time being in the immediate proximity of the principal public buildings. Facing on the same park are the City High School, the court house, Odd Fellows' Temple, and three of the city churches, while the post office and Y. M. C. A. are distant only a half block. The Conservatory has gradually developed its property until now it includes an Administration Building, three Studio Buildings, Little Theater, Band School Building, Martin Hall, six Dormitories, three Sorority Houses, Gymnasium, Infirmary, two Fraternity Buildings.
In 1926, the Ithaca Conservatory as a stock company was dissolved, and the school property valued at close to a million dollars was turned over to the state. At this time the school received a new charter from the Board of Regents of the Univer- sity of the State of New York as a non-stock institution. Thus another great stride forward was made by this famous institu- tion freeing it from any personal ownership or commercial con- sideration.
Horse cars came to Ithaca in 1883. A year later a charter was granted the Ithaca Street Railways Company and Ithaca was one of the first places in America to have trolleys. In 1885 there were only thirteen electric railways in the country, with a total mileage of fifty.
Ithaca was incorporated as a city May 2, 1887. In 1904 the municipality took over the previously, privately owned water works.
With a natural scenic background, it is little wonder that Ithaca has been the hub of state park activity in the Finger Lakes Region. Much of the development is due largely to one of Ithaca's leading citizens, Robert H. Treman. On December 14, 1915, Mr. and Mrs. Treman purchased Enfield Glen proper and an old hotel property embracing about forty acres. During the next four years they bought about a dozen parcels of land, consisting of 388 acres, which, in 1920, they gave to the state. A commis- sion, known as the Enfield Falls Reservation Commission, was formed with Mr. Treman as its chairman. The commission ex- isted until 1924 when ten counties in the region were placed under the Finger Lakes State Parks Commission, of which Tre-
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man was elected head. The story of state park development is told in another chapter.
The general beautification and development of Ithaca as a city of natural loveliness was stimulated in 1923 under the admin- istration of Mayor Louis P. Smith, who named a citizens planning committee as the forerunner of a long series of improvements in the physical appearance of the community.
One of the most striking elements in the development of Ithaca industrially was the coming of the Morse enterprises. The first of these comprises simply a machine shop, cabinet shop, two- press mill and an oil mill. The great Morse Chain Company was incorporated in 1898. Plants as branches sprang up even in Europe. The automobile advanced the growth of the industry by leaps. Then came the second of the great Morse industries- the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation, which opened in Ithaca as a separate enterprise in 1914. Then in 1919 the Peters-Morse Company began producing a commercial adding machine. The latest Morse enterprise is a company which manufactures an electric clock.
With an estimated number of 3,500 permanent families, Ithaca because of its seven educational institutions, has also to- day a large transient population. Of its inhabitants, ninety-five per cent are native white, two per cent negroes and three per cent foreign born. In 1928 there were 1,369 Ithacans who filed income tax returns. The city has eight public schools, one high school and one parochial school. Then there are two Baptist Churches, one Christian Science, one Congregational, two Epis- copal, one Hebrew, three Methodist, one Presbyterian, one Roman Catholic, one Lutheran and five miscellaneous.
The modern Ithaca, though primarily an educational center, is also strong industrially, with forty-five manufacturing estab- lishments, the principal ones of which are the Morse Chain Com- pany, Ithaca Gun Company, Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation, Barr-Morse Company, Peters-Morse, Stanford-Crowell Company.
There are 4,800 gas meters which serve the city, 11,000 elec- tric meters and 8,600 telephones. The business classifications follow : Passenger auto agencies, fifteen; commercial car
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agencies, six ; auto accessories, thirty-five ; auto tire agencies, ten ; bakers, six; cigar stores and stands, twelve; confectioners, twen- ty-five; delicatessens, three; dressmakers, thirty-nine; druggists, ten ; dry goods, five; department stores, two; electrical supplies, seven ; florists, three; fruits, four ; furniture, six; furriers, three ; public garages, eighteen ; grocers, sixty-one; hardware, four ; jew- elry, twelve; meat markets, twenty; men's furnishings, twelve; merchant tailors, thirty; milliners, eleven; opticians, three; photographers, eight; pianos, four; radio supplies, nine; restau- rants, forty-seven; shoes, fourteen; sporting goods, five; sta- tioners, eight; women's apparel, seven; five-and-ten-cent stores, three; twenty-five cents to one dollar stores, two; doctors, forty; dentists, eighteen; osteopaths, one.
