Rochester and Monroe County, New York : pictorial and biographical, Part 4

Author:
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: New York, N.Y. ; Chicago, Ill. : Pioneer Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 811


USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Rochester and Monroe County, New York : pictorial and biographical > Part 4


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Left fatherless at the early age of nine years, Dr. Lee has practically made his own way in the world and success is due to his untiring efforts. He attend- ed the schools of Pulteney, Steuben county; the Penn Yan Academy, and was also instructed by a college professor at Palo, Michigan, where he was employed as clerk in a drug store for three years. Under his guidance Dr. Lee was fitted to enter college and he graduated from the University of Michigan in 1878 with the degree of M. D.


He opened an office in Rochester in June, 1878, and engaged in general


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John Mallory Lee, m. D.


practice for nine years, but finally decided to devote his attention to surgery and with this end in view he took post graduate work in the Polyclinic of New York city in 1889 and the Post Graduate School of New York in 1890, 1891, 1892 and 1894. He is to-day numbered among the most eminent surgeons of the state and has met with remarkable success in his practice. He assisted in founding the Rochester Homeopathic Hospital and its Training School for Nurses and was vice president of the medical and surgical staff of the hospital during the first ten years of its existence. He has also been surgeon, surgeon- in-chief and consulting surgeon at different times. In 1897 he established a private hospital at 179 Lake avenue and from the start success has attended his efforts in this direction.


Dr. Lee stands deservedly high in the estimation of his fellow practitioners and he has been called upon to serve in many positions of honor and trust, such as president of the homeopathic medical societies of Monroe county, of western New York and of the New York state society. He is a member of the Alpha Sigma fraternity, Ann Arbor chapter; president of the Alumni Association of the Homeopathic Department of the University of Michigan; an honorary member of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the state of Michigan; and a member of the American Institute of Homeopathy. He was also chairman of the legislative committee appointed by the State Homeopathic Medical Society of New York, which committee secured the appropriation for the establishment of the Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital for the Insane, an institution which has accommodations for about nine hundred patients. The Doctor has been president of the New York state board of homeopathic medical examiners and the joint board composed of the three recognized schools of medicine. He is an associate alumnus of the New York Homeo- pathic Medical College, and belongs to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Cen- tral New York; the Surgical and Gynecological Association of the American Institute of Homeopathy, the National Society of Electro-therapeutists, con- sulting surgeon to the Gowanda State Hospital and censor of the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College. For several years Dr. Lee was associate editor of the Physicians and Surgeons Investigator and was one of the corps of writers of the Homeopathic Text-Book of Surgery. His original re- search and investigation have led to the preparation of many valuable pa- pers and addresses which may be found in the transactions of these societies and the magazines of his school.


Dr. Lee was married September 28, 1876, to Miss Idella Ives, a daugh- ter of Dr. Charles E. Ives, of Savannah, Wayne county, New York. She died October II, 1897, leaving two children: Maud, the wife of A. Dix Bis- sell, of Le Roy, New York; and Carrie Elizabeth. On the 20th of June, 1899, the Doctor was again married to Miss Carrie M. Thomson, a daughter of the late John Church Thomson, of Battle Creek, Michigan.


In religious faith Dr. Lee is a Baptist; he belongs to the Baptist Social


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John Mallory Lee, m. D.


Union, the Lake Avenue Baptist church and is a chairman of its board of trustees. In his fraternal relations he is connected with Corinthian Temple lodge, No. 805, F. & A. M .; Hamilton chapter, No. 62, R. A. M .; Doric council, No. 19, R. & S. M .; and Monroe commandery. He has attained the thirty-second degree in Scottish rite Masonry and is second lieutenant com- mander of Rochester consistory, and president of the Rochester Masonic Temple Association. He is also a member of Damascus Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S .; Lalla Rookh Grotto, No. 113, M. O. V. P. E. R .; and the Roches- ter Masonic Club. He belongs to the Genesee Valley Club, the Oak Hill Country Club, and the Rochester Chamber of Commerce, and by his ballot sup- ports the men and measures of the republican party. Although prominent socially his time and attention are almost wholly devoted to his professional duties and he has that love for his work which has been rewarded by success, so that he ranks with the ablest representatives of the medical fraternity in the state of New York.


