USA > New York > Chemung County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 75
USA > New York > Schuyler County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 75
USA > New York > Tioga County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 75
USA > New York > Tompkins County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 75
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She has in preparation "Hours with the Prophets," designing to show the fulfillment of prophecy as seen in history ; also a "Memoir of a Lady," who was once her pupil. She has also been a correspondent for The Chris- tian Family Magazine, and The Parlor Magazine.
MRS. LORETTA J. Posr is well known by her " Scenes in Europe," or Observations by an Amateur Artist, from notes taken while making the tour of Europe in 1873.
MARK TWAIN (Mr. Samuel J. Clemens) married Olivia, a sister of C. J. Landon, and wrote most of his " Innocents Abroad" in Elmira, and spends much of his time here, while in America. His reputation is too well known to need any comment.
" The Old Fountain Inn" and other poems, by ADELAIDE T. MOE, is a handsome little volume of occasional verses, of much more than average merit. The poems respectively " Father" and " Mother" are very touching, and the " Plea for the Poetess," a thoughtful and harmonious eomposition.
*
" Where Heaven's arch rings with bewildering trills, And Nature's rich bounty the heart ever fills, Stands the Old Fountain Inn, with mountains o'erhung, On the bank of the beautiful river Chemung. * * * *
" And youth, with the glamour it only can know Shall rule in its power, and backward we go Through the vista of years to the welcoming hearth, So sought in lang syne for its comfort and mirth."
-From The Old Fountain Inn.
" He sat upon the porch in evening hour. Beloved wife, dear friends, and children dear Were grouped around the patriarchal chair. He rested from his labors, full of years. One sigh he breathed, and so his spirit fled ; In peace he passed to his eternal rest."
-From the poem, Father.
MISS CATHERINE E. BEECHER was the eldest child of Rev. Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote, his wife. She was born Sept. 6, 1800, at East Hampton, Long Island, and died May 12, 1878, at the residence of her brother, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, Elmira, N. Y. Miss Beecher was in the highest sense a representative American woman, devoted to the elevation of her sex and the educational in- terests of the country. For music she early manifested a decided taste, and she became an aecomplished pianist and a fine singer. Having experieneed the loss of her affianced, she never married, and her whole life was consecrated to unselfish endeavors towards noble ends. She established a high school for girls at Hartford, and when her father went to Cincinnati she aecompanied him, and aided by Harriet (Mrs. Stowe) she began a female seminary ; but becoming lame for a time laid aside teaching. She traveled in the northwest, and organized a thorough system of home mis-
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HISTORY OF TIOGA, CHEMUNG, TOMPKINS,
sionary work. Her next step was to establish girls' schools, modeled on the celebrated institution of Mount Holyoke, at important points in the West. As an author she was in- dustrious and successful. Her contributions to the religious press and her books were devoted to topics which concern every-day life. Some of the latter have become household classics. Harper & Brothers issued successively her " Ap- peal to the People in behalf of their Rights as the Author- ized Interpreters of the Bible ;" her " Common Sense applied to Religion, or the Bible and the People ;" her " Housekeeper and Health-keeper ;" "Domestic Receipt- Book ;" " Physiology and Calisthenics," a text-book for the usc of schools ; " Letters to the People on Health and Hap- piness ;" "The Religious Training of Children in the Family, the School, and the Church."
MILES STANDISH .- Henry W. Longfellow's " Courtship of Miles Standish," paraphrased by ARIEL STANDISH THURSTON. The writer, so well known in Elmira and throughout the State of New York as an eminent jurist, long accustomed to investigations and claborations of thought, has shown us in this little volume his power of clear and forcible expression, and to our mind deserves well of the critics in this paraphrase. Hc tells us that, " inter- ested as a lineal descendant in rescuing from oblivion every- thing pertaining to the name and carecr of ' the Washington of the infant colony of Plymouth,' I have explored many avenues of information relating to him in this country and in England. But the birth and parentage of ' Miles Stand- ish' is involved in more obscurity than that of Shakspeare, his contemporary ; and this is duc, I think, to the folly of the heirs in America in endeavoring to trace title to them- selves of 'six manors' bequeathed in the will of Miles Standish to his eldest son, Alexander, which will is con- tained in the archives of Old Plymouth."
