USA > New York > Franklin County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 37
USA > New York > Jefferson County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 37
USA > New York > Lewis County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 37
USA > New York > Oswego County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 37
USA > New York > St Lawrence County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 37
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THE STATE FAIR
When the new Republican party was sweeping everything before it in Northern New York in the presidential year of 1856, the state fair was held at Watertown on grounds through which Keyes avenue now runs, south of Academy street and east of Jay street. Rain ruined the attendance on the first two days. An exhibition of the paintings of Jonah Woodruff, noted Watertown artist of the period, was a feature of the fair, dividing attention with a recently invented washing machine and Fairbanks' oscillating steam engine. Three long trains brought farmers from St. Lawrence county on the third day. Attendance was estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000. The last day it topped 30,000, the largest attendance of any day of the fair. The Rome & Watertown Railroad took in more than $11,000 in excursion receipts, and the Potsdam & Watertown Railroad, al-
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though only completed at that time from Watertown to Gouverneur, took in more than $5,000. In fact so profitable was the fair to the railroads that when the state fair was held in Watertown a second time on the present county fair grounds in 1860, each railroad promptly donated $1,000 to the expense fund.
THE OLD-TIME CIRCUS
This was the golden age of the wagon show. The circus was always sure of a crowd, even when it played two days in a village which was common enough in that day. What a weird sight was the circus traveling at night. A man on horseback always rode ahead with a blazing torch. Then came the elephant, or elephants, if the circus was fortunate enough to possess them, followed by a long line of wagons, each with a driver nodding in his seat. The old time wagon show was on the road at three o'clock in the morning at the latest. Just before reaching a village the caravan would come to a halt and the performers would change to their costumes. The clowns would besmear their faces and then the whole procession would move into the village, band playing, wagons gayly decorated and clowns hard at their antics. This was the street parade of the 1840s and 1850s.
Some of the best known of the circuses of that day, which were well known in Northern New York, were Spaulding and Rodgers North American Circus, with its immense music wagon, drawn by forty horses; Sands, Nathan & Co. American Circus and Great Ele- phant Exhibition, featuring trained elephants and a steam caliope ; Howe and Company's Circus and Menagerie, which featured Dan Rice, the famous clown, and another clown, not then so famous, Dan Emmett, who later as a minstrel was to give to the world "Dixie," the battle hymn of the Confederacy. Later, in 1851, Dan Rice's own circus toured through the north, featuring not only the famous clown but also J. P. O'Connell, the tatooed man. This circus appeared that season in Oswego, Fulton and Phoenix. Most famous of all, however, was P. T. Barnum's Asiatic Caravan, Museum and Menagerie which toured the North Country in 1852. Ten elephants drew the great band wagon from village to village. Behind the band wagon on the back of a calf elephant was Gen. Tom Thumb, even then famous throughout the world. The great tent, made entirely of American
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flags and waterproof, was also a source of wonder. It was reputed that it could accommodate 15,000 people. The circus boasted of 110 horses and ninety men. There was Nellis, the man without arms; Pierce, the noted animal trainer, and the wax statuary which had amazed and horrified countless thousands. In the menagerie were six lions and a Burmese bull. Admission was twenty-five cents.
Other circuses which toured the North Country during this period were the National Circus, the Victory Arena and Great Western Circus, which had eighty men and the Boston Brass Band, the Grand Menagerie, "late from the New York Zoological Gardens," which included a stuffed girafe in its collection, P. H. Nichols Grecian Arena and Classic Circus with Willis' New York Brass Band, and the Great Zoological Exhibition, whose band wagon was drawn by four elephants.
The circus tent in those days was what is known as a round top, with one center pole and the only ring encircling that pole. It was not until some time later that more than one pole was used and not until the 1870s that two rings were introduced. It was the time of the talking, singing clown. The pantomine, so necessary to the clown of today, was not needed. There was no cook tent or horse tent in those days, but there was a tent for the animals and one used as a dressing room for the performers. There were many famous circus men in those days. "Old John" Robinson was one. Then there were Isaac Quick and his son, G. C. Quick, both proprietors of traveling shows; James Robinson, the most famous circuit rider of his day ; Lewis June; "Doc" Spaulding, one time Albany druggist; the Aymars and Van Amburgh, the musician. It was "Doc" Spaulding who first invented quarter poles. He also invented the eleven-tier seat, to take the place of the customary seven and eight-tier seat. He ran the first railroad show in 1856.
