USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume III > Part 7
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trees, showing a greater variety than can be found in any other park in the country. Moreover, the natural elevation of the park commands a splendid view of the city and surrounding country. To the example and exhortation of Mr. Barry's firm it is mainly owing that Rochester is one of the best shaded cities in the United States. Mr. Barry had succeeded his father in 1890 as president of the Western New York Horti- cultural Society, and each succeeding year, at the annual election, he was honored by reelection. This society is one of the oldest and most influential of its kind in the United States, and despite the fact that he had frequenty requested the honor to be extended to others, the members of the society recognized how difficult it would be to find another man who could give the problems of the fruit growers such con- sistent and intelligent attention as had Mr. Barry during his long and conscientious service, and insisted year after year that he be retained as the society's president. His addresses at its annual meetings were looked forward to with great interest. His whole heart was in the work of this organization and he entered into the duties of its leader- ship with the zeal and enthusiasm that was characteristic of him in whatever he under- took. Mr. Barry was president of the Eastern Nurserymen's Association and took a prominent part in the organization of the American Rose Society, becoming its first president. He was a member of the board of control of the New York Experi- ment station and for three years was its president.
Mr. Barry's interests were varied and extensive. He was president of the Roches- ter Trust & Safe Deposit Company, vice president of the Lincoln National Bank, trustee of the Monroe County Savings Bank, president and treasurer of Ellwanger Barry, Incorporated, president and treasurer of the Ellwanger Barry Realty Company, a director of the Rochester Electric Railroad Company and also a director of the Rochester & Suburban Railroad Company. He took a great interest and an active part in the work of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce and for several years was one of the trustees as well as serving at various times on important committees of that organization. He was a trustee of Cathedral parish and all his life had been closely identified with affairs of the Cathedral and Immaculate Conception parishes. Appreciative of the social amenities of life, he belonged to the Genesee Valley Club and the Country Club.
Mr. Barry was married to Miss Mary Louise Gaffney, whose death occurred on February 20, 1912. Of the seven children born to them, three sons and a daughter survive: William C .; Frederic G .; Arthur A .; and Harriet R., now Mrs. Charles H. Stearns of Rochester.
Gifted with a keen business insight and a broad grasp of affairs, William C. Barry had a career of unusual activity. He was not only one of Rochester's strong and able business men but a man of high ideals whose personal work was so often shown in his ability to plan and perform, to accomplish things for the public good and always looking at every question from the standpoint of a liberal-minded man of broad experi- ence. At the time of his death a Rochester daily said of him editorially, in part: "Rochester has sustained a great loss in the death of William C. Barry. Few of her citizens have displayed more public spirit than he. He was connected with almost every public movement of importance in the city for many years. His name was so familiar on the lists of committees that the omission of it was more noteworthy than was the presence of it. One of the city's leading business men and bankers, he contrib- uted much to the material prosperity of Rochester and aided in her development. His interests were not confined to the great nursery firm of which he was president but included banking and real estate development. His activity in the development of the park system of the city was one of the strong factors in making the system what it is-one of the finest park systems in the United States. His connection with the Chamber of Commerce was not merely perfunctory. It was an energetic connection, and he was one of the most valued members of that organization. In the nursery industry Mr. Barry was one of the leaders. His interest was not merely that of the nurseryman selling to the public, it was that of the enthusiast for plants and flowers and he did much to make life more beautiful for all by his work in aiding in the development of new varieties of flowers. He was an authority on rose culture. He did not neglect the more practical side of the industry and continually fostered the improvement of the more useful products of the soil. His standing and value to the industry are shown by the positions which he held in the organizations devoted to it. as well as in kindred organizations not concerned with the strictly business side of it, such as the Western New York Horticultural Society and the American Rose Society. The former organization will hardly seem like the same society without him at its head. Mr. Barry's interest in the charities of the city, especially in those of his church, was great. In this, as in every other good work, he was one of the leaders.
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Rochester can ill afford to lose such men as William C. Barry. But she may console herself by the thought that she has profited greatly in every way, but especially by the example of his useful life, through her possession of him as one of her citizens."