Seu Marches


George Udl. Archer


W HILE a large percentage of Rochester's business men have been attracted to this city by reason of its puls- ing industrial conditions and broad opportunities or have become factors in its active life in recent years there are also found among the prominent representatives of the commercial and financial in- terests those who have been identified with the city through long years and have not only been wit- nesses of its growth from a small town to a city of metropolitan proportions, but have been factors in its yearly development and progress. Such a one is George Washington Archer, who was born in Roch- ester, February 8, 1837. The family is of English lineage and the parents of our subject were John and Elizabeth Archer, the former reared in Chelten- ham, Gloucestershire, and the latter in Coventry, Warwickshire, England. There were three sons and five daughters of the family and three of the sis- ters of Mr. Archer are still living. The father was a contractor and builder and followed that occupation in New York city following his emigration to the United States in 1831. In 1834 he became a resident of Rochester, which at that time had not yet emerged from villagehood, and here he carried on busi- ness as a contractor and builder until 1857, erecting many of the substantial structures of an early day. He died in 1873 at the age of seventy years, while his wife survived until 1876 and passed away at the age of seventy-five.


At the usual age George W. Archer became a pupil in the public schools of Rochester and subsequently was graduated from Eastman's Business College. When a youth of seventeen he began learning the carpenter's trade in his father's shop and following the father's retirement in 1857 he entered the employ of his elder brother, Robert W. Archer, who had pur- chased the patent of a dental chair. In August, 1863, he accepted a position as bookkeeper at Petroleum Center, Pennsylvania, where he remained until June, 1864, after which he conducted a machine shop at Tarr Farm on Oil creek, Pennsylvania, until 1868, when the ill health of his brother caused him to return to Rochester. He then took up the brother's business of manufacturing dental and barbers' chairs and has since continued in this line. The business was conducted under the firm style of R. W. Archer & Brother until 1873, when the senior partner died and George W. Archer was then alone until January 1, 1881, when he admitted his brother, John W., to a partner-


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George W. Archer


ship under the firm style of George W. Archer & Company. On the Ist of January, 1884, the Archer Manufacturing Company was incorporated and to the present time George W. Archer has been its president. The output of the factory, which is located at No. 9 North Water street, is barber, dentist, and surgeons' chairs and piano stools, which are largely the result of the in- ventive genius of the president.


A man of resourceful business ability, Mr. Archer has extended his efforts into various other departments of activity with equally good results. He has been heavily interested in oil production in Pennsylvania and from 1882 until 1884 was president of the Rochester Gas & Electric Company, of which lie had previously served as treasurer. He was vice president of the Rochester Pullman Sash Balance Company and treasurer of the Vulcanite Paving Com- pany and was president of the suburban railroad until it was sold. He has also been on the directorate of various other important business enterprises of the city which have benefited by his wise counsel and keen discernment in business affairs.


In 1865 Mr. Archer was married to Miss Augusta McClure. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, is president of the Rochester Driving Park Association and is a prominent member of the Genesee Valley Club and the Rochester Whist Club. His political views were formerly in accord with the principles of the democratic party and he served as alderman of the city from 1882 until 1884, while in 1886 he was candidate for mayor. He is at the present time affiliated with no political organization. Matters of citizenship aside from politics receive his earnest attention and his co-opera- tion has been given to many progressive public movements. He stands today as one of the foremost citizens of Rochester by reason of his long residence here, by reason of his active, honorable and successful connection with its business interests and by reason of the helpful part which he has taken in pro- moting those plans and measures that have been of direct benefit to the city.


J. J. Banoch


John Jacob Bausch


W HO WOULD have thought that when John Jacob Bausch landed in America on the completion of a voy- age across the Atlantic from his native Germany in 1849 he was to become the founder of the leading optical business of the world. He was a young man with no pretentions to fame or fortune. On the contrary he was unknown in this country and his financial resources were exceedingly limited. He had been attracted hither, however, by the report that untiring labor soon brings substantial reward in America and a laudable ambition therefore prompted his removal from the fatherland to the United States.


