USA > New York > Chautauqua County > History of Chautauqua County, New York, and its people, Volume I > Part 15
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lived in accordance with their professions and were excellent, intelligent citizens. The asso- ciation numbered more than two thousand members. Lady Oliphant and her celebrated son, Lawrence Oliphant, who gave up his seat in the English Parliament, several Japanese high officials, and two Indian princes, were residents of the community. Mr. Harris finally sold the lands to Mr. Oliphant, and now scarcely a member of the association remains.
Portland from the beginning has been the leading town in the culture of the grape and other fruit, and the Fays were the first and leading family in the enterprise.
From its small beginnings in 1824, during the fifty years that followed, the culture of the grape in Chautauqua county had been grow- ing so that in the Lake Shore towns of the county it had become a leading industry. About 1874 it had ceased to depend upon a lim- ited home market and had found without the county, first in the oil regions of Pennsylvania, an extensive and increasing demand. A new era in the agricultural prosperity of the county had now begun. Vineyards were spreading over the lowlands from the foot of the hills along the southern shore of Lake Erie and soon began to climb the hillsides along the northern face of the Ridge, and now the grape belt extends for a distance of about fifty-five miles along the southern shore of Lake Erie from Harbor Creek in Erie county, Pennsyl- vania, to Erie county, New York. The aver- age width of this territory is about three and one-half miles. While it includes a consider- able tract in Erie, Pennsylvania, and a small portion in Cattaraugus county, the principal portion of the grape belt is in Chautauqua county. It includes the most of the area of the lake towns and a portion of some of the adja cent towns. The entire territory of the grape belt now cultivated contains about 120,000 acres of which 100,000 acres are in Chautauqua county. The Isabellas and Catawbas were the first varieties extensively raised. The Concord was finally introduced by Lincoln Fay. The severe winter of 1872-73 proved it to be the most hardy grape and best adapted to the soil and climate of Chautauqua. This variety soon became the leading kind raised throughout the county.
An event at this time contributed more to promote the welfare of the county and to ex- tend its fame than any event before. This was the organization of the Chautauqua Assembly, now known as the Chautauqua Institution, which is treated in a special article in this work.
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CHAPTER XIII.
Close of the Century-1875-1902.
About the first event that occurred of im- portance in this closing period was the com- pletion of the Buffalo & Jamestown, now the Buffalo & Southwestern railroad to the city of Jamestown, in the fall of 1875. This road was finished from Buffalo to Gowanda as early as 1874. It has proved of great value not only to the city of Jamestown, but also to the eastern towns of the county. Ellington, Cherry Creek and Villenova were entirely without railroad facilities until it was constructed. The town of Ellicott was bonded in the sum of $200,000 to aid in its building. A litigation grew out of it, resulting in a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the bonds were invalid ; they were never paid. The town of Cherry Creek had also bonded itself in a large sum to aid the road. A similar litigation arose respecting the validity of the Cherry Creek bonds, resulting in a settlement by which they were paid in part by that town. In 1876 the Prendergast Block in the village of James- town was erected.
We must regret to have to record a phenome- nal number of crimes and tragedies. During the first forty years of settlement, but few desperate crimes were perpetrated. But one felonious homicide was committed during that forty years, and that was the crime of Damon in killing his wife. During the succeeding thirty-three years ending with 1875, but five or six criminal homicides were committed. In marked contrast with these two periods were the later years. During a period that would naturally be supposed to be the most law abiding and humane, there were as many as seventeen felonious homicides and murders perpetrated in the county. The commission of so many serious offences is not to be attrib- uted to an unusual state of depravity, but to fortuitous circumstances and to the existence of railroads, large towns, and the less quiet life of the people. Crime came as an incident of these changed conditions.
On January 20, 1877, Clarence S. Hale, as the result of an altercation, killed Gerard B. Ham- ilton with a moulder's ladle in Clark's foundry in Jamestown. Hale was tried at the following September court, held by Charles Daniels, jus- tice of the Supreme Court, and acquitted. E. R. Bootey, district attorney, assisted by H. C. Kingsbury appeared for the people; Orsell Cook and Lorenzo Morris defended.
In the summer of 1877 occurred the great railroad strike. The Baltimore & Ohio Rail-
road Company made a reduction of ten per cent. in the wages of its employees. A strike followed by the Brotherhood of Engineers. The sympathy of the public in favor of the employees was general. Strikes soon followed on many other railroads. At one time, six thousand miles of railroad were tied up.
