Our County and Its People: A Descriptive Work on Erie County, New York (Volume 1), Part 34

Author: Truman C. White
Publication date: 1898
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017

USA > New York > Erie County > Our County and Its People: A Descriptive Work on Erie County, New York (Volume 1) > Part 34

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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thaniel Wilgus, Richard Wadsworth, Elisha E. Hickox, Thaddeus Weed, Joseph Bart, jr., Elijah D. Efner, George Coit, Silas Athearn, John Scott, Henry Hamilton, William Hollister, Joseph Anable, Au- gustin Eaton, Abner Bryant, Theodore Coburn, Martin Daley, Robert Bush and John A. Lazelle. In this list are found the names of many leading citizens. The first engine house was built two years later at a cost of $100.

The Baptist church noticed by Mr. Ball was the Washington street society's, which was organized April 2, 1822, chiefly through the efforts of John A. Lazelle, who secured the pastoral services of Rev. Elon Galusha, then of Whitesboro, N. Y .; he began his services here in February of the year named. The name taken at first by the society was the Baptist Church of Christ in Buffalo.' The Universalist services spoken of in the pamphlet were merely conducted before a congregation which had no organization until 1831. The same may be said of the Methodist services of that date; the other denominations had organized churches, as before described.

The library alluded to in the pamphlet was incorporated December 10, 1816, under the title, The Buffalo Library; the organization took place at the house of Gaius Kibbe, which was the old Eagle tavern.

1 This subsequently became the First Baptist Church of Buffalo. Their first edifice, which was erected on the corner of Seneca and Washington streets in 1828 was afterwards used for a post- office. In 1832 the name was changed to the Washington Street Baptist Church, and in 188 a new edifice was built. The Dearborn Street church at Black Rock was formed from this society in 1899, the nucleus of the Niagara Square Baptist church in 1840, the First German Baptist church on February 14, 1849, the Cedar Street Baptist church on March 25, 1859, the Prospect Avenue Baptist church on May 15, 1867, and the Delaware Avenue Baptist church on December 8, 182.

The first Baptist church organized in Erie county was the First Baptist church of East Au- rora, which was formed October 17, 1810, with ten members, by Rev. David Irish, a missionary, and constituted in November following. Their first pastor was Rev. Elias Harmon, from 1816 to 1826; in 1827-28, in conjunction with the Congregationalists, they erected a house of worship, which in 1833 gave place to another frame edifice. The Baptist churches in Hamburg and Boston were constituted in 1812, the one in Eden on October 16, 1816, in Sardinia on March 1, 1820, in Williams- ville on June 10, 1826, in Springville on January 11, 1827, in Holland on December 8, 1x29, in Evans on September 4, 1830, in Wales Center on October 28, 1830, in Alden on September 5, 1833, in Holland (German) on June 30, 1861, at Pleasant Valley on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in 1868, in Tonawanda (German) on October 19, 1879, and in Lancaster June 25, 1896.

The Baptist denomination grew slowly in Buffalo. The present societies, with the dates on which they were constituted, are as follows: Michigan Street (colored), 1899; First German, 1849; Sec- ond German, 1859; Prospect Avenue, June 10, 1M8; Third German, March 2, 1875; Emmanuel, October 19, 1877; Delaware Avenue, December 1, 1x22; Dearborn street, December 13, 1882; Fillmore Ave- nue, April 19, 18%; Parkside, October 29. 1891; Glenwood, January 3, 1892; Ebenezer German, 1893; Lafayette Avenue, May 16, 1893; First Polish, October 31, 1894; Walden Avenue, July 11, 1895; Reid Memorial, October 4, 1895. There are also in the city the Delevan Avenue church and Trenton Avenue, Maple Street, and South Side chapels, and the First and Second Free Baptist churches. The total valuation of church property in the county is over $500,000 and the membership numbers about 6,000. In the various Sunday schools there are about ;,200 scholars enrolled.

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The first board of trustees were Charles Townsend, Charles G. Olm- stead, Jonas Harrison, Isaac Q. Leake, Miles P. Squier, Smith H. Salisbury, and Josiah Trowbridge. Most of the leading citizens of the village were members of the organization and supported it by contri- butions. The library lived on and at one time had about 700 volumes for circulation. It ultimately passed to the Young Men's Association and formed the germ of the present great Buffalo Library.