He was born in the town of Suessen, Wurtemberg, on the 25th of July, 1830. His education had been acquired there and he began his business career in the employ of his brother, a manufacturer and dealer in optical in- struments, and there learned the trade which formed the groundwork of his career. For three years after his arrival in the United States he was em- ployed in the cities of Rochester and Buffalo as a wood turner, but the loss of two fingers on his right hand forced him to give up the work and he im- mediately turned his attention to the manufacture of optical appliances. Small was the beginning and dark the outlook. There was little to encour- age him and in fact many seemingly insurmountable obstacles arose from time to time but he possessed ingenuity and his ability to plan and to perform have constituted the foundation stone upon which he has reared the super- structure of a splendid success. His first enterprise was a daguerreotype studio, which he conducted in Reynolds Arcade in the city of Rochester and there in 1853 with his association with Henry Lomb as a partner in the business was the foundation of the present business laid. For this enter- prise about sixty dollars was furnished by Captain Lomb. Manufacturing was carried on in a small way but the business was so unremunerative that both parties were frequently compelled to resort to their former trades to eke out a modest subsistence. When the war broke out the advance of gold en- abled the struggling firm to compete successfully with the foreign manufac- turers and a decided increase in the business followed, but the retail depart- ment was not discontinued until 1866, when exclusive right to the use of India rubber was secured, that material having been found very well adapted


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Fifth andwillen


Talilber J. Mandebille


W ILBER J. MANDEVILLE, deceased, was born in Web- ster, Monroe county, New York, in 1852, and was a son of Edward Mandeville. He was reared in Roches- ter and completed his education in De Graff Military School. Throughout his entire life he was con- nected with the seed business, Rochester largely be- ing a center for that line of commercial activity in the United States. He bought out the business of John Boardman in 1875 and admitted in 1879 his brother-in-law, Herbert S. King, to a partnership, under the firm style of Man- deville & King. This relation was maintained until the death of Mr. King in 1890, when he formed a partnership with Fred A. King under the same firm name. A few months before his death, in 1902, the business was incorporated under the name of the Mandeville & King Company, which still continues. Mr. Mandeville secured a very liberal patronage and prospered in his under- takings, using every energy to enlarge his business and make it a prosperous concern. He was only a child at the time of his father's death and was early thrown upon his own resources, so that he deserved much credit for what he accomplished.


Mr. Mandeville was married in 1876 to Miss Harriet King, a daughter of Jonathan King, who came to Rochester in 1825 from Massachusetts. Her mother was Sarah Sibley King, of Brighton. Her father settled on Sophia street in Rochester and cleared the land there, for at that time it was swampy. He continued to make his home upon that place throughout his remaining days and contributed in large measure to the substantial upbuilding of the city. His daughter, Mrs. Mandeville, is the only member of the family now living. By her marriage she became the mother of three children, Edna King, Lois Sibley and Arthur Wilber.


In his political views Mr. Mandeville was a republican, and he belonged to St. Luke's church at Rochester, in which he served as a vestryman. His life was in many respects exemplary and he enjoyed in large measure the confi- dence and esteem of those with whom he came in contact. In his business career he was found thoroughly reliable and trustworthy and all who knew him recognized in him the inherent force of character and capability which enabled him to advance from a humble financial position to one of affluence.


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Patrick Barry


Patrick Barry


P ATRICK BARRY was the son of an Irish farmer and was born near the city of Belfast, Ireland, in 1816. He received a liberal education and at the age of eighteen became a teacher in one of the Irish national schools. After having taught two years he resigned and resolved to make the United States his future home and country. Accordingly, in 1836, he came to New York and shortly after his arrival was of- fered a clerkship by the Princes, celebrated nursery- men of the period, at Flushing, Long Island, which he accepted. He remained with them four years, during which time he acquired a practical knowledge of the nursery business. In 1840 he removed to Rochester and in July of that year formed a partnership with George Ellwanger, which continued to the time of his demise. The firm of Ellwanger & Barry established, upon seven acres of ground as a beginning, what are now of vast extent and world-wide fame. "The Mount Hope Nurseries"-transplanted in every state and terri- tory of the Union and in foreign lands - have made the impress of Patrick Barry's genius upon the face of the earth. His industry was one of genuine production of wealth from the soil. Its creations from nature have, in their fruits and flowers, and trees and shrubs, ministered to those senses of man whose gratification refines life and makes it enjoyable; and it is a pleasure to know that it was duly rewarded by a rich return.