Ithaca has its own municipal airport, two miles northwest of the city at the south end of Cayuga Lake. It is also connected with the Barge Canal, is on the main line of the Lehigh Valley and two branch lines, and the D. L. & W. also has a branch termi- nal here. Bus lines lead in all directions.
The city is particularly proud of its record in hospitalization. The Ithaca Memorial Hospital was established January 19, 1889, under the name of Ithaca City Hospital, which name was changed November 15, 1926. The hospital maintains a registered school of nursing and the 1928 reports of the State Department of Char- ities show it has a capacity of 106 beds, and twenty bassinets.
The Ithaca Tuberculosis Association was organized in 1911 as the Tuberculosis Committee of Ithaca and incorporated under its new name in 1915. It operated in conjunction with the Health Department, and relicensed the Ithaca Public Health Clinic Jan- uary 8, 1924, nurses making visits to patients in their homes.
Maintained by the City Board of Education, the John C. Rum- sey Memorial Dental Clinic, in the high and grammar school, was licensed January 9, 1918, to provide for dental needs of pub- lic school pupils.
According to the federal census of manufacturers of 1929, Ithaca employs 2,073 wage earners, whose annual pay amounts to $3,110,784. The value of Ithaca made products yearly is $8,757,096.
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CAYUGA HEIGHTS.
Cayuga Heights, one of the finest residential sections in the entire district, is in reality a subdivision of Ithaca although it was incorporated as a separate village in 1915 and in the 1930 federal census is given an independent listing with a population of 507. Because of its beautiful location, it has grown rapidly since it was incorporated with but 137 inhabitants. In 1920 the population was 179 and by 1925 it had grown to 370.
Rapid development north and south of Cornell University campus resulted from extension of a trolley line up East Hill. The Cornell Heights Land Company, organized in 1901 by Charles H. Blood, Jared T. Newman, E. G. Wyckoff, Prof. Charles H. Hull and Prof. John H. Tanner, purchased a farm north of Wyckoff's original "Heights." The company sold thirty acres of its land to the Ithaca Country Club. Highland Avenue, Wyckoff Avenue, Triphammer Road and other streets were laid out and graded. Today most of the land of the Cornell Heights Land Company is now included in the village of Cayuga Heights.
The remainder of the land in the new tract was put up for sale as building lots and the principal owners of the Cornell Heights Land Company then incorporated the Ithaca Suburban Railway Company, September 24, 1904, to make the land more accessible. The new village, restricted by a zoning ordinance which went into effect in 1926, commands one of the finest vistas of lake and valley anywhere in the state.
DRYDEN.
Dryden village, in the town of Dryden, with a population today of 665, is a busy agricultural center on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. It was named for John Dryden, English poet. The land on which the village originally was built was owned for the most part by Benjamin Lacy, Edward Griswold and Nathaniel Sheldon. Early settlers were enthusiastic over the possibilities of their settlement. Griswold gave a blacksmith forty acres of land if he would locate his shop at Dryden.
The first settlement in the town of Dryden was commenced in 1797 by Amos Sweet, on the site of Dryden village, who, accom-
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panied by his mother, brother, wife and two children, built the first cabin in the town. That first house was only ten feet square and constructed of logs twelve inches in diameter. The house was eight logs high. The roof was supported by poles covered with bark, stripped from elm and basswood. The only window was an opening eighteen inches square cut through the logs. In win- ter this was covered with coarse, greased paper, so some light would be admitted.
The next settlers in the town were Ezekiel Sandford, David Foot and Ebenezer Chausen, who located at Willow Glen in 1798. A single yoke of oxen, at one load, brought these three families, consisting of fourteen persons, and all their household goods from the Chenango River. Capt. George Robertson (sometimes called the father of the town) came in the same year and started culti- vation of the first farm in Dryden and harvested the first crops.
The first white child born was Robert Robertson and the first death was that of the mother of Amos Sweet. Daniel Lasey taught the first school in 1804; Amos Lewis kept the first inn; Joel Hull the first store and Col. Hopkins from Homer built the first mill in 1800. The first stage from Homer to Ithaca was run through the town in 1824. The famous old Bridle Road, built in 1795, was the first road into Dryden and over it the first horses were brought in 1800. In early days the town was known as a superior lumber district, there having been fifty-one saw mills in operation within its limits in 1835.