The intelligent reader will not ask for a clearer or more detailed de- scription of the Buffalo of seventy years ago than is given in the few preceding pages; the extracts from Mr. Ball's pamphlet and the accom- panying engravings bring before the eye with almost photographic faithfulness the ambitious, struggling village of that time, and clearly show how firmly laid were the foundations for future greatness by the sturdy business heroes of the early years.

CHAPTER XX.

1825-1832.

Early Success of the Erie Canal-Its Influence on Erie County-Buffalo Charter Amendments-The Morgan Affair-Anti-Masonry in Erie County Politics-Another Newspaper-Rising Opposition to the Holland Land Company-The Jubilee Water Works Company-The Buffalo Hydraulic Association -- First Insurance Companies -The County Alms House-Preparations for City Incorporation-Conditions of the County at Large-Advancement in Outer Towns-Arrival of the First German Im- migrants-Progress at Tonawanda-Preparation of City Charter -- Passage of the Act-Important Provisions of the Charter -- Ward Boundaries -- Reorganization of Buffalo Fire Department-The First City Directory-A Description of the Young City-List of Buyers of Lots in New Amsterdam.

The period between 1825 and the incorporation of Buffalo as a city in 1832 was an uneventful one in Erie county, if we leave out of con- sideration the fact of its rapid advancement in all the varied features of prosperity and material growth. While the Erie Canal in the early years of its existence became an avenue of a great transportation busi- ness,' its success in this county was not so immediate or its influence

' As an evidence of the rapidity with which the canal was brought into use, particularly as regards freight, it may be stated that the number of boats arriving in Albany during the season

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so large as in localities farther east. A spirited rivalry sprang up be- tween the old stage coaches and the new packet boats, but the ad- vantages offered by each were so nearly equal that for some time travel was about equally divided between the two. In freight transportation it was different, and the products of the farmer reached eastern mar- kets with far greater expedition and economy; but western trade was still in its infancy and grain came down the lakes in only compara- tively small quantities.

Some amendments of considerable importance were made to the Buffalo village charter in 1826, the principal ones being a provision for raising by tax a sum not exceeding $2,000 to pay for lighting the streets, supporting a night watch, and for all local improvements and the contingent expenses of the village; a provision for the erection of a pier and wharves on the north side of Buffalo Creek; another making the village a road district, and still another designed to control the sale of liquors.

It was in the early autumn of the year 1826 that an event took place in Western New York which was destined to create a powerful in- fluence, particularly in the political field, for a number of years. Will- iam Morgan was a resident of Batavia, a Mason, and it became known that he had written and was threatening to publish a book revealing the secrets of that order. After numerous attempts had been made to induce him to abandon his purpose and surrender the manuscript of his work, he was arrested on a trifling charge and confined in the jail at Canandaigua. On the following day he was released, but on reaching the street was seized and forced into a closed carriage, which was rapidly driven westward. He was accompanied by three Masons and was taken on through Rochester and by way of the Ridge road to Lewiston, and thence down the river to Fort Niagara, which was reached near midnight of the 13th of September. There he was con- fined until the 19th, when he suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Arrests and trials for his abduction followed. Eli Bruce, then sheriff of Niagara county, the commandant at Niagara, and several other prominent Masons were tried and a few were convicted. Bruce was

of 1833 was 1,329; in the season of 1824 it was 2,687; in that of 1825, it was 3,396, while in 1826 it was about 5,000. Passenger traffic was also large, for while the fare on the turnpike roads was about one and one-half cents per mile. by canal it was only half a cent; to persons who could spare the time, therefore, and all who sought the comforts of passage by packet boat, the new method of travel was irresistibly attractive.

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fined and imprisoned and deposed from office. The trials extended over a period of four or five years. It came to be generally believed that Morgan was drowned in Niagara River, which was dragged for his body, but without finding it, and it is not even to this day positively known what was his fate.