The early circus owner was always obliging. Should he appear in a town on the Fourth of July his band always took part in the cele- bration and sometimes his performers, too. There is even a record of a time in the thirties when a circus participated in a funeral in Watertown, the elephants leading the cortege to the cemetery.
HADDOCK'S BALLOON TRIP
Then came 1859, the year of the big ballooning. Wise, Hyde, Gaeger and La Mountain had just attempted their trip from St. Louis
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to New York in the great balloon, Atlantic, a trip which, by the way, ended in a tree top near Henderson, Jefferson county. Nevertheless the trip they made, from St. Louis to Henderson, was by far the longest balloon trip on record and stirred the imagination of the en- tire country. Particularly did it arouse the interest of the people of Northern New York in the subject of ballooning. The Atlantic was repaired and La Mountain with a companion, John A. Haddock, a young newspaper editor of Watertown, conceived the idea of making an ascension. The ascension was duly made on September 22, 1859, a little before six in the evening. A great crowd stood on Public Square, Watertown, waving farewell to the balloonist, whom, it was expected, would be away ten or twelve hours at the longest. The balloon arose to a great height and drifted rapidly northward. At half past eight, the balloon descended in the midst of a great forest. The aeronauts had been up a little more than three hours. They attached their balloon to a tree and went to sleep in a heavy rain storm. The next morning, they again ascended in their balloon, saw nothing below excepting primeval forest and decided to descend. They had not a mouthful of food with them, no means of making a fire, had not even a pocket knife for a weapon and not the slightest idea of where they were.
They did have a compass, however, and setting a course due south, started their trek through the woods. After traveling for some days they came upon an empty barrel, which had contained pork, and which was marked "Montreal," which showed them that they were in Canada, as they had suspected. They spent the night in an abandoned log hut, made a crude raft the next morning and started poling down a creek which they thought surely must lead to the Ottawa river and civilization. Each ate a raw frog, the only food they had had since leaving Watertown. The following morning they took their raft to pieces to get it through a rapids, tied it to- gether once more and again set sail. In this way four days passed. Their food had consisted of a raw frog apiece, four clams and a few wild berries. It had rained constantly. They were soaked to the skin, their clothes were in tatters and they were so weak they could hardly go on. But that day they came upon a lumbering party, were taken in, fed and cared for. What was their surprise to learn that they were 180 miles due north of Ottawa, nearly 300 miles from
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Watertown. The aeronauts succeeded in reaching Ottawa on the twelfth day from the time they had left Watertown and Haddock telegraphed from there to Watertown the news that he and La Moun- tain were safe.
As soon as the citizens of Ottawa discovered that the bearded, disheveled strangers were the "lost balloon men," no honor was too great to accord them. The next morning they left Ottawa for Pres- cott, crossed to Ogdensburg, where another enthusiastic reception awaited them and from thence proceeded to Watertown by rail. At Watertown the whole town was out to welcome them. An old cannon had been brought out and thundered forth a salute. Haddock was received as one from the dead. All the rest of his life he was known as the man who had made the great balloon voyage.
THE AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE COMPANY
During the fifties also was organized a company which in the course of time was to become one of the major business enterprises of Northern New York. The Agricultural Insurance Company was formed in 1853 at Evans Mills. Risks were to be confined to farm residences and as there were but 5,500 farms in Jefferson county at the time to gather in $100,000 of premium notes based upon insur- ance applied for, to meet the requirements for a charter, was a task of great magnitude. However, it was accomplished. An early ad- vertisement stressed the fact that in most companies the farmers were made to pay for losses in the cities where at that time the danger of a conflagration was greater. In January, 1855, the secre- tary reported assets, excluding premium notes, of $5,387.09, incurred losses of $14, expenses of $688.26 and 1,324 policies in force. This same year the company transferred its main offices from the ball room of the old Whitney House at Evans Mills. In 1863 the Agricul- tural was chartered as a stock company and began to broaden its activities. The company now operates in every state in the Union and in Mexico and Canada. It owns and occupies a half million dollar building in Watertown and reported assets in 1928 of upwards of $13,000,000. The president of the Agricultural Insurance Com- pany in 1931 was Harvey R. Waite.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BIRTH OF THE CITIES
OSWEGO, THE FIRST NORTH COUNTRY CITY-WATERTOWN AND THE GREAT FIRE OF 1849-OGDENSBURG AS SEEN BY A VISITOR IN 1851-THE VIL- LAGE OF MALONE IN THE FIFTIES-FULTON AND THE GREAT FIRE OF 1851-THE VILLAGES OF PULASKI AND LOWVILLE-WEALTHY NORTH- ERN NEW YORKERS OF THE FIFTIES.