The village was incorporated in 1857, with David P. Goodhue as first president. The previous year the first newspaper was issued in Dryden, under the name Rumsey's Companion. One mile west of the village are the well known Dryden Sulphur Springs, where in olden days the Dryden Springs Sanitarium catered to invalids attracted by the medicinal properties of the waters. Two miles southeast of the village is Dryden Lake, a mile long and a half-mile wide.
FREEVILLE.
Though Freeville, Tompkins County, is a village of but 373, it is the post office address for the "smallest republic in the world."
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For at Freeville is the George Junior Republic, world known and the outgrowth of an ideal of William R. (Daddy) George, who was born on a farm near West Dryden.
When he was fourteen, his parents moved to New York and he spent only his vacation at the old home. In 1890 he conceived the plan of a fresh air camp for city boys at Freeville. For sev- eral successive years he brought boys there. From this grew the Republic and on July 10, 1895, the first government of the youth, for the youth and by the youth was established. About 2,000 young people of both sexes have since passed through the George Junior Republic.
In no single instance does this little community resemble an institution. In fact, the Junior Republic is diametrically opposed to the institution idea.
Not only are the laws made by the boys and girls who com- prise the population of the Republic, but by them also are en- forced. He who does not work is arrested as a vagrant and sent to jail. He who loses his job is given three days in which to find other work, or he becomes a vagrant. The youngsters escape losing jobs or becoming vagrant by earning at least six dollars and fifty cents per week; otherwise they appear in court before a youthful but just judge, make their pleas and serve such sen- tences as may be imposed.
The motto of the Republic is "Nothing Without Labor," and consequently both boys and girls work. The boys may become farmers, carpenters, plumbers, bakers, bankers, lawyers, print- ers, or enter other occupations; the girls keep house, cook, bake, scrub and do such other work of a domestic nature as their talents may permit.
Protestant, Catholic and Jewish congregations are provided for in the three houses of worship. The Republic boasts also a bank, store, jail, hospital and school, as well as an extensive printing plant. Both grade and high school studies are taught in the school. Even a college preparatory course is available, while those inclined toward business or other work may obtain training in commerce, domestic science and other subjects.
The jail building, which adjoins the print shop, has twelve cells. Nearby is the city court room where boy judge, boy chief
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of police, boy patrolmen, boy jail superintendent, boy district attorney and boy lawyers may be found during court sessions. A boy is president of the bank; other boys and girls are clerks in the general store. In all there are fourteen buildings on the 300- acre grounds of the Republic.
Freeville itself is located on Fall Creek, in the northwest part of the town of Dryden. It was incorporated as a village in 1887. Probably its first settlers were Daniel White and his brother-in- law, George Knapp, a veteran of the Revolution, who settled in 1798 near what are now the village limits. White erected a grist mill in 1802, when he began preaching as a Methodist minister on the Cayuga circuit.
Today Freeville is also a gathering place for Spiritualists, a camp ground drawing large numbers each summer for extended meetings, with distinguished proponents of the belief as speakers.
GROTON.
Groton, a village of 2,004 in the town of Groton, enjoys a community life and intellectual trend reflected in its superior school, libraries, civic clubs, fraternal and social organizations. Early settled by New Englanders, the village gained its name from Groton, Massachusetts, and Groton, Connecticut. And the name has been carried to the four corners of the world by the Corona typewriter, which is the chief product of the village industries.
Located on the main Auburn-Ithaca-Owego highway, the vil- lage nestles in the wide sweep of the Owasco Valley. It is sur- rounded by picturesque hills and valleys dotted with thrifty farms. An abundance of water is piped to the village from springs on the hills by the gravity system. The water is noted for its purity. There has not been a case of typhoid during the past twenty-five years. The Groton Rod and Gun Club has more than 100 members and keeps the streams well stocked with brook and rainbow trout. The Owasco inlet flows through the village and there are miles of trout streams within easy reach. English pheasants are plentiful ; it is not uncommon to see a dozen feeding in the fields in the autumn.