This event created intense excitement throughout this State and later on spread over the entire country; it soon crept into politics and gave birth to the Anti- Masonic party, which was for some years a powerful political factor. It drew large numbers of adherents from the other parties, and in the election of 1829 its candidate, Albert H. Tracy, of Buffalo, for State senator in the Eighth District, was elected by the unprecedented majority of 8,000. Many of the Masonic lodges of the State surrendered their charters, but the lodges at Buffalo and Black Rock retained theirs until 1829. The Buffalo Patriot espoused the Anti-Masonic cause, but so strong was the tide setting in that direction that another newspaper, called the Western Advertiser, was started in the winter of 1827-8 by Charles Sentell and Billings Hay- wood; this paper was not needed under the circumstances, and al- though its columns contained well written articles from the pens of Oliver Forward, James Sheldon and others, it closed its career in three months by merging with the Patriot. The Journal supported the opposing party, but in a very conservative manner. Leading politicians saw their opportunity for intrigue and a possible rise to power and in- fluence, and political lines between the Jacksonian Democrats and the Anti-Masons became closely drawn. In the fall of Jackson's first election (1828) the contest in Erie county was exceedingly spirited, with the Anti-Masons largely in the majority. In the Thirtieth Dis- trict Ebenezer F. Norton was elected to Congress over John G. Camp, while the Anti-Masons elected also David Burt and the young lawyer, Millard Fillmore, to the Assembly. Mr. Fillmore was re-elected in the following year, with Edmund Hull, of Clarence. The new party con- tinued to hold sway in this county, as well as elsewhere, for several years; but notwithstanding the weakness of the local Democratic or- ganization, or possibly because of it, a weekly Democratic paper was started in Buffalo in April, 1828, with the title Buffalo Republican; this was the ancestor of the Buffalo Courier. It may be noted here, as illustrating the enormous strength which was developed upon a foundation so weak and from sources so apparently unimportant as those of the Anti-Masonic party, that in 1830, in a poll of 250,000 votes

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in this State, its candidate for governor was defeated by barely 8,000, while in 1832, when the poll was 320,000, the candidate for the same office failed of election by only about 10,000. The party also attained great strength in other States.

In its relations to Erie county in 1827 the Anti-Masonic movement was to some extent complicated with a rising opposition to the Holland Land Company. The settlers' farms in the county were still largely burdened with debt to the company, and notwithstanding the latter had shown a liberal spirit in the acceptance of produce in lieu of cash, as before noticed, many settlers found it almost impossible to meet their obligations. To render their situation still more unsatisfactory, rumors were circulated that the company was preparing to advance the prices of all lands on which the original time of payment had lapsed. David E. Evans was now appointed agent of the company in place of Mr. Otto, and under his administration land contracts were somewhat modified in favor of purchasers. Increasing dissatisfaction, however, prevailed in many parts of the purchase, which was expressed in ques- tioning the validity of the company's titles, in recommending heavier taxation of the property of the company, and otherwise. This rising spirit of opposition among the settlers was destined in later years to lead to serious trouble.

In 1827 the editor and proprietor of the Black Rock Gazette, Smith H. Salisbury, comprehended the rapidly growing importance of Buf- falo as the commercial and business center of Western New York, and removed his newspaper to the latter village. The waning importance of Black Rock is indicated also by the fact that the Black Rock Advo- cate, which had struggled for existence about a year, died a natural death.

The Buffalo and Black Rock Jubilee Water Works Company was in- corporated in 1827 with a capital stock of $20,000. . Up to the year 1832 this company had laid about sixteen miles of wooden water conduits. The supply was drawn from the Jubilee springs, situated near Dela- ware avenue about one hundred rods north of Ferry street, from which high ground the water flowed through the pipes by gravity. Black Rock and the northern part of the city were first supplied and subse- quently the pipes were laid down Main street to the southern part of the city. The officers of this company for 1832 (the first year in which they are recorded) were as follows: Peter B. Porter, president; Donald Fraser, S. C. Brewster, Peter B. Porter, directors; Absalom Bull, sec-

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Buffalo as seen from top of old Buffalo Bank in 1829.

Buffalo as seen from the Lake in 1829.

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retary and treasurer; Donald Fraser, superintendent. At the present time the works are under control of commissioners, and the company still supplies a few families in the northern part of the city.

