USA > New York > Herkimer County > History of Herkimer county, New York > Part 49
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married Marcus W. Rasbach, of Herkimer ; Joseph, now living in Herkimer ; Frank, died in 1877; Chester W., born as above stated ; Emily J., married F. W. Myers of Mohawk.
Chester W. Palmer received his education in the public schools and was two years a student in the college at Fairfield. After leaving school he taught one winter and then entered the grocery store of his brother, Bela Palmer, of Herkimer, as clerk, in which capacity he remained until 1866, when he purchased the entire establishment. For fourteen years, until 1880, Mr. Palmer carried on this business alone with gratifying success, when he took as a partner his nephew, S. C. Harter. During this period of its
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THE PALMER HOUSE.
continuance this business has been greatly enlarged and widened in its scope, and the stock carried now embraces almost everything needed in a village or farming community, excepting dry goods. It finally became apparent that the building in which the business was conducted would no longer suffice for its accommodation, and in 1889 steps were taken by Mr. Palmer to erect a new block. After mature deliberation Mr. Palmer de- termined to build a structure which would at once be a source of pride in the village, and give him excellent facilities for his business and provide the community with a first-class hotel. It was a bold step and was met, as similar efforts often are, with de- termined opposition from some and doleful forebodings from others. But believing in
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the enterprise and in his own ability to carry it through successfully, he pushed ahead and during the years 1889-91 the building now known as the Palmer House was com- pleted. The large double stores in the southern end are occupied by his business, while the northern half and the entire upper floors are devoted to a hotel with every modern improvement and luxuriously and tastefully furnished. This latter work was accom- plished almost wholly by Mr. Palmer's accomplished wife, who lived only just long enough to see it finished. The hotel was opened and after two short periods of experi- ence with other managers, Mr. Palmer was successful in securing George A. May and his wife, who have now had charge of the house for about a year; and all that need be said about it is, that guests are turned from its doors almost every night, so great is its popularity with the traveling public.
Mr. Palmer is a man of modest and retiring temperament, but possessed of a great amount of energy and tenacity of purpose. When once his hand is set to do a thing which he believes to be right, he seldom turns back from it. Conscientious in every undertaking, his business career has been one of integrity and in it he has gained the confidence and respect of the community. Ile has been director in the Herkimer Bank for many years, and a member of the Episcopal church, in which he has been a vestry - man and treasurer for a number of years. He is a Republican in politics, but has never taken a partisan interest nor sought candidacy for public office.
Mr. Palmer was married on the 26th of November, 1889, to Adele Brule, of Chicago. She died childless on the 19th of August, 1891.
CHARLES EDGAR MYERS,
Known commonly by the German equivalent Carl, or as Carl E., was born in the little hamlet of Fort Herkimer, in the town of German Flats, Herkimer county. N. Y., March 2, 1842. His father, Abram Myers, was one of fourteen children and the son of Michael F. Myers, who was of German descent, like most of the early families of the Mohawk valley, and a considerable farmer of that region. Ilis mother, Ann Eliza. was one of eight children of Jacob F. Cristman, also of German descent, a wealthy land-owner and the inheritor of numerous slaves, to whom he subsequently gave free- dom.
Soon after the birth of Carl his parents removed to Mohawk, in the same township, where young Myers continued to reside during his youth.
The special characteristic of the child, early manifested, was a precocious ingenuity, later shown in his ability to almost instantly solve any puzzle or problem in physics or mechanics which came under his notice. This was partly the result of iuherent faculties, strongly stimulated by early training. At the age of seven years he attended a boys' school kept by Epaphroditus Randall, an original, scientific genins, in Mo- hawk, possessing an extensive cabinet of electrical, chemical and mechanical apparatus for the demonstration of physical laws. On the first Saturday afternoon (half holiday) following his introduction to school young Myers attended his first scientific lecture,
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which chanced to be on electricity, and was fascinated. Thereafter he looked forward with longing from week to week for the wonders which cach succeeding lecture de- veloped. These exerted such an influence upon his early life that as a child he became an adept at most of the scientific arts and accomplishments which serve older persons as life occupations and professions. His spending money went for scientific books and materials for experiments or mechanical construetions and very soon, while yet a young school boy, he realized quite a revenue from the practice of various branches of the arts and his skill in mechanical construction.