While building up this great industry Mr. Barry acted well many other parts. His pen was not idle. To the instruction and influence flowing from it is horticulture much indebted for its advancement during sixty years in this country. Following many miscellaneous contributions to the literature of that particular field, Mr. Barry, in 1852, published his first popular work, "The Fruit Garden." The edition was soon exhausted and another and larger one followed in 1855. In 1852 "The Horticulturist" passed from the hands of Luther Tucker into those of James Vick, and was removed from Albany to Rochester in order that the lamented Downing, drowned in the "Henry Clay" disaster on the Hudson river, might be succeeded in its editorial chair by Mr. Barry, who conducted it several years and until its purchase by the Messrs. Smith of Philadelphia. Mr. Barry's chief and most valuable work, however, was his "Catalogue of the American Pomological Society," which is the ac- cepted guide of American fruit growers and is regarded as standard authority


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Patrick Barry


throughout the world. But outside of the nursery and the sanctum Mr. Barry was no less busily and usefully engaged. Regular in habit and me- thodical in action, he was enabled to perform duties as varied in character as they were successful in result.


For more than twenty years he was president of the Western New York Horticultural Society, which is the most prosperous and important of its kind in the United States. He was president of the New York State Agricultural Society and a member of the board of control of the New York State Agricul- tural Experimental Station. At times he filled offices of importance to the local community, such as alderman of the city and supervisor of the county and as frequently declined the tender of others. The Flour City National Bank, of which Mr. Barry was president and of which he was also a director nearly from the outset, was one of the largest and most prosperous of financial insti- tutions of western New York. Besides the Flour City National Bank, Mr. Barry was prominently identified with many other important enterprises of Rochester, filling such positions as president of the Mechanics' Savings Bank, president of the Rochester City & Brighton Railroad Company, president of the Powers Hotel Company, president of the Rochester Gas Company, a trustee of the Rochester Trust & Safe Deposit Company, member of the com- mission appointed by the legislature to supervise the elevation of the Central Railroad track through the city, etc., etc. He aided largely in building up the central business property of Rochester, of which he was a considerable owner, and in developing the valuable water power of the lower falls of the Genesee river, connected with which he had large interests.


In all his walks Patrick Barry was an upright man-a model of indus- try, integrity and honor. No one in the city where he lived his busy and eventful life was held in higher esteem by his fellow citizens; and the life of no man in Rochester furnished a better example or stronger incentive to the youth of the present day who would make for themselves a spotless name and achieve enduring fame.


Mr. Barry married in 1847 Harriet Huestis, a native of Richfield, Otsego county, New York. Eight children were born of this union, six sons and two daughters. Five sons and one daughter, the eldest, have passed away; the eldest son and the youngest daughter are living. Mr. Barry died June 23, 1890, and while fruit growing remains an industry of the country his mem- ory will be cherished as the promoter of valuable knowledge along this line. In his home city, where he was widely known, he had a very large circle of friends, and his own life was an exemplification of the Emersonian philosophy that "the way to win a friend is to be one."


James Harris


ames Harris


T HE PEOPLE of Fairport and Monroe county are to be congratulated upon a character of such elevation and purity of purpose and such a devotion to the highest and best interests of the state as have been exhibited in the private and public life of James Harris. Although he has reached his eighty-sixth year, he is still alert and interested in the progress going on around him. As he looks back to his own boyhood and compares the thought and life of those days with what he sees today, wonderful, almost miraculous, the change must seem. He has ever been in harmony with this spirit of advancement and yet manifests an interest therein such as few men of his years possess. Descend- ed from Scotch ancestry, whose sterling characteristics he seems to have inher- ited, he has ever commanded the respect and confidence of the business world and his social acquaintances and has ever been a recognized factor for good in the community in which he resides.