A company called the Buffalo Hydraulic Association was incorporated in 1827 by John G. Camp, Reuben B. Heacock, Frederick B. Merrill, and several associates; the capital of the company was $25,000 and it was hoped and believed that important business and manufacturing operations would be established through its influence. In the month of October of that year the company had partially completed and opened a canal from a branch of Big Buffalo Creek into Little Buffalo Creek, at a point where the necessary length of the canal was about four miles. Sixteen feet head of water power was thus obtained. A saw and grist mill, a woolen factory, a hat body factory, a last factory, and a brewery were built in that vicinity and a considerable settlement gathered there. The early spread of the city in that direction necessi- tated the subsequent filling up of the canal.

The incorporation of these companies constitutes one of the indica- tions of the general business activity of that time in Buffalo, which is more particularly noticed a little farther on. Merchants and manu- facturers were making money and their prosperity was reflected to the people of the outer towns. These conditions led to the need of further banking facilities, and during the latter half of the year 1826 the sub- ject of establishing a second bank in Buffalo was earnestly discussed. At a meeting, held December 16, a report was made by a previously appointed committee upon the details of the enterprise. There was a general desire on the part of the citizens for the establishment of a branch of the United States Bank in the village and the committee re- ported in favor of such a measure. This report was confirmed and the following Board of Directors appointed: William B. Rochester, Charles Townsend, R. B. Heacock, Joseph Stocking, Albert H. Tracy, Sheldon Thompson, David Burt, Augustus Porter, David E. Evans, William Peacock, James Wadsworth and Lyman A. Spalding. But the insti- tution did not, for some reason, begin business at that time, and the scarcity of circulating currency continued. Frequent allusions to this subject are found in the newspapers of the period, and it is an unques- tioned fact that business was considerably hampered for some time from this cause; while there was no general financial stringency, the lack of means of effecting exchanges, except by actual cash in hand or barter, was severely felt. On the 29th of August, 1829, the Buffalo

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Republican made an especially emphatic assertion that the population of Buffalo was about 7,000 and yet they had no bank.' Finally, the first meeting of the bank directors was held on October 26, 1829, and John R. Carpenter was appointed cashier; Joseph Salter, teller : Charles Taintor, clerk. Heman B. Potter was soon afterward added to the Board of Directors. This bank began business on the northeast corner of South Division and Main streets.

The accommodations offered by this bank, even, did not seem to meet the needs and expectations of the community, for on the 16th of May, 1830, subscription books were opened for three days at the Eagle tavern for the sale of stock in the proposed Bank of Buffalo. James Mcknight, David E. Evans, I. T. Hatch, Benjamin Rathbun, Guy H. Goodrich, S. G. Austin and Pierre A. Barker were named as the bank commissioners. The capital of this institution was fixed at $200,000, while the subscriptions amounted to $1,654,250. The distribution of the shares under these circumstances created some dissatisfaction and opposition, which resulted in the granting of an injunction by the vice- chancellor stopping further proceedings in the matter; the injunction was, however, removed by mutual consent before it was argued and the following Board of Directors elected: Guy H. Goodrich, Hiram Pratt, Benjamin Rathbun, Major A. Andrews, Joseph Stocking, George Burt, William Ketchum, Henry Hamilton, Henry Root, George B. Webster, Noah P. Sprague, Stephen G. Austin and Russell Haywood. Guy H. Goodrich was elected president; Hiram Pratt, cashier; and S. G. Austin, teller. The bank began business September 6, 1831.

Another branch of business which was destined to become of large importance came into existence at this time. A charter had been granted by the Legislature, in 1819, for the Western Insurance Com- pany of Buffalo, but owing to the general financial stringency of that period it lay dormant until 1825, when Jacob A. Barker, of New York city, purchased the charter and opened the first insurance office in Buf- falo. Isaac S. Smith was the first secretary of the company, and Capt. William P. Miller the first president. In April, 1827, Mr. Smith re- signed his office and Lewis F. Allen' came on from New York and

1 A little later the same newspaper insisted that notwithstanding all causes for discourage- ment, the community was prosperous. Said the editor: "Still our village rises, whilst others at the east are either folding their arms or are on the retrograde march; village lots and village property have gradually risen ; merchants are paying their debts, and farmers are coming in with cash. The corporation has made ample side and cross walks, Main street has been graduated and the pure water of the cold springs flows into any house on Main street."