In July the strike assumed such formidable proportions in Buffalo that the militia were called out. The Seward Guards of Westfield. or Third Separate Company, under Capt. J. H. Towle, were summoned to Buffalo. They left for that city on the Lake Shore road on Tues- day, July 27, 1877, upon a wildcat passenger train, consisting of a mail and baggage car and two coaches carrying forty passengers, and the Third Seward Guards. On arriving at the railroad bridge over Buffalo creek, the train was stopped by the strikers. The engine and mail car were detached by the mob and allowed to proceed, and the other cars were run on to a "Y." The strikers then began to stone the car, and tried to board it. The Seward Guards responded with a volley of musketry which had ugly effect, but were compelled to leave the car in possession of the rioters. Three or more of the rioters were wounded, some fatally.
April 16, 1878, the first subordinate Grange in the world was organized at Fredonia. A. S. Moss, H. Stiles, W. H. Stevens, U. E. Dodge, L. Mckinstry, A. P. Pond, D. Fairbanks, W. Mckinstry, William Risley, M. S. Woodford were present at its first meeting. U. E. Dodge was its first master.
A boat race had long been advertised to take place on Chautauqua Lake on October 16, 1879, between Edward Hanlan, of Toronto, and Charles E. Courtney, the two most famous oarsmen on the continent. On the day appointed, people from all parts of the country appeared at Mayville, where the race was to take place. Besides the representa- tives of leading newspapers, there came a swarm of pickpockets and riffraff from abroad, and with them wheels of fortune, sweat boards, roulette tables, old army games, and every swindle and thimble-rigging device by which innocent humanity could be fleeced. Trains and boats continued to arrive until over fifteen thousand people had come. And yet it all re- sulted in a fiasco. Courtney claimed that his two boats had been cut in two without his knowledge, and that he was unable to row the race. The water of the lake was unruffled. Hanlan appeared at the appointed time and
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CLOSE OF THE CENTURY-1875-1902
towed the race alone. He made the five miles in thirty-three minutes fifty-six and one quar- ter seconds, and received the $6,000 stake money.
James Crosby, aged thirty-two, in 1879 was residing upon a farm in Ellington, situated upon a high hill three miles west of Cone- wango station and one and a half miles from Ellington village. On the afternoon of July 23 of that year he went to the village, and returned home about ten o'clock in the eve- ning. He alleged that on his return he heard a whistle from a clump of trees near his dwell- ing house, but thought that it was Wheeler, his brother-in-law, who lived across the road ; that he continued on his way and entered his house, where he was attacked by some one with whom he had a life struggle. That he clung to his assailant, who rushed out of the house, but was shot with a pistol and struck upon the head and left stunned upon the ground. Wheeler was aroused and a physi- cian summoned. His wife Emily was found strangled to death in bed, with the marks of the hand that did it on her neck. Her little boy aged seven years was found asleep in his trundle bed near his dead mother. Strenuous efforts were made to find the perpetrator with no trace. At last suspicion was awakened that Crosby had killed his wife, and then inflicted wounds upon himself. He was arrested and tried at the January court in 1880. Abner Hazeltine, the district attorney, assisted by E. R. Bootey and A. C. Wade, conducted the prosecution. Walter L. Sessions, John Baker and E. L. Bailey appeared for the defense. The jury after being out five hours found a verdict of not guilty.
February 15, 1880, Charles L. Stratton, a na- tive of Mississippi and a resident of Poland, in in altercation with Elmer Frank, near Ken- medy, killed Frank by stabbing him to the heart. Stratton was tried for the crime. Ab- her Hazeltine, the district attorney, appeared For the people. C. D. Murray defended Strat- con, who was found guilty of murder in the second degree and sentenced to imprisonment for life. It is a singular fact that the father of Frank had some years before been mur- dered and that the wife of Stratton, who was present at the killing of Frank, was the sister of Mrs. Emily Crosby, alleged to have been murdered by her husband a few months before is above related?
In 1880 the grounds of the Cassadaga Lake Free Association at Lily Dale, then recently purchased, were dedicated. Its history i given on other pages of this work.