In the appendix the judge has reproduced " Rose Stand- ish," the beautiful poem by the accomplished Frances M. Caulkins, historian of New London and Norwich, Conn. Among the early victims to the hardships experienced by the Pilgrims that landed at Plymouth from the " Mayflower," Dec. 22, 1620, was Rose, the wife of Captain Miles Standish. She died Jan. 29, 1621. Her pleasing name, her prema- ture death, and the hallowed enterprise with which she was connected, naturally lead us to regard her as a type of femi- nine loveliness, fortitude, and piety. The delightful odors of the living rose are borne on the following lines :
" The Rose I sing sprang from no lifeless mould, Nor drank the sunbeams or the falling dew ;
It bore no thorns, and in its bosom's fold No lurking worm or eating canker grew.
" Bright were its hues, in darkest days best known, In wintry storms diffusing sweetest power ;
A Rose in which a radiant spirit shone ; Not the frail queen of thorn, and leaf, and flower.
" A graft it was of Sharon's beauteous Rose, Nursed with the purest dews of Palestine;
A living light, a heart in blest repose, Beamed from its depths and showed the root divine.
" Death found it there, and cut the slender stem ; It fell to earth,-yet still it lives, it glows, For Christ transferred it to his diadem,
And changed to fadeless Amaranth, our Rose."
" The Diversions of Ministers," by DR. DAVID MUR- DOCK, who was clerk of a ministers' club .- The diversions of ministers, so far as the doctor was concerned, were the most complete and at the same time innocent in their char- acter. The same zeal that he manifested in his theology was imparted to his diversions, and made him the most companionable. He was indeed a rare man, but was never robust in body. A further notice of him will be found in connection with the church he loved so well, now known as Lake Street Presbyterian Church.
J. DORMAN STEELE, A.M., PH.D., was born at Lima, N. Y., on the 14th of May, 1836. His father, the Rev. Allen Steele, is a noted minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. J. Dorman prepared for college at the Classical Institute, Albany, and at the Boys' Academy, Troy. In 1858 he graduated at Genesee College, and soon after went to Mexico Academy as professor of natural science.
In 1862 he was elected principal of Newark Union Free- School and Academy, and resumed his work of teaching the sciences. Each season he gave a lecture weekly, with experimental illustrations. With the proceeds he purchased a library, and very completely equipped the laboratory with all needful apparatus. During this time he continued his task of condensing the work of each branch of science into a term's study.
In 1866 he was elected principal of the Free Academy at Elmira, where he introduced the sciences on his new plan. At this time he began to write. His manuscripts grew into shape in his classes out of actual recitations. The analysis of each subject, the ideas advanced, the illus- trations used, were suggested in the school-room.
In 1867 he prepared his " Fourteen Weeks in Chemis- try" for the press, and was having it printed at Elmira for the use of his classes and those of his personal teacher friends, when his present publishers proposed to issue it for him. In 1868 he prepared his " Astronomy ;" in 1869 his " Philosophy ;" and in 1870 his " Geology," all on the same plan as his " Chemistry." As an author Mr. Steele has invested with the most winning charms subjects here- tofore considered dry and distasteful.
At the New York State University Convocation during the summer of 1870, his degree of Ph.D. was conferred " in consideration of eminent services as a teacher," by the highest educational authority in the State-the Regents of the University. His election as president of the New York Teachers' Association was also a pleasant feature of the year.
From time immemorial the natural sciences have found a prominent place in the course of study of every high school and academy. The text-books formerly used were better adapted to the investigation of men of science, than to assist the immature minds of boys and girls in comprehend- ing the results of natural laws. As might be expected, the study of the natural sciences became a long, painful, profit- less task instead of what it really is, a delightful recreation. To obviate this defect, the process of simplification has gone on, until the text-book makers have fallen into the opposite extreme, and introduced a new science in " the art of being superficial." This last result has been reached in various ways. Some authors have simply diluted ideas with words,
Togl INE# .Tara.d
A.S. Diven
AND SCHUYLER COUNTIES, NEW YORK.
until the atom of information is buried beneath the moun- tain of illustration ; others have condensed until the fair form of science has changed to an unsightly skeleton. The works of neither class of authors were adapted to the class- room. The true and middle ground between the concise and diffuse seems to be occupied by Prof. Steelc.
CITY OFFICERS, 1878-79.
Granville D. Parsons, Mayor.
Maurice S. Decker, Clerk.
Aldermen .- First Ward, William Pagctt, Robert R. R. Dumars ; Second Ward, Patrick J. Lee, John Clark ; Third Ward, James S. Thurston, Wilbur F. Wentz ; Fourth Ward, Stephen T. Arnot, Lawrence Hogan ; Fifth Ward, John Laidlaw, Valentine Miller ; Sixth Ward, Edward Wiseman, Jacob Mortimer ; Seventh Ward, George R. C. Holbert, James E. Lockwood.