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It is a far cry from the present century that has brought prosperity to Groton, back to the day in 1797 when John Perrin built the first log cabin in what is now the village. But the spirit of enterprise has grown with the community until today few places offer finer possibilities for the householder or manufac- turer than this Tompkins County town. The first frame house was erected about 1806 by Jonas Williams and within the next five years six others arose. There were about the same number of log houses. And one of the frame structures was a school- house, the precourser of the present admirable system which Groton boasts.
Groton Academy was founded as a stock institution in 1837, with Prof. S. W. Clark as first principal. Financially the school . was a failure, but educationally a success. It ultimately passed into the hands of the Groton Board of Education and became a public school.
The hospitality of Groton has been proverbial from the time the first humble tavern extended the hand of welcome to visitors at what was then called Groton Hollow. The village was incorpo- rated in 1860, after a vote of the 596 inhabitants in the 434 acres embraced in the proposed village. There were 123 ballots cast, sixty-eight being for incorporation and fifty-five against. Philander H. Robinson was first president and D. V. Linderman first clerk.
Groton's first newspaper was the Groton Balance, thirty- nine weekly issues of which were published, starting January 31, 1839. It then changed hands and managed to publish for the rest of the year. Next in the field came the Groton Democrat in 1840, but it was discontinued. The Groton Journal first ap- peared November 9, 1866. Today the village boasts the flourish- ing weekly, the Journal-Courier.
Groton Lodge of Masons was formed in 1869.
Groton is but a few miles from picturesque Lake Como, 1,306 feet above seaboard. The lake is noted for its excellent bass fishing and its many camps. Nearby is the old Salt Road over which in olden days, salt was shipped from Syracuse to New York City.
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The village is on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and enjoys motor bus service to Auburn, Cortland, Ithaca, Syracuse, Elmira, Binghamton and other points.
On a farm just northeast of Groton there lies a miniature Black Forest of Norway Spruce, the original planting having been made in 1878 as a wind-break. It has been enlarged to cover about three acres. Travelers who have seen the Schwartz- wald (Black Forest) of Germany describe the Groton planting as just a bit of the famed European forest set down in Central New York.
TRUMANSBURG.
As the sunrise burst over Cayuga Lake, of a spring morning back in 1792, a stalwart young adventurer of the Colonial army stood on Goodwin's (later known as Taghanic) Point on Cayuga Lake, gazing westward upon the masses of towering pine, oak, hickory and maple.
Abner Treman, thirty-one years old, was breaking his last camp before arrival at the mile square military grant of land upon which he was to leave the imprint of his name down through many generations. Since midwinter he had traversed forest trails from Columbia County to the unknown home he was to make on the frontier.
With his wife, two children and a brother-in-law, John Mc- Lallen, a lad of nineteen, and all the family's earthly possessions, Treman left the Indian trail at the point and headed into the tangle of the forest. A few miles along this last lap of the jour- ney and the party halted. Treman struck his axe into a tree. The toilsome expedition was over. A rude hut, with no windows, no doors, arose, but it was home. And from that cabin on what is now Main Street, opposite the present Methodist Episcopal Church, sprang the sturdy race of Tremans. Trumansburg was born.
The next year Treman went east as far as Utica for mill machinery. On the return he was lost in the forest. When found he was so badly frozen that one foot was amputated. Hard days they were, but men carried on. Tremans erected the first grist
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mill, in 1794, it was the nucleus around which grew quite a settlement.
Within five years of the time Treman struck the first blow with his axe, a blacksmith shop, shoe shop, carpenter shop, tailor shop and tavern were clustered about his wildwood abode.
For the first few years the nearest market was Owego. The first store was established in Trumansburg by a Mr. Henshaw probably in 1800 or 1801. By 1830 the village population had grown to 600. The first brick building was put up as a store in 1825 by James McLallen.
It was McLallen who in 1795 built a small log building, desig- nating it with a sign "Inn." As a result Trumansburg in earliest days was known as McLallen's Tavern. But later residents per- petuated the memory of the village founder in its name-Tru- mansburg. In making out Treman's commission as postmaster, the name was misspelt Trumansburg, and so it has remained.
The first society organized in the village was the Ulysses Philomathic Library in 1811. In 1818 Fidelity Lodge, F. & A. M., was constituted and in 1840 a charter was granted to Tucka- hannock Lodge, No. 20, I. O. O. F.