All practical time out of school was spent either in the woods or fields or in the work- shop or laboratory, his acquaintance with natural laws and physical operations being thus gratified to an unusual degree, while his ingenuity in creating novel mechanical devices, puzzles, sports, games and pastimes made him a leader among the youths of his ac- quaintance.
Being dependent upon his own earnings for the gratification of the somewhat ex- pensive habits of book-buying and original experimenting, he turned each of his ac- complishments to service, and we find him later, at nearly one and the same time, or in turn, a carpenter, plumber and gasfitter, electroplater, electrical instrument maker, telegrapher, photographer, express delivery agent, collector for the local gas company and bank clerk, and deriving a combined income from these diverse occupations. In addition, most of the tools and appliances of the mechanical or scientific arts practiced by him were of his own construction. Thus as a boy he made a turning lathe for metal, with which in turn he made other mechanical tools and contrivances, including the gasfitter's outfit; and in the line of electricity the galvanic batteries for electro- metallurgy and machinery for producing insulated wires for magnetic apparatus.
On the 5th day of July, 1861, he entered the service of the Mohawk Valley Bank. His initiatory salary was the customary one of "nothing for the first year," but he was afterwards presented with $100 for extra service and attention to duties. In July, 1863, at the solicitation of the bank officers, he opened in a corner of the counting room (where he was then book-keeper) the first telegraph office in Mohawk. Within one week after receiving permission from the superintendent of the telegraph company (which contributed the line wire and insulators for the connecting loop, and nothing else,) he had put these up, built the necessary machinery, consisting of telegraphic key, relay, sounder and local batteries, and in six evenings had taught himself the alphabet by tapping with a lead pencil, and at the beginning of the following week was a full- fledged telegraph operator, sending and receiving all messages, perhaps the most marked instance known in rapidly obtaining practical success in this art. Thenceforward he received one-half of the entire receipts of the office during three years, when the gradual increase of his duties as operator, book-keeper and bank teller forced him to remove the telegraph office to the post-office, in the charge of another learner, Austin Schall, who presently became one of the most expert operators of the Western Union Company and the special attendant of its superintendent.
During Mr. Myers's connection with the bank he removed his laboratory to the rooms of Dr. James Lewis, the eminent conchologist. Dr. Lewis was a fine machinist, and in connection with him Mr. Myers brought out several valuable inventions, including a
CeMyers
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lamp damper, which forms the basis of economy and perfect combustion in all kerosine lamps of the present day ; an improved telegraphic switch for making by one move- ment any number or variety of electrical connections, and a self-registering mercurial barometer, self-compensated for temperature, which was the first known instrument of this class. One of these has been in Mr. Myers's possession in use for over thirty years, and has the barometrical record of this entire period reading to the one-thon- sandth part of an inch, atmospheric pressure.
As a banker young Myers became immediately interested in the detection of coun- terfeit notes, studying the methods of construction of the genuine and variations in the spurious. He acquired an immense collection of samples of the various counterfeit bills, which, pasted in a scrap book for comparison with another book in which he pinned the genuine notes in each case, attracted great attention and became the basis of much of the present system of counterfeit bank note detection. The great multi- plicity of plates and designs in use during the old State banking system gave great scope to counterfeiters, and the country was flooded with their productions. Young Myers became so expert in instantly detecting such at first sight that while yet a sub- ordinate clerk all notes received by the bank were passed through his hands, he agree- ing to charge himself with all losses sustained by the bank through counterfeits, and during his entire service neither he nor the bank lost a dollar from this cause. As a youth Myers had been exceedingly diffident, bashfully modest to the extent of timidity, and unable to express himself with fluency for want of words. To remedy his lack of words he undertook and accomplished the task of copying word for word all the ma- terial of the bank dictionary. Later, when overwork warned him of possible loss of sight, he forced himself to abstain from reading any printed matter not connected with his banking duties for an entire year, and had his reward for what he then considered the hardest task of his life by such renewal of sight that during all the succeeding years there has been no apparent impairment of vision under the severest tests. As an out-door recreation he made many of the earlier " wet plate " photo- graphic views, and later, with a portable outfit, constructed by himself, he made the first-known series of stereoscopic views of the Adirondack Wilderness region, beginning with the Old Jolin Brown Tract, or Arnold House, the Forge, Fulton Chain of Lakes, the Raquette, Eagle and Blue Mountain Lake, and the northern wilderness, in com- pany with a party of roving young people, withont guides, whose funny wanderings were afterwards published under the title of "The Modern Babes in the Woods," by H. Perry Smith, in connection with " A Guide to the Adirondack Wilderness, " by Ed. R. Wallace, of Syracuse, who has annually republished the guide, with additions, mak- ing it the best-known authority in this region.