Of all the thriving villages of the North Country of pre-Civil War days, Oswego, with its hitching posts and stone warehouses, its busy flour mills and its great harbor filled with shipping, was the first to become a city. It was in 1848 that Oswego proudly announced to the world her city status and elected her first mayor. It was then a place of upwards of 10,000 people, whose whole life centered about the busy waterfront. In every sense of the word it was a lake town, a town of sailors and ship builders, and like all ports something of a cosmopolitan place with the Union Jack drooping from a score of masts in the harbor and sailors from Kingston and Brockville and Toronto sipping rum in the barrooms along West First and Water streets. There were already wealthy men in the Oswego of the forties and most of this wealth had been made in the lake trade which in turn supported Oswego's two little banks and most of the mer- chants in whose shops one could buy goods from Montreal as easily as merchandize from Albany and Syracuse.
Indeed the lake was the life blood of Oswego even though the wood-burning locomotives which puffed in from Syracuse twice a day over the newly-laid tracks were beginning to bring their share of business, too. But it would be long before the railroad, proud as Oswego was to be thus connected with the world to the southward and eastward, could ever measure up to the lake. Three hundred
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sails, the editor of the Oswego Palladium counted in the harbor one summer's day, and he said it was no unusual sight. No one in Oswego doubted that Oswego would some day be a far larger town than Buffalo. Had not its population tripled in less than ten years? Did it not have the largest flouring mill in the United States? Was not its total annual volume of lake trade well over $20,000,000?
Indeed Oswego had reason for its optimism. In five years, from 1844 to 1849, its canal tolls had jumped from $133,444 to $280,680. To give some idea of the business in Oswego at that time, it must be known that in 1849 there was shipped from Oswego by canal 888,307 barrels of flour, 1,063,462 bushels of wheat and 401,178 bushels of corn. The building of the Oswego canal had brought the first wave of prosperity to Oswego; the completion of the Welland canal brought the second. So Oswego named its newest hotel The Welland and Oswego business men in their high beaver hats and long-tailed coats decided that elevators must surely be built to accommodate the flow of wheat.
Already Oswego was widely known. Travelers were always com- ing and going, landing from the canal packets or from the "cars" or standing about the pier, carpet bag in hand, waiting for the arrival of one of the big side-wheeler steamers which would take them to Ogdensburg or Kingston or Charlotte. There was business aplenty for the hotels and the Welland, the big United States, the Oswego and the Frontier were always crowded. So much was this so that there was already a demand for a larger hotel. Enterprising builders were taking advantage of the boom. A correspondent in the Oswego Palladium complained that no one could make a living with an ordinary store renting for from $400 to $500 a year, so an epidemic of building started and soon the Oswego papers were boasting of a five-story, brick business block completed and others in the process of completion. Some of these buildings erected in Oswego in the boom period of the forties still stand along Bridge street.
