USA > New York > Franklin County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 47
USA > New York > Jefferson County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 47
USA > New York > Lewis County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 47
USA > New York > Oswego County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 47
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 47
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
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Gouverneur, a distance of six miles, in twenty minutes. It was a record which stood for a long time. Kilburn Bellinger of Watertown was the undisputed velocipede champion of Northern New York, however, in the old days. His velocipede was made by a wagon- maker in Heuvelton. Gradually, as more speed was desired, the size of the wheel was increased. The seat was moved forward until it was almost over the center and wire spokes and rubber tires were added for speed and comfort.
As the popularity of the bicycle increased, cycle clubs were estab- lished all over the North Country. On a Sunday many a merry group of cyclists was to be seen speeding along the country roads. Fifteen and even twenty miles an hour was common speed when there was a cinder path but such speed as this could not be maintained on the mud roads of the period. One famous cinder path was between Wa- tertown and the little resort village of Glen Park, There was always a cycle race at the county fairs. Certain favorite racers won consid- erable local fame. Such a man was F. C. Snyder of Lowville, but there were many others. A cycle race was always certain of attract- ing a large crowd in the old days. A typical race was held at Car- thage July 10th, 1890. A big parade, led by the fire department band, opened the entertainment. The village was thronged, visitors com- ing from Utica, Rome, Remsen, Lowville, Watertown and Copen- hagen. L. H. Johnson of Watertown acted as referee. F. C. Snyder of Lowville won the one-half mile safety in one minute, thirty-eight seconds. H. V. Gould won the Carthage championship and in the team race Carthage defeated Lowville.
In June, 1895, Second Lieutenant Hugh A. Wise, then attached to the Ninth Infantry at Madison Barracks, was dispatched as a courier from Madison Barracks to Gen. Nelson A. Miles at Gov- ernor's Island. The trip was to be made by bicycle. Wise and a com- panion started at 5:05 on the morning of June 9th. Spaulding wheels were used. Each carried a regulation soldier's equipment weighing thirty-five pounds and an army rifle. The first day they went 110 miles through Watertown, Copenhagen, Carthage, Boonville, Rome to Utica. That night they stayed in Utica. The trip to Governor's Island took four days. The total distance covered was 397 miles. This bicycle trip, sponsored as it was by the army, attracted wide attention at the time. Later Arthur C. Ives of Watertown rode from
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that city to Rome, a distance of eighty-five miles, in one day. He left Watertown at 4 a. m. and arrived at Rome at 2 p. m. Such trips as this always attracted attention in the eighties and nineties when prowess on a bicycle was a sure bid to popularity.
Just about the time the first, crude velocipedes were making their appearance in Northern New York, the first exhibition of Alexander Graham Bell's new invention, the telephone, was held in the North Country. This was in 1879, three years after the invention of the instrument by Bell. The set, a crude one of the old type with simply a box with a screened hole in it used as both transmitter and receiver, was brought to Watertown by a telegraph manager from Whitehall who loaned it to the late W. D. Hanchette, who later became one of the pioneer telephone company managers in Northern New York. One receiver was set up in Watertown and the other in Cape Vincent, twenty-five miles away, and the set was attached to a telegraph wire with the battery off. Conductor Thomas Cooper of the old Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad, was quite a musician and he was engaged to go to Cape Vincent with his musical instruments. The connection was established and Mr. Cooper gave a concert on the Cape Vincent end which was clearly heard by a crowd gathered about the instrument in Watertown. The words "hello," "yes" and "no" were clearly audible.
Soon after that a telephone company was organized in Watertown and a license secured to operate the system in the city and in the adjacent territory within a radius of eighteen miles. This exchange was opened March 1st, 1880, and it is recorded that a Miss Ida Merrick, a fourteen-year-old girl, was the first operator. The first toll line was strung from Watertown to Utica in 1883 and later lines were extended to Gouverneur, Ogdensburg, Canton, Potsdam, Theresa, Alexandria Bay, Clayton, Adams and Henderson. These lines were built under contract by William H. Weed of Mexico, Os- wego county, who received his pay in coupon books issued by the com- pany which could be used to pay for toll calls. The first telephone company was established in Ogdensburg in 1881 and the first com- pany in Malone in 1882.