In July, 1867, after six years uninterrupted service, Mr. Myers resigned his position as teller and acting cashier of the National Mohawk Valley Bank, and within a month went to look up some landed interests in Steuben county, N. Y., where, as a convenient point for attention to the same, he soon after bought a photograph gallery in the rapidly growing village of Hornellsville, then a place of about 5,000 inhabitants. Here he re- mained till 1875, while the town became a city with doubled population, and he had acquired all the photograph business in it, concentrated later into a single establishment
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widely-known along the lines of the Erie railway as a particularly notable place of re- sort, full of novel attractions and features of interest to which all visitors to the city were brought as one of the sights of the town. As a photographer, Mr. Myers con- tributed numberless improvements in the art-valuable apparatus and systems of lighting.
In November, 1871, at Hornellsville, Mr. Myers married Miss Mary Breed Hawley of that place, a handsome and highly intellectual young lady, whose Revolutionary an- cestors were the Hawleys, of Connecticut, and the Breeds, of Breeds' Hill, near Bos ton, on which Bunker Hill Monument is erected.
Miss Hawley, as a wife, proved an influential and able helpmeet. Later, as "Car- lotta," the aeronaut, she has won reputation as the most able air navigator in the world, irrespective of sex, and has been seen by more people, singly and collectively, than any other living person of modern times, in any walk of life. She is also the author of a work relating her trial adventures, entitled " Skylarking in Cloudland."
It is as a professor of æronautic art that Mr. Myers has attracted most notice, and outranked all others in this country. Ilis interest in this art dates from his return to his former home at Mohawk in 1875. Previous to his active practice of this profession he spent about two years in study and effort to produce a new and more successful sys- tem of operating hydrogen gas balloons. llydrogen ballooning had been practically abandoned before this because exceedingly uncertain, and very expensive. He suc- ceeded in reducing the expense of producing and inflating such balloons more than one- half, and rendered the operation so certain that up to the present time he has never made a failure of a hydrogen gas inflation. Another difficulty never before surmounted was the assumed impossibility of permanently retaining the subtle hydrogen in any en- velope of thin material. This he succeeded in accomplishing perfectly by applying to thin cotton cloth, by machinery, a series of exceedingly thin varnish coatings, layer upon layer, so that each succeeding coat overlaid or plugged up the microscopic pores in the underlying varnish film, thus producing a thin, light weight, hydrogen-proof fab- ric ready for cutting out and forming immediately into balloons, completely revolu- tionizing the art of balloon construction, formerly conducted entirely by hand in an inefficient manner.
To obtain space needed for further development he removed in May, 1889, to Frankfort, N. Y., and founded the pronantical institution, since widely known as the " Balloon Farm," where, instead of agricultural produce, all kinds of sky crafts are raised. This unique establishment comprises five acres of ground, including flat and sloping lawns, a sheltered, cosy glen, or natural amphitheatre for balloon experiments or harbor for air craft, and a handsome, elaborate, three story mansion, having a front- age of ninety feet and a depth of fifty-five feet, replete with every facility and appoint- ment to be found in an expensive city house. Visible for miles around, as a landmark, it overlooks from a platean the near villages of the Mohawk Valley, and while pecul- iarly situated amidst country surroundings, it is yet in the village of Frankfort, and is reached by omnibus from the New York Central and the West Shore railway stations in five or ten minutes. The first and second stories of the mansion are devoted to liv- ing or entertainment of guests, while the entire third story and spacious attic above
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are occupied by balloons and air-ships and apparatus for construction and experiment, tbe rear half of the third story forming one large hall, while adjacent rooms in- clude a chemical laboratory, a machine shop or lathe room, carpenter's shop, print- ing press, and a great variety of useful tools and adjuncts. An alcoved library on the first floor contains every accessible feature or item of information relative to æronautics since the beginning of the art, including its old and rare books, and an elaborate and extensive scrap book system, numbering many volumes containing re- ports of ærial operations all over the world. The cellar las water power, gas works and an extensive steam and hot air plant, and here, as well as outside, are stored many sets of portable hydrogen gas generators, so that it is possible to operate upon the premises any kind of æronantical experiment with ease, advantage of which has been taken to introduce the novel entertainment of " balloon lawn parties," includ- ing free ascensions and captive balloon observations, in which even the children participate.