City Chamberlain, Jeremiah J. O'Conner.
City Attorney, Erastus F. Babcock.
City Recorder, George E. Pratt.
Chief Engineer, G. A. Worth.
Overseer of the Poor, William E. Murphy.
Superintendent of Streets, David Caldwell.
Justices of the Peace, Geo. L. Davis, Edwin K. Roper, Alexander H. Baldwin.
City Assessors, Orlando N. Smith, William A. Ward, William R. Cooper.
POLICE DEPARTMENT.
Granville D. Parsons, Mayor, Chairman ; George Congdon, Sutherland De Witt, Charles T. Langdon, Samuel C. Taber.
Chief of Police, John Sknapp.
Captain Night Watch, Nicholas Deister.
FIRE DEPARTMENT.
Chief Engineer, Miles Trout.
First Assistant Engineer, Charles Grulden.
HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
Clarence M. Spalding, M.D., Patrick H. Flood, M.D., Charles P. Godfrey, M.D.
The following gentlemen have served as mayor of the city of Elmira, dating from the first holding said office, inclusive :
John Arnot, Jr., April 21, 1864; John I. Nicks, March 13, 1865 ; John I. Nicks, March 12, 1866; E. N. Frisbie, March 11, 1867; E. N. Frisbie, March 9, 1868; S. McDonald, March 9, 1869; John Arnot, Jr., March 8, 1870 ; P. H. Flood, March 12, 1871 ; P. H. Flood, March 12, 1872 ; Luther Caldwell, March 10, 1873; John Arnot, Jr., March 9, 1874; Howard M. Smith, March 8, 1875.
By an act passed May 17, 1875, amendatory of the charter of the city of Elmira, the term of the office of mayor is extended to two years.
Robert T. Turner, March 13, 1876-77; Granville D. Parsons, March 11, 1878-79.
The second annual report of the Chamberlain's office of the city of Elmira, N. Y., by J. J. O'Conner, Chamber- lain, for the fiscal year commencing Feb. 5, 1877, and cuding Feb. 4, 1878, shows in detail the debt of the city,
the cost of maintaining the city government and schools for the past fiscal year, the actual condition of the several accounts, and an estimate of the necessary expenditures for the ensuing year :
Cash on hand Feb. 5, 1877 ... $39,125.64
Receipts from Feb. 5, 1877, to Feb. 4, 1878. 262,777.51
$301,903.15
Disbursements from Feb. 5, 1877, to Feb. 4, 1878,
amounting to ....
$263,105.86
Cash on hand at close of business, Feb. 4, 1878 .. 38,797.29
$301,903.15
For the same reason that we omit the long line of offi- cers who have administered public affairs,-viz., because it would be more curious than profitable,-the details of the report from which the foregoing extract is taken are passed over. The following is a statement of the resources and liabilities of the city at this date, Feb. 4, 1878 :
RESOURCES.
Cash on hand
$38,797.29
City taxes, 1874, uncollected.
2,530.28
City taxes, 1875 (city purposes), uncollected .. 732.12
City taxes, 1875 (school purposes), uncollected. 935.87
City taxes, 1876, uncollected.
2,030.73
City taxes, 1877, uncollected.
5,512.42
Sidewalk bills, as assets to street fund.
1,276.43
Sidewalk bills, as assets to general fund
252.92
Cash in excise commissioner's hands.
386.00
Due for street dirt, bills in this officc.
111.90
Due on Spaulding Street opening, assessments.
152.00
Due on Market Street widening ..
252.70
Due on Exchange Place widening.
30.00
Due on Dewitt Street widening .. 178.98
Due for dirt bills in street commissioner's hands ..
171.60
$53,351.24
LIABILITIES.
For cemetery fund. $4,379.78
School fund.
32,945.45
School fund due on city taxes, 1875.
935.87
Lamp fund
1,694.02
Fire department fund ..
407.35
Watch and police fund,
3,621.46
Iron bridge bonds.
4,706.91
Sewer bonds fund.
210.00
Outstanding orders
1,147.70
Pavements
327.04
Spaulding Street opening ..
1.10
Exchange Place widening.
22.36
Dewitt Street widening ..
238.36
Bills referred Feb. 4, 1878, by anditing commit- tee.
2,300.22
Balance.
413.62
$53,351.24
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
GENERAL ALEXANDER S. DIVEN.
Although having a distinct reputation as a lawyer, states- man, and soldier, probably no man residing in the territory embraced in this work has done more towards developing its internal improvements than he whose name stands at the head of this sketch.