A novel system of communication grew up somewhat later than this in Franklin and St. Lawrence counties. This was the establish- ment of the New York Union Telegraph Company with headquarters
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in Bangor, Franklin county. A. E. Russell, then postmaster of North Bangor, was the originator and the company started from a telegraph line between his house and that of a local doctor. Telegraph instru- ments were placed in private houses and in business establishments similar to the way telephones are installed now, the instruments being furnished for an annual rental of $6. Of course in order to talk to one's neighbors, one had to learn the Morse code but this proved to be an interesting way to spend the long, winter evenings and at one time Franklin county probably had more telegraph operators than any county in New York state.
The company was formed in 1891. Within three years it owned 100 miles of wire and rented 150 instruments. A few years later it was reported as owning 300 miles of wire, covering the two counties of St. Lawrence and Franklin as well as a portion of Canada, and operating in thirty-five villages where it had about 300 rentals. The central office was located in Bangor in a two-story, metal building, erected by Mr. Russell, who was secretary, treasurer and general manager. The novel appeal made by the New York Union Telegraph Company to the communities which it served can best be understood from the following article which appeared in a Franklin county newspaper of the period:
"It is better than waiting for slow mail service and who could wish for better training for their children? We have known whole families to learn telegraphy in a few months. It is very entertaining on a cold, winter's eve to sit down and talk with your friends far or near, as the case may be. Instances are known where some of our young men have saved more than double the rent of an instrument in horse hire and foot wear. Try it, young men. Rent an instrument from the N. Y. U. Co. before the winter is upon you and the snow banks begin to pile up, and you will never care to wander from your fireside."
The New York Union Telegraph Company was later taken over by the St. Lawrence Telephone Company and the wires of the old company became the nucleus of the network of telephone lines that now link together every community in that section of the state.
The electric light of the old arc variety was introduced to North- ern New York as a novelty. One of the first exhibitions of "Edison's new electric light" was in Watertown on July 4th, 1880. In fact the
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electric light was the main feature of the celebration although a steam wagon from Pulaski was also widely advertised. The electric light was strung up on the American corner, so called, near the present Woolworth Building, and its brilliance amazed the people.
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
"Remember the Maine!" How often one comes across that battle cry in the Northern New York newspapers of the days of '98. How the war fever raged. Columns about suffering Cuba filled the news- papers. At Malone, Watertown, Ogdensburg and Oswego the old separate companies drilled and held "hops" to raise money to buy socks and shirts. At Madison Barracks the Ninth United States Infantry, one of the most famous regiments in the army, packed up and got ready for the order to move. Everyone wanted to serve in the army in the first wave of enthusiasm. At Gouverneur, Fire Com- pany Number One offered its services as a unit. District Attorney Frank H. Peck of Jefferson county, a graduate of West Point, tired of waiting for a commission, enlisted as a private. The old 186th regiment of Civil War fame held a reunion and General Bradley Winslow, its old commander, delivered an inspiring patriotic address. The people deplored the fact that the war had brought up the price of coal to $5.20 a ton, and everyone took a night off to see Joseph Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle when he toured the North Country in the spring of 1898. Then the Ninth Infantry received its long ex- pected orders.
Headed by the Sackets Harbor band playing "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," the veterans of the Ninth, 600 odd strong, swung into line and marched to the railroad station while the people cheered. An immense crowd gathered at the railroad station in Watertown to cheer the men in blue fatigue uniforms as the long train steamed slowly through the city. The Ninth, for six years sta- tioned at Madison Barracks, and containing many North Country men, was off to the front. It brought the war home to the people of Jefferson county. At Utica there was another demonstration as the train passed through. It was a novel sight then to see troops moving to war.
The militia companies waited impatiently for orders. A number decided to wait no longer and enlisted in the 71st Volunteers. Among
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them was Lewis W. Carlisle, member of the well known Watertown family and a brother of that Floyd L. Carlisle who later became one of the principal owners of hydro-electric power in the United States. Lewis Carlisle, who was only twenty years of age, was severely wounded at Santiago and died in St. Paul's Hospital Brooklyn, July 28th, 1898.