The latest conspicuous work by the professor has been in connection with the United States government rain-fall operations, the initial experiments of which were first con- ducted by him at the balloon farm, and next at Washington, D. C., and at Midland, Texas. In addition to the gas apparatus, seventy-four hydrogen balloons, of various sizes for meteorological observations and for explosions, were supplied during the sea- sons of 1891-2, a single order of ten having in emergency been completed within five days, while to build a single one by any other system formerly required a month.
Of late years Prof. Myers has devoted much time to air-ships, or flying machine ex- periments, with the result that he has operated during several seasons past a vessel or machine, the "Skycycle," which is the first to appear repeatedly in public and make successful voyages.
During many years a contributor to several pron.inent newspapers and various scien- tific and other periodicals, he has also, since 1885, published a four-page illustrated newspaper, The Balloon Bulletin, the only periodical in this country devoted to æronautics.
As a gas balloonist he has operated repeatedly in thirty-six counties of New York State, and throughout nineteen States of the Union and the Canadas. His various balloon experiences would make a large and interesting book. Singularly enough he does not consider air sailing as especially dangerous, except with the hot-air balloon and the now prohibited parachute, both of which he condemns as always unsafe. He believes hydrogen gas ballooning to be the most attractive of pastimes and practically safe at all times, with good apparatus, which is confirmed by over twelve hundred as- cents occurring under his personal charge without loss of life, limb or property. As a pioneer he was the first to ascend by the use of natural gas from the earth, Septem- ber 8, 1886, for which the gas, starting from the well at a pressure of seven hnudred pounds to the square inch, was brought thirty miles to the balloon. A second ascent, by " Carlotta," followed, made memorable by the highest elevation ever attained by any one in this country, over four miles, and a speed of ninety miles in ninety minutes.
Prof. Myers's latest ascension with natural gas, and the only one made thus far with this medium in New York State, was at Sandy Creek, where the balloon filled directly
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from the well to ascertain its power of delivery. This amounted to 10,000 cubic feet in one hour, and as a result of this test the work of development of that gas field has continued, with increasing sueeess.
Prof. Myers has only one child, Bessie Ærial, a bright girl of twelve and a perfect compound of the studious habits of the father and the somewhat inore daring charac- teristies of the mother. As a child. Bessie Ærial made her first balloon ascension, in company with her mother, from Congress Spring Park, Saratoga, N. Y., in 1884, when only three years old, and again accompanied her mother, when seven years old, from Syracuse, N. Y., in a balloon race against another of Prof. Myers's æronauts. This was her last aseent, except with eaptive balloons, in company with other children on the occasions of the balloon lawn parties at the "farm." Prof. Myers's latest ascension occurred at Woodstock. Va., October, 1892, with a hydrogen gas ballon, and on the following day he exhibited there the first air-ship ever floated over Southern soil. As the conclusion derived from unusually extensive information on the subjeet, and from his own personal efforts, he believes the problems of air navigation are being surely solved by many independent workers, and that before the year 1900 we shall achieve astonishing developments in æronantics. The most valuable application of the balloon at the present day he believes to be meteorological observations of the up- per air, as an essential aid to prognostications by the United States Weather Bureau, or a certain key to the causes of weather changes. In the near future it is more than probable that the observations made from the balloon farm will form the basis of a new system of foretelling approaching changes by the Weather Bureau.