CHARLES TERRY CHAPIN.
Charles Terry Chapin, one of the well known business men of Rochester, has had a continuous identification with the business life of the city since before he was sixteen years old. He belongs to one of the prominent old families whose connection with Rochester's professional, financial, industrial and commercial life dates back more than one hundred years. He was born in this city, on the 24th of February, 1861, his parents being Charles Hall and Mary Elizabeth (Kidd) Chapin. His paternal grandfather, Moses Chapin, served as county judge of Monroe county from 1826 to 1831, and at one time was president of the Bank of Monroe, the second bank that was established in Rochester, while the ancestral history is traced back to Deacon Samuel Chapin, who crossed the Atlantic from England to Massachusetts between 1635 and 1640. Charles Hall Chapin, the father of Charles T. Chapin, was born in Rochester, January 6, 1830, and in the maternal line was descended from Timothy Dwight, an early president of Yale College. Early in his business career Charles Hall Chapin became manager of the Kidd Iron Works of Rochester, conducted under the firm style of Chapin & Terry. He entered the field of banking in 1871 as one of the organizers of the banking house of Kidd & Chapin, of which he had entire charge. In 1875 this was merged into the Bank of Rochester, of which Mr. Chapin became president, act- ing in that capacity until his death. He was a man of excellent business ability and his sound judgment and keen business discernment were considered valuable assets in the successful control of various business interests. In 1877 he organized the Rochester Car Wheel Works, which were established by William Kidd, and it became one of the most important industrial concerns of the city. He was also vice presi- dent of the Charlotte Iron Works and a trustee of the Roberts Iron Works of Kingston, Canada. In 1854 Charles Hall Chapin was married to Miss Mary Elizabeth Kidd, a native of Saratoga, New York, and a daughter of William Kidd. To them were born three sons and two daughters: William Kidd; Charles Terry of this review; Mrs. William E. Marcus; Edward Hall; and Eleanor B., who died in 1881. The death of the father occurred March 16, 1882, and thus passed from the stage of earthly activities one who had contributed in large measure to Rochester's substantial growth and improvement.
In the private schools of Rochester, Charles T. Chapin acquired his education and also attended the Rochester high school. Having put aside his textbooks, he entered the old Bank of Rochester on the 1st of January, 1877, later called the German-American Bank and now the Lincoln Alliance Bank, being employed in that institution in the capacity of bookkeeper until 1880. He then became identified with the Rochester Car Wheel Works as secretary and treasurer. The business was estab- lished by his father three years before and for twenty-five years Charles T. Chapin was prominently identified with its growth and development. He was elected presi- dent of the company and acted in that capacity until 1905, when it was merged with other companies into the National Car Wheel Company, with which Mr. Chapin was connected as special representative for several years. In 1915 he organized the Chapin-Owen Company for the sale of automobile accessories and sporting goods and is still active in its control as treasurer and as chairman of the board. This enter- prise has grown to extensive proportions and stands as one of the representative mercantile houses of western New York in its line.
Mr. Chapin has figured prominently in the public and civic life of Rochester and has long been accounted one of her progressive and public-spirited citizens. He served on the police commission board for five years, from 1896 until 1901, and acted as park commissioner from 1902 until 1914. He was secretary of the old Alert hose company, which he joined in 1881 and of which he served as president from 1883 until 1887, inclusive, later becoming an exempt fireman. He was for one year vice president of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce, of which he is still a member and which he has also served on the board of trustees and as chairman of committee on manufactures and promotion of trade. He was a director of the Rochester Railway & Light Company and also the Rochester Railway Company, and is one of the trustees of the Police Benevolent Association, while for five years he served as president of the Flower City Driving Club. He is a life member of the Rochester Athletic Club
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and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and for several years was the president and majority stockholder of the Rochester Baseball Club. He has for years been greatly interested in harness horse racing and has owned at various times some of the best performers of their time, among them being Connor, 2:0314, pacing; and Dariel, 2:0014, pacing, at one time the champion pacing mare of the world. Mr. Chapin belongs as well to the Rochester Club, the Washington Club, the Rochester Rotary Club, the Ad Club, the Exempt Firemen's Association, the Monroe Golf Club and the Lake Placid Club, being a life member of the last named. Mr. Chapin has always been a lover of outdoor sports and life in the open. He owns a fine woodland estate of three hundred and sixty acres at Beaver Lake in the Adirondacks and spends much of his leisure there in the wilds. From the windows of his lodge he has often seen from twenty to thirty deer feeding at the border of the lake, unafraid of the close association with human beings. Mr. Chapin is a true sportsman who never indulges in the wanton destruction of wild animals, and this fact seems to have been communicated to the wild life of his domain. Very frequently raccoons, opos- sums, rabbits, chipmunks and other smaller animals come to his doorstep to get their morning or evening meal from the larder of Mr. Chapin's lodge.