In 1880 many fine structures were erected in Jamestown, among them the Sherman House, at a cost of $125,000; the Jamestown Cotton mills and the Gokey block ; over $325,000 were expended during the year in buildings in Jamestown.
February 19, 1880, Dunkirk was incor- porated, the first city in the county. John Beggs was then president of the village, and held his office until March of that year, when Horatio G. Brooks was elected its first mayor.
In 1882 the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, and the Western New York & Pennsylvania railroads were built through Dunkirk, and the station erected near Central avenue on the south side of the city.
The first use of natural gas for illuminating purposes in the United States was made in Chautauqua county. From the shales of the Portage group of rocks along the beds of sev- eral streams, and at various places in Lake Erie, carburetted hydrogen issued in great quantities. This gas burned with a white flame tinged with yellow above, and blue where it escaped from the burner. In 1821 it was in- troduced into a few of the public places in Fre- donia, among them the hotel which it finely illuminated, when LaFayette visited the place in 1825. The gas was obtained from a spring on the north bank of the Canadaway, at the bridge crossing that stream on Main street. The light house erected at Barcelona about 1828 was lighted by this gas brought from a gas spring in its vicinity, mentioned in an early survey. After the light house was dis- continued, Westfield was supplied from the same spring. In 1848 the Fredonia Gas Light Company was organized. In 1858 Preston Barmore sunk a well and procured a much greater supply. Alvah Colburn afterwards sunk another well. The gas from this and the Barmore well proved sufficient, and for many years lighted the village. At length manu- factured gas was used for illuminating pur- poses, first in Jamestown in 1861, and in Dun- kirk in November, 1867. In February, 1885. the electric light system was put in operation in the city of Jamestown, and was for the first time used in the county. In September of the same year natural gas from the wells in Penn- sylvania was first employed to light the city of Jamestown. September 27th, 1888, electric lights were first used in the city of Dunkirk.
In the afternoon of August 25th, 1885, ex- Governor Fenton died suddenly while sitting in the directors' room of the First National Bank of Jamestown, attending to his business duties. Business was suspended, Jamestowr
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CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE
draped in mourning, and his funeral univer- sally attended by the citizens. Besides the Fen- ton Guards who acted as a guard of honor, the members of the Grand Army post, the public officials of Jamestown, many citizens from abroad were present, among them Hon. Ga- lusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, a most inti- mate friend of Governor Fenton, also David B. Hill, then governor of the State of New York and his staff. Mr. Fenton was buried in Lake View Cemetery, Jamestown. At the time of his decease he was little over sixty-six years of age. He is mentioned at greater length in the chapter on Political History.
In January, 1886, the Swedish Orphanage was dedicated. January 29th, Jolin A. Hall died in Jamestown. He was editor of the "Jamestown Journal." That paper was not only the leading but, next to the "Fredonia Censor," the oldest in the county. It was established in 1826 by Adolphus Fletcher. During the more than three quarters of a century which has elapsed since then, it has been the greater part of the time the most influential newspaper in the county. It has been edited by some of the most accom- plished political newspaper writers in Western New York. Its editors have been Adolphus Fletcher, Abner Hazeltine, J. Warren Fletcher ; Frank W. Palmer, who afterwards held high official and editorial positions during President Harrison's term, among them national public printer ; C. D. Sackett ; Coleman E. Bishop, a well-known and trenchant political writer ; Davis H. Wait, afterward governor of Colo- rado ; and John A. Hall, who bought the paper in 1876. Mr. Hall built new buildings, im- proved the paper, enlarged its business, and absorbed other competing papers. Mr. Hall ably edited the paper until his death. He was succeeded by his son, Frederick P. Hall. After the death of John A. Hall, the Journal Print- ing Company was formed, and the "Jamestown Journal" is now the largest newspaper estab- lishment in the county.
March 31, 1886, Jamestown was incor- porated the second city of the county, and Oscar F. Price elected its first mayor. On May 22 the Jamestown Bar Association was organized. In October the Jamestown Busi- ness College, the first and only institution of the kind in the county was organized by E. J. Coburn. H. E. V. Porter, later its principal, took charge of the practical department, and Miss K. A. Lambert was engaged for the theory department. Shorthand was taught under the direction of Charles M. Brown.
August 31, 1886, a slight shock of an earth-
quake was felt throughout the county, causing doors to slam, chandeliers to vibrate, billiarc balls to move on the table, and in one or more instances the bells in the steeples to slightly ring.