DR. WILLIAM MATHER.1
Dr. William Mather was born on Barto Hill, one mile from the village of Fairfield, April 28, 1802. He was a direct descendant, in the eighth generation, of John and Ellen Mather, who lived at Lowton, Lancashire county. England, near Liverpool. Richard Mather, the grandson of John and the son of Thomas Mather, preached at Toxteth Chapel, in Liverpool, and eame to Boston in 1635. From this origin nearly all of the Mather name in this country have come. He was married to Miss Mary A. Bnell, May 21, 1836, whom he survived sixteen years. He is survived by three children, William A. Mather, of Fairfield, Mrs. Albert B. Watkins, of Albany, and Alonzo C. Mathier, of Chicago, and five grandchildren.
As a boy Dr. Mather was of thoughtful, studious disposition, and early developed a marked taste for seientifie pursuits. He entered Fairfield Academy at the age of four- teen, and continued a member of the school during several years. Even at this age he had done mueh original work, and early gave promise of the scientific attainments which, in after years, were to make him a valued educator in his special field of work. Ile afterwards took a full course of study in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District, distinguishing himself especially in the study of chemistry, and
! Prepared for and taken from the " Mather Genealogy."
Im Mathir
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graduated in 1826. He never, however, practiced the profession of medicine, giving as a reason that he could not bear to witness pain and suffering. He preferred, in his modest way, the more quiet life of student and teacher, both noble callings, and for both of which nature had well fitted him. In 1827, at the suggestion of Dr. John A. Kinnecut, of Buffalo, who, during the preceding year, as a resident graduate, had taught a class in chemistry, Dr. Mather formed a class for private examination in the Medical College, and for many years continued his connection with the Medical College.
In 1828 he was invited to give a course of lectures to the academic and theological students at Hamilton, and continued to visit Hamilton for this purpose each year until 1838, when he was appointed Professor of Chemistry in Madison University, now Colgate. From a letter written October 13, 1851, by Stephen W. Taylor, we learn the conditions of the contract. Dr. Mather consented to give instruction to the students of the university for an indefinite term of years, provide and keep in repair his own chemical apparatus, and remove his cabinet of minerals, fossils, and geological specimens from Fairfield to Madison University, in consideration for which he was to receive $350 per year if he remained five years and eventually donated his cabinet to the university ; otherwise he was to receive $300 per year from the beginning. His chemical apparatus at this time was valued at $1,000, and liis cabinet at $500. To Dr. Mather the Colgate University owes much of its well-appointed laboratory, and still more to the interest which he aroused and successfully maintained in its scientific departments. This posi- tion he filled with success, adding to his lectures on chemistry, instruction in geology, until 1867. In 184I he received an invitation to accept the professorship of chemistry and Pharmacy in the Medical College at Castleton, Vt., where he gave courses of lec- tures for several successive years.
The study of natural sciences, especially chemistry, was in its infancy during these years, and instruction was given very rarely except in large schools and the more pro- gressive colleges. The system of lecturing upon scientific subjects throughout the State, in the different places where an interest in them had begun to arise, was entered upon with great zeal by a few pioneers in this branch of learning. Prominent among these pioneer lecturers, including such men as Prof. John W. Hatch, Dr. Austin Flint, Dr. J. M. Wieting, Prof. Mandeville, Prof. Silliman (the older), Dr. Hitchcock, and a few others, we find Dr. Mather, whose subject and specialty was chemistry.
From 1828 to 1860, during such parts of the year as he could spare from his regular duties at Hamilton, he gave courses of lectures in nearly all the towns of the State, notably Buffalo, Albany, Rochester, Oxford, Anburn, Ithaca, Geneseo, Avon, Syracuse, Whitesboro, Galway, Saratoga Springs. Lansingburg, Lyons, Rome, Amsterdam, Her- kimer, Troy, Waterford, Utica, Little Falls, Cooperstown, Fort Plain, Schoharie, Hud- son, Kingston, Newport, Oswego, Binghamton, Bath, Elmira, Penn Yan, Palmyra, Seneca Falls, Waterloo, Norwich, Fulton, Pulaski, Oswego, Waterville, Clinton, Peeks- kill, Adams, Oneida, and many other places, including also courses of lectures at the Albany State Normal School, and the Young Men's Association of Albany, and the Berkshire Medical College, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
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