General Diven was born in the town of Catharine, Tioga Co. (now the town of Dix, Schuyler Co.), N. Y., Feb. 15, 1809. He received his education at the Penn Yan and Ovid Academics, after which he commenced the study of law with Judge Gray, of Elmira, and was admitted to prac- tice in 1832. He prosecuted his professional career in the firm of Diven, Hathaway & Woods, of Elmira, for many years, and until the commencement of the war, " winning
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HISTORY OF TIOGA, CHEMUNG, TOMPKINS,
reputation as much by his diligent attention to business as by the talent he displayed in managing the cases placed under his charge."
The general entered early into political life, and was an active member of the Republican party from the date of its organization. He served in the New York State Senate in 1858-59. In 1859 he was the " Free-Soil" candidate for Governor of New York, and a candidate in the State Convention at the time Judge Henry E. Davics was nomi- nated for judge of the Court of Appeals. In 1860 he was elected to Congress, from the 27th Congressional District. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, and as a mem- ber of the House during the early part of the Rebellion, he was a stanch and devoted Unionist, and gave the ad- ministration unstinted support. His loyal utterances are a matter of record.
The proceedings of the Thirty-seventh Congress bear witness to his patriotic devotion. As an anti-slavery man he was well known to the public at large, and although not an extremist, he gave a cordial support to the bill abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. " When the proposition was made to confiscate the property of the rebels, lie shrank from it as involving an amount of human suffering and misery too fearful to contemplate. The speechi delivered by him on the subject is one of which he may well fcel proud. It must ever remain a monument to his humanity ; it was the utterance of a Christian and a chivalric man," and the same sentiments influenced his subsequent action on the battle-field .* We make a brief extract from the speech :
"Now, sir, it is for civilized warfare that I plead,-it is against barbarian warfare that I protest,-when I declare that the pittance of the women and children, the private property upon which families rely for sustenance, shall not be taken, and an unnecessary punish- ment inflicted upon them. . . . While the barbarian spares the life of the non-resistant, the savage takes it, and decorates his war-belt with the glossy curls of helpless women and the flaxen hair of innocent children, and, around his hellish war-fires, gloats on these wanton murders. That is savage warfare. But civilized warfare stops with the striking down of the enemy on the battle-field; with conquering by the strong right arm. Sir, valiant men will go no farther. . . . Let me tell you that if you enact certain laws that will require valiant men, after they have stricken down their enemies on the field, and captured them and all their munitions of war, to go into the homes of their enemies and desolate them ; to lift their hands against unof- fending women and children, rob them of their substance, and turn them penniless on the world,-valiant men will never do it. . . . I was taught early to bend a very little knee, and lift tiny hands, and ask God to forgive me as I forgave those who trespassed against me. And, sir, during the troubled voyage of life, in sunshine and in storm, in tempest and in calm, I have never forgotten that anchor of my hope,-that trust which is all my religion. I have been taught that the difference between the demon of darkness and the angel of light is, that the one is guided by charity and love, and the other by hate and malice."
He was the first to introduce measures providing for the employment of colored troops in the army,-drafting and introducing the first bill on the subject. In 1862 Mr. Diven left his seat in Congress to aid with his sword in suppressing the rebellion. He assisted in raising the 107th Regiment, New York Volunteers, and went into service as its lieutenant-colonel, August 12. He distinguished him-
self in the Virginia campaigns of 1862-63 by his gal- lantry and skill. After the battle of Antietamn he was commissioned colonel, and led the regiment at Chancellors- ville, amid the fiercest conflict. In May, 1863, he was commissioned adjutant-general with the rank of major, and appointed to the charge of the rendezvous for troops at Elmira. Aug. 30, 1864, he was brevetted brigadier-gen- eral, and assigned to special duty as assistant provost-mar- shal-general for the western district of New York, and subsequently appointed to the command of the northern and western districts, which he retaincd until the close of the war, performing the duties with energy and success. In the spring of 1865 he retired from martial to civil life.