Eighteen hundred and ninety-one was the first year in which electricity was used as a motive power in Chautauqua county. June 19 1884, the road of the Jamestown Street Rail. way Company was so far completed that the first car, a horse-car, was run from the Sher. man House to the boat landing. August 25 0: the year before, the company had been organ. ized with John T. Wilson (who had been active in its organization, and afterwards effective it promoting it) as president, and C. R. Lock wood secretary and attorney. New articles o incorporation were filed October 13, 1883. The motive power having been changed to elec tricity, the first electric car run in the county passed over its road on Third street. Through the energy of Almet N. Broadhead, who fo: many years was president, has its success as an electric road been due.
Long before horse-cars were in operation 11 Jamestown they had been in use between Fre donia and Dunkirk. As early as September 1866, the Dunkirk & Fredonia railroad hac been organized, and horse-cars run over its line a distance of about three miles. Thomas L Higgins, of Fredonia, was its first president During a period of nearly eighteen years before street cars were introduced into Jamestown they had been extensively in use for passenger travel between Dunkirk and Fredonia. I1
1878 Milton M. Fenner obtained a controlling interest in the road and became president. I 1880 he took the position of secretary, treas urer and manager. It afterward acquired ar electric light and power plant, a steam heating plant, and the Fredonia Natural Gas Ligh Company. In 1891 electricity was substituted as a motive power ; the first electric cars were run over it October 29, not four months after electric cars were first used in Jamestown.
December Ist of this year the Prendergas Free Library building was completed, and the first purchase of books placed on its shelves This association was incorporated by a specia act of the Legislature passed January 29, 1880
Besides the many homicides committed ir the county during the last period of its history there also occurred an unusual number of pain ful casualties. On September 15th, 1886, ar excursion train from Erie to Niagara Falls over the Nickel Plate railroad collided with a way freight in the deep cut north of the trestle that spanned the creek at the village of Silve:
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Creek, the baggage cars of the passenger train telescoping with the smoking car. Fourteen people were killed or died from injuries. Wil- liam H. Harrison, in charge of the excursion train, and Louis Brewer, in charge of its loco- motive, were tried for manslaughter at the court held at Mayville the succeeding May. L. F. Stearns, the district attorney, repre- sented the people, and Jerome B. Fisher the prisoner. The defendants were acquitted. August 19, 1887, a burglar while engaged in entering the house of A. R. Catlin, in James town, was shot and instantly killed.
In November, 1887, the first Political Equal- ity Club was formed, at Mrs. Daniel Gris- wold's, in Jamestown. Mrs. D. H. Grandin was elected president, Mrs. N. R. Thompson secre- tary, and Mrs. C. W. Scofield treasurer. The first county convention of Political Equality ever held in New York State convened at the Opera House in Jamestown, October 31, 1888. Mrs. Martha T. Henderson was chosen its first president ; Mrs. Kate S. Thompson and Mrs. Annie C. Shaw secretaries ; and Mrs. Lois M. Lott treasurer.
In Jamestown, on July 4, 1888, LeRoy Bo- gardus was murdered in broad daylight, in an alley on the Brooklyn side of the Chadakoin, and but a few steps from Main street and Brooklyn Square, while the streets and square were filled with more than the usual number of people. His head was crushed by the blows of some hard instrument. Bogardus had repre- sented that he was in possession of a large sum of money. During the greater part of the day he was in company with George W. Foster, who was seen to have in his pocket a car coupling pin. Foster was also seen escaping from the alley soon after the murder was com- mitted. He was indicted and tried before Judge Loren Lewis, at Mayville. Lester F. Stearns, district attorney, and Arthur C. Wade, appeared for the people, Vernon E. Peckham and E. L. Bootey for the prisoner. The jury after being out twenty-seven hours announced a verdict of guilty of murder in the second de- gree. The prisoner was sentenced to imprison- ment for life. Judge Lewis when sentencing him, said he owed his life to the ability of the attorneys who defended him.
In 1888 the Chautauqua Lake railroad was completed along the Eastern shore of Chau- tauqua Lake from Jamestown to Mayville. It is 21.17 miles in length, and cost $1,080,000 In 1890 the Gratiot of Dunkirk, afterwards one of the leading hotels of the county, was com- pleted.