" Lewis Falley Allen was born in Westfield, Mass., January 1, 1800. He attended the Westfield

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accepted the secretaryship. In 1828 Captain Miller also resigned and Charles Townsend was elected to the office. This company continued in successful operation until 1830, when its charter expired. In the winter of 1829-30 a charter was obtained, chiefly through the efforts of Mr. Allen, for the Buffalo Fire and Marine Insurance Company, with capital stock of $100,000; the incorporation of this company was ef- fected April 1, 1830; the stock was principally taken by Buffalo citi- zens. This company was also successfully managed, and closed its business in April, 1849.

While these developments were in progress incipient wholesale trade was being established in the village, and although it did not assume large proportions until several years later, it was still an important factor of the prevailing business activity and thrift.

In commenting upon the bright prospects of Buffalo a local paper of December, 1828, stated editorially, that "notwithstanding the scarcity of the circulating medium at the present time, and the general sickness which has pervaded all parts of our vicinity, during the last summer, including our village, still Buffalo steadily progresses in beauty and improvements; still pushes on to fulfill its destiny-to become that which it is pre-eminently calculated to be, the commercial emporium of the west." The editor then noted various improvements that were in progress at the time, among them a "county poor house, built of stone on a site between Black Rock and Buffalo, and nearly finished;" the erection of "an edifice for the High School about a half mile east

Academy until he was twelve years old, when he went to New York to begin work in a wholesale dry goods house in which his father was interested. In 1818 he returned to the employ of his father, who had left his mercantile business in New York and begun manufacturing woolen goods in Connecticut. From that time until April. 1827, Mr. Allen was variously employed, a part of the time near Sandusky, O. In 1825 he married Margaret Cleveland ; her brother, Rev. Richard F. Cleveland, was father of President Grover Cleveland. From the time of his arrival in Buffalo (1827) Mr. Allen was for many years prominent in the insurance business and in real estate operations. Some of his purchases of land about that time and the prices paid have his- torical significance. In 1827 he purchased an outer lot of five acres, a short distance above Chippewa street and extending from Main to Delaware streets, for $750; he also purchased a five acre tract on Virginia street, opposite the orphan asylum, for $150. In 1829 he purchased the farm lot of twenty-nine acres, extending from Main street to the State Reservation line of Black Rock, for $2,500. In 1880 Mr. Allen and Ira A. Blossom leased from the Holland Land Company for sixty-three years the entire block bounded by Main, Swan, Washington and South Division streets ; the rental was $700 per annum for twenty one years ; $850 for the next twenty-one years, and $1,000 for the last twenty-one years. On the Main street front of this tract they built fourteen three-story brick stores. In 1883 Mr. Allen and others purchased about 16,000 acres of forest land on Grand Island, for about six dollars an acre. Two or three years later he and other Buffalo men pur- chased the extensive real estate of Gen. Peter B. Porter and others at Black Rock, and Mr. Allen lived many years in the old Porter residence on Niagara street. He gave much attention to agri- cultural matters, particularly the breeding of blooded stock, and was in every way an enterpris- ing and respected citizen.

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of the village-a large and commodious stone building "; a "massive pier constructed by the United States government," then about half completed; a grist mill, tannery and other buildings erected "at the termination of the Buffalo and Seneca canal"; the building in the previous year of the warehouses of S. Thompson & Co. and E. F. Norton, two breweries, etc. After deploring the lack of water power, the editor noticed the arrival in the preceding season of about two hundred German and Swiss settlers; in the light of subsequent history in this connection, it is surprising to read the editor's characterization of this immigration as an unmixed evil.

During the period under consideration the village suffered severely from fires. The fire extinguishing apparatus of those days was in- . efficient and meager and when the destructive agent broke forth among the wooden buildings, which were in a large majority in the place, the loss was usually heavy. Early on the morning of November 14, 1829, eleven stores were burned on the west side of Main street. On December 15, 1831, the Kremlin corner was burned, with a loss of more than $20,000. On November 14, 1832, a few months after the city was incorporated, one of the most destructive conflagrations in the history of the place, considering its size at that time, occurred, destroying several squares of buildings in the heart of the young city, on Main, East and West Seneca, Pearl and Washington streets, and causing a loss of nearly $200,000.

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Our County and Its People: A Descriptive Work on Erie County, New York (Volume 1), Part 34

Author: Truman C. White Publication date: 1898 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1017

Author: Truman C. White
Publication date: 1898
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017