In 1882, in Rochester, Mr. Chapin was married to Miss Emily Emerson, daughter of Colonel William Emerson. Mrs. Chapin passed away three years later, leaving a son, Charles Hall Chapin, who was born in this city in 1885 and was graduated from Yale University in 1910. He is the father of three children, Charles Hall, Jr., Emily and Richard Traill Chapin. On the 27th of December, 1919, Charles T. Chapin was married to Miss Emma S. Kern of Rochester.
WALTER BERNARD DUFFY.
Walter Bernard Duffy, merchant, financier and philanthropist, was born in Peter- boro, Ontario, Canada, on the 8th of August, 1840, and died in Rochester, New York, on January 14, 1911. His parents were Edward Duffy, born in Dunkirk, County Louth, Ireland, and Jane (Crawford) Duffy, born in Banbridge, County Down, Ire- land. His early training at home and at school brought out strongly the sterling traits of character which he displayed conspicuously in his business career and in social life. His parents moved to Rochester, New York, when the lad was about one year old, and Rochester thenceforth was his home and the city which received the tribute of his manly enterprise, love and foresight.
Walter Bernard Duffy's education was acquired in one of the most famous of Rochester's early public schools (old No. 6), in St. Hyacinthe College near Montreal, Quebec, and in St. Michael's College of Toronto, Ontario. At the age of seventeen years he returned to Rochester and entered business life with his father, who had estab- lished a wholesale liquor house and cider and vinegar business on Lake avenue. Mr. Duffy was endowed with great physical endurance as well as personal charm and keen perception. His whole strength and high ability in dealing with men, always guided by the strictest integrity and faith in humanity, were employed in his business life. Thus equipped, Mr. Duffy acquired his father's business in 1868, after successful private ventures during the Civil war. He had tasted the satisfaction of honorable strife in the field of commerce and trade and pressed forward with energy and hope- fulness. One branch of his enterprise, originated by his father, was the production of a whiskey as a medicinal supply to meet a demand by physicians and families for a standard remedy of this nature. This enterprise, founded on an acknowledged need in therapeutics, met with instant success. With his other business rapidly developing, success and the promise of monetary independence came. Mr. Duffy's business stand- ing was high. Fully able to help himself and master the intricacies of commercial life, he felt able in his generous spirit to help others, and did so by lending his name to commercial paper. He was obliged to meet this paper upon maturity and would have fully met it but for the eagerness of those who could not wait. After the first report of the situation went abroad, he employed all his great energy to stem the tide. Overwhelmed for the moment, he did not rest, although he was past middle age. He put his hand to paper for what he owed and kept that paper alive until his inces- sant labor, strict economy and ceaseless enterprise enabled him to pay the last dollar. With a new education in business and finance and all of his original power, he forged ahead with such a reputation for financial probity as few men had achieved. His rise to mastery was rapid. Although he was more cautious than formerly, he had lost but little of his abounding faith and trust in the honesty and justice of men.