There were now two banks, Luther Wright's Bank, which in the course of time was to be succeeded by the Lake Ontario Bank, and the City Bank. Before the Civil War Oswego was to have two more banks, the Marine Bank and the Oswego City Savings Bank. No town on the lakes did a more extensive flouring business. By 1850 Oswego had a total of eighteen such mills, including the celebrated
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Seneca Mills just south of Oswego on Seneca Hill, which had a daily capacity of 1,200 barrels of flour and were reputed to be the largest in the United States. Some of the best known of the others were the Lake Ontario Mills, the Pearl Mills, the Express Mills, the Ex- change Mills, the Premium Mills, the Star Mills, the Atlas Mills, the Ontario Mills, the Eagle Mills, the Washington Mills and the Empire Mills. And the very year that Oswego was incorporated as a city, the new industry moved to town, the firm of T. Kingsford & Son which for two years past had been operating in a small way in Bergen, New Jersey, manufacturing starch from Indian corn. Probably the arrival of Mr. Kingsford and his son, Thomson, a prac- tical machinist, and the erection of their little plant, caused little excitement in Oswego, where all attention was focused on the lake front, but in less than a year the annual output of the Kingsford plant had jumped to 1,327,000 pounds and long before the Civil War Oswego starch was known throughout the length and breadth of the land.
The early Oswegoians, possibly because they were a lake-faring people, had given little attention to the building of churches, there being always too many piers and warehouses to be constructed, but long before Oswego assumed the dignity of a city that lack had been remedied and now the town boasted of seven churches. At the corner of West Fourth and Bridge streets stood the brand new Pres- byterian Church with its colonial front and in its tower the self- same bell which had pealed forth its summons from the steeple of the old church destroyed by fire in 1841. And over the river stood St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church, the largest in Oswego and proba- bly the largest in the entire North Country, a great stone structure where Oswego's constantly increasing Catholic population wor- shipped.
Then there was the architectural monstrosity known as the Taber- nacle, erected by that good friend of Oswego, Gerrit Smith, where various sects worshipped at various times. The old Episcopal Church still stood as did the old wooden Baptist Church. The Methodists had just built their fine new church at the corner of West Fourth and Oneida streets. There was the Second Presbyterian Church, soon to become the Congregationalist Church and the little frame building which was then St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, and which had
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just been erected under the inspiration of its first pastor, Rev. F. E. Foltier.
Of course Oswego, prosperous and business-like as it was, must have its Board of Trade, and the very year that Oswego became a city the Board of Trade was organized with the venerable Alvin Bronson as its first president. The weekly newspapers which had satisfied Oswego since 1819 no longer sufficed, so already there was a daily, the Oswego Commercial Times, and within a year or two there were to be two more, the Daily Palladium and the Daily Journal.
This, then, was the Oswego of 1848, first city in all Northern New York, a rambling place of wide, tree-shaded streets, a sailorman's town that looked towards the lake. Fine, new brick buildings and weather-beaten wooden stores stood side by side. There were a few fine stone mansions set back in the midst of spacious and attractive grounds, but mostly the unlovely, little, frame houses which had sprung up after the canal had been opened predominated. There was wealth and progressivism and optimism, but everybody still got their water from the pump in the back yard and not until the Civil War was well along was the first water works company organized. Kerosene lamps still lighted the stores but within a few years the first sputtering gas lights were to appear. Oswego, with jealous eyes on Buffalo, awaited the future with confidence.
This was the town which in 1848, using the river and Bridge street as lines of divisions, set up four wards and incorporated as a city. The first ward was all that portion of the city lying north of the center of Bridge street and east of the middle of the Oswego river. The second ward was that portion of the city lying north of the center of Bridge street but west of the Oswego river. The third ward comprised the remainder of the West Side, south of Bridge street, and the fourth ward, the remainder of the East Side, south of Bridge street. The first city election was held in April, 1848, and that sterling citizen of Oswego, James Platt, who was later to become state senator and president of the Board of Trade, was elected mayor. Orville J. Harmon was the first recorder, John M. Casey the first city clerk, Levi Beardsley the first city attorney, and Isaac L. Merriam the first city treasurer. Gilbert Mollison and Hunter Crane were elected aldermen from the first ward, George S. Alvord and John
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Boigeol alderman from the second ward, Stephen H. Lathrop and Robert Oliver, aldermen from the third ward, and Samuel H. Taylor and William S. Malcolm aldermen from the fourth ward.
PROMINENT RESIDENTS OF OLD OSWEGO
The time has now come to consider some of the men who led the business and political interests of Oswego at this time when it was the metropolis of the North Country. For example there was Wil- liam Duer, whose name one is constantly seeing in the old Oswego papers. Mr. Duer was a native of New York City and a graduate of Columbia College. He was a lawyer and did not come to Oswego until 1835 but almost immediately he became a person of prominence in the lake town. He was a member of the old village board and for four terms a member of the assembly. Then for two terms he was a Whig member of congress, devoting himself to securing federal aid for harbor improvements. Finally he became United States minister to Chili, which office ended his active political career.