Now business throughout the county and country was dull. The value of farming products had for many years been falling, and farming had ceased to be as profitable as it once had been. As one of the results, there were many abandoned farms that had before produced good incomes. In Charlotte alone there were fifteen deserted farms, each of which had once kept from eight to twenty-five dairy cows, and that town suffered no more in this respect than other towns in the county. In March, 1890, at Fredonia, Kosolina Bos- cellere killed his father-in-law Salvator La- tona. Both were Italians. Boscellere was discharged on the grounds that the killing was in self-defence. In August, 1892, Patrick Dowd, a post office robber, resident of Dun- kirk, in a fit of jealousy and anger over some woman whom he had been dining, shot and instantly killed George Haas, of Jamestown, at the Hotel Sherwin, in Fluvanna, and imme- diately afterwards shot four bullets into his own body, dying instantly.
August 19, 1892, at midnight, the Fenton Guards were ordered to Buffalo on account of the strike by the switchmen of the Erie, Lehigh Valley & Buffalo Creek railroads. A long blast from the whistles of the Broadhead & Fenton Metallic Works, was the signal for their assembling. Two hours later they were on the march for the Erie depot, with Capt. Fred W. Hyde, Lieut. Daniel H. Post and Frank A. Johnson in command. At 5:40 a. m. they arrived at Buffalo. Over eighty men finally reported there for duty. The strike having come to an end without violence, the guards returned to Jamestown after an absence of twelve days.
October 12, 1892, the Fenton Metallic works burned. August 2, Allen's Opera House in Jamestown was destroyed by fire. December 15, 1893, a frightful railroad disaster occurred on the W. N. Y. & P. R. R. at Herrick's creek, two miles east of Dunkirk. The rain and melt- ing snow had raised the water in the creek so that it undermined the base of the railroad track over it, and the supporting bank on the Dunkirk side of the creek, so that when the westbound Mayville accommodation reached the bridge, it gave way. The baggage car, smoker and day coach were precipitated into a gorge twenty-five feet below. Five persons were killed and six more or less injured. Of the killed, four were residents of Chautauqua county-Jesse Hodge, the conductor, of Broc- ton ; Oscar Porter and his mother, Mrs. J. N. Porter, both of Brocton ; and George Wyman. of Fredonia.
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Early on October 15, 1893, the propeller "Dean Richmond," Capt. G. W. Stoddard, of Toledo, foundered off Van Buren in a terrific gale on Lake Erie. No one of those on board survived to tell the story of the catastrophe. No assistance could be given. The next morn- ing the beach between Van Buren and Dun- kirk was strewn with the wreck and cargo of flour. The dead bodies were found as far down as Silver Creek, and were taken to the morgue at Dunkirk. Eighteen lives were lost. Where the boat is supposed to have been wrecked was a dangerous reef. At this bit of Chautauqua coast as many tales of disaster can be told as on any like strip of dangerous coast along the ocean shore. There it was that the "Passaic" met her fate two years before. There the "Golden Fleece" was firmly bedded in the rocks, and there the passenger steamer "Os- wego" went fast, and the lives of those who attempted to go ashore were lost.
The year 1893 is memorable in Chautauqua county history for the financial distress of all classes of people. During this year, besides banks and bankers, occurred many other failures in the county among business men. Seven per cent. of those doing business be- came insolvent.
A special meeting of the board of supervisors was held on the 6th of June of this year at Mayville, for the purpose of considering the question of an increase in the appropriation for the enlargement of the county clerk's office. A motion was there made to appropriate $2,000 in addition to the $3,000 that had before been appropriated. But upon the suggestion that the city of Jamestown would make proposi- tions for erecting county buildings providing the county seat was changed to that city, an- other motion was made to defer expending the $3.000 already appropriated, and that a special meeting of the board be called for August 8, 1893, to vote upon the question of the county seat. Attempts to change the county seat, and projects to divide the county, commenced with its organization, and were continued at inter- vals to the time of this special meeting. As this was the last effort of the kind, it will be proper here to give an account of the various attempts that have before been made.
The act of the Legislature organizing the county in 1808, provided for the appointment of three commissioners to locate the sites of its county buildings. The people of Canadaway (now Fredonia ) cleared a half-acre of land at the east end of the common, on the west side of the creek, intending it as the site of the county buildings. To their great disgust the
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