WALTER B. DUFFY
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He had found that faith in men tended to render them faithful and so he went for- ward with clarity of purpose, loving labor, loving the city in which he lived and planning for its upbuilding along the noblest lines. He was sustained by the tender- est family and social ties, buoyed in his daily intercourse with men by an abounding humor, and assisted by an unfailing courtesy that comes only from a gentle training and real deference to others.
In 1868 Mr. Duffy was married to Miss Teresa Helena O'Dea of Toronto, Canada, who bore to him five sons and four daughters: Edward F., a leading physi- cian and surgeon of Yonkers, who passed away on the 14th of April, 1923; Martin Claude, who was born in 1871 and died the same year; Mary Teresa, now Mrs. Harry Yates; Walter J .; Agnes A., now Mrs. Charles F. Riordan; James P. B., who is mentioned elsewhere in this work; Harriette Jane, now Mrs. William T. Noonan; Gerald Paul; and Constance Josephine, now Mrs. Jeremiah G. Hickey. In 1884 Mrs. Duffy passed away. In 1892 Mr. Duffy was married in London, England, to Miss Loretto Putnam of Detroit, who survives him.
Mr. Duffy was a traveler and close observer in many lands, a student of affairs in the largest sense, a lover of art and the supporter and author of projects for public improvements. In 1888, when the park commission was organized, Mr. Duffy had been known for some years as a man of public spirit, good taste, high ideals in civic matters and a leader in the business and financial world. He was named among the fathers of the city who constituted the first board of twenty-one members of the park commission. Although he was confined by the demands of his business inter- ests that had then assumed great proportions, he gave his time and experience and observation in travel to the development of Rochester's admirable park system upon a scale commensurate with the city's growth and future promise.
As a public man Mr. Duffy planned and built for the future nobly and well. Among his conspicuous services to the city he loved was the gift of land for suitable completion of a park near the brink of the lower falls of the Genesee and overlooking the picturesque gorge of the lower river. He would not allow the source of this gift to be known to the public until he passed away. Mr. Duffy was no demagogue but dealt with facts in his leadership in business and civic affairs. In breadth of view, soundness of judgment and calm foresight Mr. Duffey was among the great leaders in business and city building. The catalogue of his enterprises and business connec- tions is long and indicates executive ability of the highest order and prophetic vision. The rapid and healthy growth of Rochester was largely owing to the confidence and courageous leadership of Mr. Duffy and his compeers. His business connections show in the clearest way the progress of the city's growth in wealth, influence and beauty and desirability as a place to reside. Every line of business upon which he entered appeared to be endowed with new life and to respond to his magic touch. He became the president of the Flower City National Bank, organized the New York and Kentucky Company in 1900, the American Fruit Products Company in 1904, the Duffy-McIner- ney Company in 1906 and the National Hotel Company in 1907. In banking circles Mr. Duffy was one of the leaders in the movement that led to the merging of the Flower City National Bank and the German-American Bank, to form the National Bank of Rochester, later named the Lincoln National Bank, and now merged with the Alliance Bank and known as the Lincoln Alliance, of which he was president when he died. He was a director of the New York & Kentucky Company, the Ameri- can Fruit Products Company, the Lincoln National Bank, the Rochester Trust & Safe Deposit Company. the Duffy-McInerney Company, the National Hotel Company, the General Railway Signal Company, the German Insurance Company, the Pfaudler Com- pany and many other corporations of this city and of the Lafayette Hotel Company of Buffalo. He also had a large interest in the Hotel Marlborough of New York, the Hotel Victoria of New York, the Kenmore Hotel of Albany and various mining com- panies. He was the builder and owner of the Shubert Theater of Rochester, now known as the Fahy Theater. Mr. Duffy's efforts toward the reorganization of the United States Independent Telephone Company and anxiety on account of the panic of 1907, kept him from a needed vacation. For a time he worked night and day to ward off financial stress from the banks and the business of Rochester, and the preparedness which he urged and directed was efficient. But he had overtaxed his powers. His tireless energy, however, did not allow him to rest, and he literally died in harness, advising and directing his great affairs until death came. As a philanthropist Mr. Duffy was not of the showy kind. He was an ever-ready helper, and his charities were unnumbered, but few knew of them outside of the beneficiaries and his business associates. They, too, knew but little. He was generous as he was just. His benefactions to the Catholic church, of which he was a devout member,
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and to other churches were many. By the natural exercise of his great powers and generous spirit Mr. Duffy overcame obstacles, compelled success, became a tower of strength in the business world and an inspiring example and adviser in the build- ing of the city.