For years Alvin Bronson occupied the foremost place in the busi- nes and public life of the village and city of Oswego. He came to Oswego in 1810 as the representative of Townsend, Bronson & Co. and immediately started building a schooner and erected a ware- house, and then and there the firm embarked upon an extensive for- warding and mercantile business. He held the position of military and naval storekeeper during the War of 1812 and was captured by the British when Oswego was taken. He served in the state senate and was largely responsible for the building of the Oswego canal. He was the first president of the Village of Oswego and the first president of the Board of Trade of Oswego. He was one of the incorporators of the company which built the first bridge across the Oswego river at Oswego and one of the first presidents of the Oswego County Agricultural Society. From 1835 to 1858 he was a member of the firm of Bronson & Crocker, one of the most important com- mercial and forwarding firms on the lake, they having at one time a fleet of twelve vessels. He was a man of considerable wealth and without exception the most prominent citizen of Oswego during a large part of his life. He died in 1881 at the great age of ninety- eight.
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George H. McWhorter was another citizen of importance in the infant City of Oswego. Beman Brockway, the editor of the Oswego Palladium, described him as a refined-appearing man with the habit of gazing at one over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses. He had been collector of the port under President Tyler and was a prominent man in the Democratic party, often being mentioned in the corre- spondence of Silas Wright and Martin Van Buren. He died in 1862.
Luther Wright, one of Oswego's first bankers, was a native of New Hampshire and started life as a school teacher. He came to Oswego in 1832 and first engaged in milling and forwarding. From 1842 on he was almost continually engaged in banking. Luther Wright's Bank has been already referred to. Later he was presi- dent of the Lake Ontario Bank and the Oswego City Savings Bank. He was the first treasurer of the Syracuse & Oswego Railroad Com- pany, was treasurer of the Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company and president of the Oswego Gas Light Company. His death occurred in 1885, at the age of eighty-six.
Edwin W. Clarke was the first village clerk of Oswego, was a school teacher in early life but later studied law, giving up practice in middle life to become identified with the Northwestern Insurance Company. He was one of the first trustees of Gerrit Smith Library and long a prominent figure in the business and public life of Oswego.
Other well known Oswegoians of that period were J. C. Ives, who had settled in Oswego in 1827, and became the most prominent builder of his period. It was he who did the mason work on the Varick canal and who built the Kingsford homestead, Alvin Bron- son's warehouse and many other stone structures. He died in 1861. Sylvester Doolittle had settled in Oswego in 1836. He had a ship- yard and built several vessels. He also built a flour mill and engaged in the forwarding business. Late in life he erected the Doolittle House at an expense, so it is said, of more than $200,000. He died in 1881. Thomas Kingsford, who came to Oswego in 1848, to estab- lish T. Kingsford & Son, starch makers, was a native of England, who had come to America in 1831 and found employment in a starch factory. The growth of the industry which he later established in Oswego was almost unprecedented, and in the course of time as many as 700 men were employed in the various Kingsford enterprises. He held many positions of trust, was presidential elector in 1864, was one
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of the early owners of Ames Iron Works, was the first president of the Oswego City Savings Bank, was the first president of the First National Bank, was one of the original incorporators of the Oswego Water Works Company and one of the first presidents of the Oswego Gas Light Company, to name only a few of the many enterprises in which he was engaged.
The old newspapers give a colorful picture of Oswego during this boom period. The Palladium of May 12, 1851, describes in glowing words the Littlefield Block, which had just been completed. "This noble block," said the Palladium, "is 100 feet long by fifty feet front, and the new block adjoining, now in rapid course of erection, will form one solid edifice 100 feet square, and five stories high. The in- terior style of the building is of the pure Corinthian order. The beau- tiful fresco work and elegant hard finish of the walls reflect the high- est credit upon the master workmen, Messrs. Hall and Morse. The carpenter work, executed by Mr. John Harsha, cannot be surpassed in durability and finish by any mechanic in the state
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