The first church erected in the village was built in 1819 by the Presbyterians, and absorbed an earlier church erected four miles south of the village in 1803.
The wooden village, rickety, grass grown sidewalks, the straggling roads and lanes of other days have given place to a modern, industrious community, alive with civic spirit. Today Trumansburg is the gateway to Taughannock Falls State Park, up whose great ravine Treman picked his way in quest of a spot on which to build a town. As the center of a large and fertile farming region, the village is a shipping point for great quan- tities of produce and livestock.
Abner Treman was in the Second Regiment under Col. Philip VanCortlandt during Sullivan's campaign, being promoted suc- cessively to corporal, sergeant and sergeant-major and receiving a Badge of Honor. He was the ancestor of the famous Treman family of Ithaca. On July 4, 1929, the village named after him unveiled a tablet in his memory.
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The early days of this village created by Treman in a wilder- ness was a stopping place for DeWitt Clinton, in 1810, when he was a commissioner for the state exploring the lake country. In his diary he described the settlement as follows:
"We dined at Treman's village, socalled for the soldier who owns the lot for military services. He resides here and is pro- prietor of the mills and in good circumstances. The village has several houses, three taverns and two or three stores and mills in a ravine or hollow formed by a creek which runs through it. It is in the town of Ulysses and was formerly called shin Hollow by some drunken fellows who, on the first settlement, frequented a log cabin here, and on their way home broke their shins on the bad roads. Dr. Comstock and another physician reside here.
"The contemplated turnpike from Ithaca to Geneva will pass through this place." This turnpike company was incorporated in 1810. Its route was from Ithaca to Baileytown on Seneca Lake (now Willard State Hospital), whence it followed the old route blazed by Sullivan's army. It was completed in 1811, giving a new impetus to the growth of Trumansburg.
Even before this ancient road was laid out Trumansburg had a school. It was built in 1805 of logs and was located near the Baptist Church. The Trumansburg Academy was opened Octo- ber 9, 1855. When a free school district was established, the academy property was given to the district. Since that time improvements in the school system have been made and today the village boasts one of the finest new schools of any community of its size in the state.
The village was incorporated in 1872 and a year later organ- ized a fire department. Its business houses today are enterpris- ing and its financial institutions sound. As a modern community it is well worthy of the courage and fortitude of its pioneers. In all the nation's wars since the village was founded, Trumansburg has given freely of its money and its manpower. And in its civic vision it has been a leader.
NEWFIELD.
The village of Newfield, pleasantly situated on Cayuga inlet, was incorporated in 1895 but dissolved the incorporation in 1925.
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In that year its population was 362. But the community is en- terprising, as evidenced by its action in the summer of 1932 in becoming a member of the Finger Lakes Association. The vil- lage site is included in the Thomas S. Livingston Purchase. Eliakim Dean purchased the present site of the village about 1802 and built the first saw mill in 1809 and the first grist mill two years later. Samuel K. Rogers opened the first factory in 1815 for manufacture of cloth and for carding wool.
The village's first store was conducted by George Dudley about 1816 and the first tavern kept by Jeremiah Hall about 1810. Newfield's first school was a log structure erected about 1805-06 and the first church was erected by the Presbyterians in 1832.
Newfield's greatest disaster came June 15, 1875, when almost the entire business district was wiped out by fire. But rapidly the old frame buildings reduced to ashes were replaced by brick blocks and community progress speeded onward.
CHAPTER XXXVI
WAYNE COUNTY.
COUNTY ORGANIZED-SUBDIVISIONS-PULTENEY ESTATE AND MILITARY TRACTS -EARLIEST WHITE MEN-SETTLEMENTS-TOWNS-COUNTY SEAT-LYONS CLYDE-MACEDON-NEWARK-PALMYRA-RED CREEK-SAVANNAH-SODUS- WOLCOTT.
Wayne County was erected April 11, 1823, from Ontario and Seneca counties. It covers 599 square miles and 84.9 per cent of its land area of 383,360 is in farms, numbering 4,498 and cov- ering 325,462 acres. The value of the farm lands and buildings in Wayne County reaches $36,064,530. Two thirds of the coun- ty's 34,885 population reside in rural sections.
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