WILLIAM BIRCH RANKINE.
Imagination is a priceless crystal in the vision of the man who achieves, and thoroughly imbued with this quality, as well as the spirit of progress, William Birch Rankine became a pioneer in the work of producing and transmitting electricity for industrial use. To his tireless, inspired and inspiring effort the city of Niagara Falls and the entire Niagara frontier are largely indebted for the great industrial activities and commercial growth which came with the development of hydro-electric power and now continue with increasing momentum. He was born in Oswego, New York, Jan- uary 4, 1858, and his father, the Rev. James Rankine, D. D., S. T. D., LL. D., was a prominent minister of the Protestant Episcopal church, also becoming a noted educa- tor. He served for some time as president of Hobart College and afterward became rector of the de Lancey Divinity School in Geneva, New York, acting in that capacity until his death, which occurred in 1896. He married Miss Fanny Meek, who survived him a few years-years which were spent in faithful and loving devotion to the charitable foundations of her sainted husband and distinguished son.
William Birch Rankine prepared for college at Canandaigua Academy, which was then under the management of the distinguished scholar and educator, Dr. Noah T. Clark, and was for years famous as one of the most earnest and virile of American preparatory schools. In 1873 he matriculated in Hobart College, of which his father was at that time president, but soon afterward transferred to Union College at Schenectady, New York, from which he was graduated in 1877, at the age of nineteen, receiving his baccalaureate degree, cum summa laude, and later winning the degree of Master of Arts. He was elected a member of the board of trustees of Union College, which position he continued to occupy during the remainder of his life, rendering valuable and appreciated service in the administration of its affairs, the widening of its sphere of influence, and in bringing about a substantial growth of the institution in the number of students and in financial endowments.
After his graduation from Union College, Mr. Rankine entered upon the study of law in the office of the late A. Augustus Porter in Niagara Falls, New York, under- taking at the same time to tutor Mr. Porter's sons in preparation for college examina- tions. It could not have been blind fortune but was surely divine purpose that sent the gifted youth to his work and studies at the very brink of the cataract and into the home circle of Mr. Porter. For nearly a century the Porters had been and at that time still were the proprietors of the New York lands on all sides of the American Falls. More than one generation of them had visioned the Niagara frontier crowded with mills and busied peoples, the air resonant with the clang of the anvil and the whir of loom and spindle-a "smokeless Manchester" created by the harnessing of the falls and rapids for useful work.
As early as 1842 Judge Augustus Porter, the grandfather of A. Augustus Porter, had proposed extending the small system of canals then existing along the upper rapids. Five years later Peter Emelie, a civil engineer, made plans for such a project, which were published and distributed by Judge Porter with invitations solicit- ing capital for the construction of the works and mills to use the proposed power. These plans with some modifications were put into effect by Horace H. Day, who in 1861 completed the Day canal and basin which, greatly amplified in recent times, are now in active service as the hydraulic canal and basin of The Niagara Falls Power Company.
In 1877, when Mr. Rankine came to Niagara, such water-power development as then existed was by means of that surface canal, which was some seventy feet wide and eight feet deep, conducting waters of the upper river from Port Day, above the rapids, across the village of Niagara Falls for a distance of nearly a mile to a receiv- ing basin at the top of the high bank of the gorge of the river below the falls. On the river side of the basin there were some flour mills, driven by small powered water turbines placed at comparatively low heads, which discharged their tail waters through the high bank and then down its steep sides in little cataracts.
Having passed his bar examinations, Mr. Rankine went to New York city in 1880 to take up the practice of law, becoming a clerk in the office of Vanderpoel, Greene & Cummings, one of the best known and most distinguished firms then prac-
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