Finally members of militia companies were given the opportunity to go to the front. Seventy-five members of the 40th Separate Com- pany of Ogdensburg volunteered to serve under Captain Martin Bovard. The vounteers were given a banquet by the citizens and $717 in money. Two thousand people gathered at the railroad sta- tion to cheer the company as it left for camp. Sixty members of the 39th Separate Company at Watertown enlisted under Captain James S. Boyer, and so it went. The Northern New York companies were assigned to the 203rd regiment. The Watertown company, under Captain Boyer, became Company E of this regiment. The Ogdens- burg company, under Captain Bovard, became Company H, and the Malone company, under Captain J. A. Gray, became Company M. The regiment was first stationed at Camp Black, Homestead, Long Island, then at Meadville, Pennsylvania, and finally at Greenville, South Carolina.
THE "HORSELESS CARRIAGE"
The "Fighting Ninth," its ranks thinned by disease and casualties received in the Battle of Santiago, had scarcely returned to its old post at Sackets Harbor, and fever-weakened veterans of the old Northern New York Separate Companies to their homes at Water- town, Oswego, Malone and Ogdensburg, when the first "horseless carriages" appeared. They were curiosities at first of course. One was the main attraction at the Potsdam fair. Farmers were irri- tated and cyclists amused. Wiseacres shook their heads and said they thought they would stick to the horse. But finally came the day when the venturesome automobilist drove his car from Syracuse to Watertown. True it took him the whole day and in the neighborhood of the village of Sandy Creek the sand in the road was almost up to his hubs, but finally about nine o'clock in the evening, sounding his "musical bell," he puffed into Public Square, Watertown. (His car was a steamer.) The "horseless carriage" had demonstrated its
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worth. The sales slogan of one of these early automobiles, "No sand too deep; no grade too steep" now began to take on added meaning.
The Foster Steamers, the two-cylinder Maxwells and the Loco- mobiles were the first automobiles to make their appearance in Northern New York. They puffed and rattled along the streets in- spiring terror in all horses and curiosity in all pedestrians. Fifteen miles an hour was fast speed. Most people thought they were noth- ing but an expensive toy. The late Louis W. Moore of Watertown made what was probably the first extended trip in an automobile of any Northern New Yorker, going to the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo in his car. Later he drove to Saratoga. It took him six weeks to make the trip, during three of which his automobile was in blacksmith shops along the way for repairs. The car frightened a horse and suit was brought against Mr. Moore based on the old law that required engines moving along the highway to be preceded by a man carrying a red flag by day and a red lantern by night. Mr. Moore paid $200.
The first garages were bicycle shops and blacksmith shops. The old steamers used gasoline to generate steam and this was bought in drug stores at a price about the same as is charged today. In 1899 it took L. G. DeCant from seven in the morning until eight at night to drive from Cape Vincent to Watertown in a Locomobile Steamer. One of the first automobile accidents in Northern New York occurred in 1903 when Chauncey Buckford of Roberts Corners, demonstrating his new automobile to his friends, drove into Sandy Creek. The car turned over twice and landed upright in the shallow water without injury to the driver. The mud roads of the period prevented high speed but on Memorial Day, 1906, John R. Van Amber drove a six- cylinder car from Public Square, Watertown, to the Weiting Opera House in Syracuse in two hours and forty-five minutes, a record which stood for some time.
THE ERA OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL
Professional football made its appearance in Northern New York in 1899 and 1900. Watertown, Carthage and Ogdensburg had well known teams. There were also football teams at St. Lawrence Uni- versity at Canton and the Clarkson Memorial School of Technology at Potsdam which commonly played the professional teams with no
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loss of standing. At first the town teams were made up largely of local players but gradually interest in the sport increased. There was bitter rivalry throughout Northern New York, every game attracted large crowds and the revenue was such that famous college gridiron stars could be employed. A big football game meant a holiday. Everything closed up and everyone went. Special trains were employed to bring football enthusiasts from nearby places.
Consider the big game of December 6th, 1901, when Watertown and Ogdensburg played at Glen Park for the championship of North- ern New York. There was never more interest in an athletic contest in the North Country. Although the game was not to occur until Saturday the fans from out of town started to arrive Wednesday. From Potsdam came a delegation of one hundred wearing the green and gold of Clarkson. From Canton came a throng of St. Lawrence students wearing ribbons of scarlet and brown, the college colors. Gouverneur sent 100 fans. Carthage sent more than 500. Delega- tions came from Adams, Clayton, Cape Vincent and Sackets Harbor.