In 1844 he became a director of the New York and Erie Railroad, and was its attorney until 1865, when he was chosen its vice-president, which position he held for three years. During the period from 1844 to 1850, Mr. Diven was conspicuous in his labors and efforts to re- establish the waning credit of the road, and in raising the necessary millions to prosecute its erection, which he did to completion. In 1844 came the crisis in the affairs of Erie; the road was built only to Binghamton, funds were ex- hausted, and its officials discouraged. The fate of this great enterprise hung in the balance. At a meeting of its directors, held in New York City, that year, a resolution was presented recommending the abandonment of the en- terprise. Mr. Diven opposed it so strongly, that his reso- lution, recommending its prosecution, was substituted, and a new era of effort inaugurated, into which Mr. Diven threw all his energies, and labored zcalously for years. He drew up the bills passed by the Legislature in aid of the road; he was instrumental in procuring their passage by the legislative body ; the first issues of bonds and mortgages were drafted by him ; he was commissioner of construction during its building,-the pay of contractors passing through his hands. In 1849 he organized the company (and for a time was one of its stockholders) composed of Messrs. Arnot, Cook, etc., who built the road from Binghamton to Corning. Elmira is largely indebted to him that it has the termini of the Williamsport and Elmira Railroad, instead of Corning. He was president of the latter road during the entire process of its construction, and later became in- terested in all its connections, since consolidated and now known under the general title of the Pennsylvania Northern Central Railway.
As a contractor he has been eminently successful. In connection with General Thomas Price and James P. Kirk- wood he contracted for the construction of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and, under the firm-name of Diven, Stan- cliff & Co., engaged in the construction of the south- western branch of that road.
He is president of the Elinira and Horseheads Street- Car Company ; and he, with his sons, are the owners and operators of the Elmira Water-Works.
General Diven was married, in 1835, to Miss Amanda Beers, of Elmira, and has four sons and four daughters. The sons seem to inherit their father's energy and enter- prise, and are worthy scions of a noble sire. Mr. Diven is modest, unassuming, and very domestic in his tastes, although methodical in his habits, and an indefatigable
# Men of Mark, pp. 174, 175.
AND SCHUYLER COUNTIES, NEW YORK.
283
worker. He is now retired from active business, except the management of his estate, embracing a large farm lying in the suburbs of Elmira, and another in Florida, and in watching the developing eareers of his sons. In every capacity in which he has figured, he has brought to the discharge of his arduous labors unswerving rectitude and pre-eminent ability. But that in which he takes most pride, and which most entitles him to consideration in this history, is what he has achieved for the internal improve- ments so largely affecting the material interests and pros- perity of the locality about which we write.
JOHN WHEELER WISNER,
the first county judge of Chemung County after the office by the constitution of 1846 was made elective, was born in the town of Warwick, Orange Co., on the 10th day of Sep- tember, 1801.
Photo. by Van Aken.
JOHN WHEELER WISNER.
He was descended from an ancient and honorable family, being the eldest son of Jeffery Wisner, a respectable farmer of Warwick, who was a son of General Henry Wisner, of the same town.
It may not be out of place to give a brief notice of his grandfather, General Henry Wisner, inasmuch as he is so intimately identified with the early history of Elmira.
After the expedition of Sullivan in 1779 had opened up the valley of the Chemung to the early settlers who came thither from the Wyoming Valley, before there had been any steps taken to survey and allot the lands, the next race of men who peopled this valley were from the county of Orange, N. Y. Their introduction into the county eame in this wise : An act had passed the Legislature authorizing the survey of the lands in this part of the then county of Montgomery, and in 1788 Moses De Witt, of Ulster, sur- veyor, John Cantine, of Ulster, John Hathorn and Charles
Clinton, of Orange, as commissioners, eommeneed the sur- vey and allotment of the lands on both sides of the Che- mung, then ealled the Tioga River.
The lots were laid off for those who had made actual settlements, and the whole town of Chemung, bounded west by the lands of the State of Massachusetts, east by Owego Creek, south by the Pennsylvania line, and north by a line running nearly east and west, extending from Owego Creek to the now county of Steuben, was surveyed and mapped.
A large number of land-warrants or patents, as they were ealled, were issued in 1790 and 1791, and of those not issued to actual settlers a great proportion were to Or- ange County men. General Henry Wisner was the largest of these landed proprietors. Without a critical examina- tion of the records, the writer ean state from memory where more than 8000 aeres of his lands were situated within the old town of Chemung.
General Wisner was in publie life from 1759 to 1788, filling important positions and making an extensive ac- quaintance with the most eminent public men of that day. For ten years, ending in 1769, he was a member from Or- ange to the Colonial Legislature. In 1774 he was a mem- ber of the Continental Congress held in Philadelphia. In 1775 he was a member of the so-called Provincial Con- gress, held in New York. He was a deputy to the eon- vention of representatives from this State to form its first constitution, and was one of the committee of thirteen to" prepare and report a draft of that instrument, which was finally adopted at Kingston in 1777. Lastly, he was a delegate to the convention held at Poughkeepsie in 1788 to deliberate upon the question of the adoption of the Con- stitution of the United States.
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