His paternal grandfather, William Harris, Sr., was a man of marked ability who became a leader in public thought and action in the community in which he lived. He wedded Mary Kilpatrick, who came of a distinguished family of the highlands of Scotland, the ancestry being traced back to the times of Wallace and Bruce. The emigration to America was made in 1802 and the first home was in a Scotch settlement established by Sir William Johnson in what was then Montgomery county.


William Harris, Jr., the eldest son of William and Mary (Kilpatrick) Harris, was married in April, 1806, at the age of twenty-two years to Sallie Shoecraft, the eldest daughter of John Shoecraft, who was a patriot of the Revolutionary war, enlisting from Ulster county, New York, and serving un- der General Washington. After American independence had been established he was married in Washington county, New York, to Betsey McKee, who was also of Scotch parentage, the family, however, being prominent among the early settlers of that part of New York, whence they afterward removed to Fulton county. The year 1806 witnessed the removal of William Harris, Jr., and his young bride, to the Genesee country. They were accompanied by her father and his family, and settlements were made in what is now the town of Webster in Monroe county. Mr. Shoecraft and his two sons were members of the State Militia at the time of the war of 1812. Intimately iden-


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Mysoul Summe


Myron UM. Greene


M YRON W. GREENE, who conducts a private bank- ing and investment business in Rochester and acts as executor, administrator and trustee of estates and trust funds, has gained distinction in financial cir- cles, and is a representative of one of the oldest and most prominent American families. He is the author of a family genealogy from 1639 to 1891. His grandfather, Nathan Greene, married Maria Greene, a descendant of John Greene, of Warwick, Rhode Island, to which line belongs General Nathaniel Greene, hero of the war of the Revolution and contemporary with General George Washington.


John Greene, of Quidnessett, Rhode Island, was fifteenth in descent from Lord Alexander de Greene de Boketon, who received his titles and estates A. D. 1202, head and founder of the "Greene line;" ninth in descent from Sir Henry Greene, Lord Chief Justice of England, who died in 1370; and on the "Capetian line" was twenty-fifth in descent from Robert the Strong, made Duke de France in A. D. 861; twenty-second from King Hugo Capet; and nineteenth from Hugh de Vermandois, the great crusader. In the Revo- lutionary war Samuel Greene of Rhode Island sent eight sons into the war, a record no one else ever equalled and Joseph Greene, of New York, volun- teer, twelve years old, was the youngest soldier of the same war. The Greene family, so closely identified with the early history of Rhode Island, have enjoyed more state and civic honors than any other family, within her bor- ders, there being more Greenes in the state than of any other name whatever and extending over a period of nearly three hundred years of American history not one has been found to have ever been convicted of crime and not one who was a drunkard. The Greene coat-of-arms, with the motto, "Nec Timeo, Nec Sperno," consists of three bucks trippant on an azure field, as it was borne by the founder of the line. The crescent, a mark of cadency, denoting the line of a second son, is used by all the Warwick and Quidnes- sett Greenes.


Ira W. Greene, father of our subject, was a native of Monroe county, New York, born at Greene's Corners, now Mann's Corners, in the township of Rush, on the 2nd of May, 1832. He was a man of distinguished pres- ence and commanding influence in politics, although never aspiring or accept- ing office. For twenty-five years he was superintendent of the Sunday school


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mpron 00. Greene


and president of the board of trustees of the Rush Methodist Episcopal church, his father, Nathan Greene, having settled on a farm in this county in 1804. For many years Ira W. Greene carried on business as a farmer and dealer in live stock, coal and produce. He was also propagator and grower of choice field seeds and figured for many years as a respected and worthy resi- dent of this county, being, at the time of his death, which occurred on the 22nd of June, 1905, one of the oldest native sons of the county. On the distaff side Myron W. Greene is also a descendant from an old pioneer family of western New York. His mother, who bore the maiden name of Hester Ann Ruliff- son, was born in Henrietta, Monroe county, daughter of Isaac Ruliffson. She died in April, 1866. The father was twice married and by his first wife had three children, two sons and one daughter, and by his second wife he had two sons and a daughter.




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