On the day of the game every store and shop in Watertown closed. Many stores employed special trolley cars to take their employes to the football field. Employes of the Agricultural Insurance Company went to the game in "hacks" hired by the company. The Jefferson County Board of Supervisors adjourned for the game. From Ogdensburg came a special train of twenty coaches with the Ogdens- burg football team, a band and 1,000 fans. The black and yellow of Ogdensburg and the red and black of Watertown were everywhere in evidence. Five thousand people witnessed the game which resulted in a victory for Watertown by the score of 23 to 0.
The victory over Ogdensburg increased football interest in Water- town. The Red and Black team of 1903 was undoubtedly the best known professional football team in America. Mayor James B. Wise was the manager and he gathered together a notable collection of football stars. Draper, the former Williams star, was the captain. The Watertown team opened that season by winning from the Cort- land Normal team by the score of 140 to 6. Later Carthage was de- feated 21 to 6 and Bucknell College 22 to 6. Football in Watertown had developed into a Big Business. That year it cost the manage- ment something like $15,000 in salaries, no small sum for that day. The climax of the season was the football tournament at Madison
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Square Garden in New York City for the professional football cham- pionship of America. The deciding game was played between Wa- tertown and the Franklin Athletic Club of Philadelphia, managed by "Connie Mack," who later won fame as a baseball manager. Wa- tertown lost 12 to 0, and with that defeat professional football died in Northern New York. Mayor Wise lost $8,000 on the tournament. Interest in the game waned and within a few years the Red and Black team became simply a memory.
CLARKSON COLLEGE
In an earlier chapter reference has been made to the Clarkson family, who owned great tracts of land in Potsdam and vicinity. David Clarkson, junior, was a prominent resident of the City of New York in Revolutionary days. He was a member of the first board of governors of King's College, now Columbia, a vestryman and warden of Trinity Church and a member of the board of the first hospital to be erected in New York City. Later he was an earnest Patriot and a member of the Provincial Congress as well as a mem- ber of the Committee of One Hundred. One of his sons, Matthew Clarkson, was a distinguished general in the Continental army. Other sons were Thomas Streatfield and Levinus. They with Matthew and Matthew's grandson, John C. Clarkson, bought some four-fifths of the present town of Potsdam and to Potsdam came John C. Clark- son to look after the family estate, building the great Clarkson manor house, Holcroft.
It was the descendants of the Clarksons who endowed in 1895 what was to be known as the Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology at Potsdam. Three sisters, the Misses Elizabeth, Frederica and Lavina Clarkson, founded the school as a memorial to their brother, who had always in mind the establishment of a vocational school for the training of young men and women. Origi- nally only one engineering course, electrical engineering, was given, but there were courses in domestic science and even courses through which young women could fit themselves to be cooks and waitresses. The sandstone building, now the main building of the college, was constructed and the school opened its doors to students under the supervision of Director Charles W. Eaton September 2nd, 1896. Fifty-five students enrolled. In 1897, the board of trustees appointed
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Barton Cruikshank as director and professor of mathematics to re- place Mr. Eaton. The first class, three girls who had completed the two-year course in domestic science, was graduated Monday, June 27, 1898.
But in 1900 came the beginning of the movement to convert the school into one for men. A course in mechanical engineering, open to men only, was established. In June, 1900, the first class to be granted the degree of bachelor of science was graduated, three young men, and one granted the degree of mechanical engineering. In the fall of 1900 a course in civil engineering was added, and it became apparent that the Clarkson school was destined to become a college of engineering. In 1901 William S. Aldrich was appointed director of the school and during his administration Clarkson experienced the greatest expansion which had occurred thus far in its history. The department of domestic science was abolished. The first fraternity was formed and the college definitely entered upon an era of develop- ment which was to make it one of the best known colleges of engineer- ing in the country.
The president of Clarkson College in 1931 is Dr. Joseph Eugene Rowe, an educator and administrator of the first rank. The presi- dent of the Board of Trustees in 1931 is Representative Bertrand H. Snell. Benefactions by the Clarkson family have continued through the years until finally the entire estate at Potsdam, ideally fitted for a college campus, passed into the ownership of trustees. Much of this land is on a hill overlooking the Racket river and the Village of Potsdam, one of the most beautiful situations imaginable. Ad- joining it is the Snell Athletic Field, so named in honor of Congress- man B. H. Snell, who gave the funds to fit up the field.
TWO FAMOUS NORTH COUNTRY WOMEN
During the latter part of the nineteenth century there were no two better known women in the United States than Marietta Holley and Dr. Mary Walker. Both were born many years before the Civil War, Marietta Holley near Pierrepont Manor, Jefferson county, Dr. Mary Walker near the City of Oswego. The names of both became in the course of time household words, and both lived to venerable old age, dying in comparatively modern times. There, however, the similarity ceased. Marietta Holley was a quiet, dignified and rather
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shy woman, both a suffragette and a prohibitionist it is true, but she preached her doctrine through her books which had an amazing popularity and were the "best sellers" of the eighties and nineties. There was nothing shy on the other hand about Dr. Mary Walker, the apostle of dress reform for women. She traveled from coast to coast in male attire and ridicule and jeers never disturbed her a whit. She was outspoken in her opposition to both intoxicating liquor and tobacco and won a reputation for being a past master of vitrolic expression.
Marietta Holley was born in 1836 and died at Bonnie View, her Pierrepont Manor Home, in 1926. She never aspired to be a writer of dialect but rather preferred to write essays and poems. As a poet she had indifferent success but as the creator of the famous "Samantha" stories she achieved world wide fame. "Samantha" was for many years one of the best known and mose widely quoted characters in American fiction. Miss Holley wrote as "Josiah Allen's Wife" and won her first fame in the early 1870s with "My Opinions and Betsy Bobbett's." For fifty years she wrote books and for over twenty years her stories were classed among the best sellers of the period. Educated in the district school she started writing as a child. For years she wrote for the Ladies Home Journal. During the mid- 1880s it was said that Marietta Holley was the highest paid woman writer in America. "Samantha at the Centennial" and "Samantha at Saratoga" sold up towards the million mark. The whole country laughed at the doings of "Josiah Allen's Wife." She wrote of simple people and homely ways and caricatured with an extremely able pen.
Despite the whimsical, ludicrous humor of Marietta Holley's books, there was a serious vein running through them with the defi- nite purpose of exposing some wrong or of advancing some just cause. Every book contained pleasant, sugar-coated preachments on every subject, especially the marriage relationship concerning which Miss Holley presumably knew nothing. One of the most quoted expressions of Josiah Allen's wife was: "No woman can feel honorable and reverential towards themselves when they are foldin' their useless hands over their empty souls and waitin' for some man -no matter who-to marry 'em and support 'em." "Samantha" went around the world, although no one could ever get Miss Holley on a ship. "Samantha" went to the Centennial and delighted thou-
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sands with her descriptions of that exhibition, but Miss Holley never went there.
As a matter of fact Marietta Holley traveled comparatively lit- tle. Occasionally she went to Saratoga, the Thousand Islands, Wash- ington and New York, but mostly she preferred to spend her time in her own home near Pierrepont Manor. Here she had fireplaces, antique rugs and flowers everywhere and in her library surrounded by the autogaphed photographs of her friends she wrote and read, receiving graciously a few, close friends. She loved her home and as she grew older it became even dearer to her. One of her last poems and perhaps her best insisted that
"The sunrise softer, sweeter glows, The sunset has a brighter rose The summer's golden glories seem To gild the world with warmer gleam, And deeper seem the skies far blue Above the fields of Bonnie View."
Dr. Mary Walker, too, always spoke with affection of her home on Bunker Hill, near Oswego. To Bunker Hill she invited the Ger- man kaiser and the premiers of the warring nations during the World War to negotiate for peace. But travel was no novelty to Dr. Mary Walker. She was a familiar figure at the Capitol in Washington and in a score of other cities. She made an extended trip abroad where she was accorded almost royal honors, but it was to Oswego, when old and infirm, that she returned to die.
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