Sunday, March 25, 2012

GENESEE VALLEY CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE



 Change of address:

As of April 2nd group president Donna Payne
will be living in Le Roy, New York

She will be at 118 Gilbert Street
Lower Apartments
14482

Her new phone number will be:
585 768-9246

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

CENTRAL / WESTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE / 1822





Jan 3                       
Abolitionist Gerrit Smith marries Ann (Nancy) Carroll Fitzhugh, daughter of William Fitzhugh, one of Rochester’s founders, at that city's St. Luke's Church.

Jan 6                       
Buffao mayor Solomon Scheu is born near Standenbehl, Bavaria.

February           
Geneva businessmen, dissatisfied with the Seneca Lock Navigation Company’s plans, issue a report advocating a Susquehanna and St. Lawrence Canal. Nothing comes of the plan.    **    Rochesterville’s third village census show a population of 2,700, plus 430 laboring on public works.

Feb 22
Chili township is created out of Riga township.

Feb 27                       
Rochesterville’s Female Charitable Society is founded.

Mar 8                       
Rochesterville civic leader Edwin S. Hayward is born in Charlton, Massachusetts, to future Brighton pioneer Nathaniel Hayward.

Mar 12                       
Pittsford businessman Patrick Malone is born in County Clare, Ireland, to
 storekeeper Thomas Malone and French woman Mary Cunningham Malone.

Mar 18                       
Joseph Yates wins the Republican nomination for governor.

Mar 22                       
Two Tompkins County towns, Caroline and Danby, are annexed from Tioga County township.    **    Monroe County Town of Greece is formed from the Town of Gates.

Apr 12                       
The village of Rochesterville is officially renamed Rochester.

Apr 13                           
The Walk-in-the-Water is refloated, beating the May 1st deadline.    **    The Orleans County town of Oak Orchard (later Carlton) is formed from Gaines and Ridgeway.

Apr 16                       
The Chemung County towns of Big Flats and Southport are incorporated.

Apr 17                       
The Orleans County town of Yates is founded from Ridgeway, as the town of                                                                                Northton.

Apr 29                       
Montour fruit farmer George C. Wickham is born in Hector, to Mr. and Mrs. William Wickham.

May 22                       
The first bridge at Carthage collapses into the Genesee River.

June                       
Members of the Erie Canal Commission spend a week at Buffalo's Eagle Tavern listening to arguments of proponents for both Buffalo and Black Rock as the western terminus of the canal.

August                       
Rochester’s fourth village census shows a population of 4,274.

Aug 8                       
Buffalonians assemble at the Eagle Tavern, soon march down Main Street to the planned exit of the Erie Canal at Little Buffalo Creek. Presbyterian minister Mlles B. Squire offers prayers for the success of the project and several member of the group break ground.    **    Mechanical and hydraulics engineer Birdsill Holly is born in Auburn.

Sep 26                       
Mill owner Thomas Hart Rochester, son of community founder Nathaniel Rochester, marries Elizabeth P. Cumming at St. Luke's Church in Rochester.

Oct 29                       
The first boat with a cargo of Rochester flour leaves Hill’s Basin for Little Falls, via the Erie Canal, completed as far west as the Genesee River this year.

December
James Geddes proposes building canals from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.    **    Future western New York settler David Piffard emigrates from London to New York City, goes to work for the merchant firm LeRoy, Bayard and Company.

Dec 12
Cortland County farmer Albertus Starr Gillette is born in East Scott to Horatio Nelson Gillette and Marilla Starr Gillette.

Dec 19                       
New York’s Erie Canal Commission signs a contract with Samuel Wilkeson and Ebenezer Johnson, for building the dam at Tonawanda.


State
The first printing presses in Chemung, Niagara and Orleans counties.    **    A huge tree in Silver Creek is blown down in a storm. It will be hollowed out and have a room made in it.    **    The total value of shipments into Lake Ontario out of the Genesee River reaches $500,000.    **    Erastus Shepard ceases publication of the Western Republican, sends his materials to Elmira and takes a position as foreman at James Bogart's office in Geneva.    **    The Angelica Republican ceases publication.     **    Another treaty with the Onondaga reduces the size of their reservation a third time.    **    Newly appointed Le Roy land agent Jacob Le Roy, son of the former agent Herman Le Roy, enlarges the land office. It will one day become Le Roy House.    **    Gideon Granger, Postmaster General under Jefferson and Madison, dies in Canandaigua.    **    Gibbs and Company opens Batavia’s Genesee House inn, with Rastus Smith as landlord.    **    James L. Blodgett, the Hermit of Hermitage, is born to Hermitage pioneer Lewis Blodgett and his wife.    **    Hinman Holden leases his Town of Batavia inn to David Danold.    **    Geneva Hall, the first building on the campus of Geneva’s Hobart and William Smith Colleges, is built with community contributions.    **   John T. Patterson is elected as Monroe County’s second sheriff, serves until 1825.    **    The deed for Lewiston’s Oakwood Cemetery is issued.    **    Lockport is made the seat of Niagara County.    **    Amos Eaton publishes "A Geological Profile of the rocks from Onondaga Salt Springs, N.Y. to Williams College, Mass."    **    The 27th Congressional District is established, encompassing Livingston and Monroe counties. Moses Hayden is appointed First Judge of Livingston County.    **    The general election supervisory duties of the sheriff of Steuben County are transferred to the county clerk. The supervisor, town clerk and justices of the peace are made election inspectors.]    **    The Steuben County Agricultural Society holds their first fair, in Bath, aided by a $100 state appropriation. A race track is built and there are nine categories for the judging of cattle and sheep.    **    A portion of the Onondaga Salt Springs Reservation is sold off.    **    Canandaigua lawyer Walter S. Hubbell builds a home and a law office at 164 North Main Street.    **    Governor De Witt Clinton decides not to run for re-election.    **    The town of Brockport is laid out.    **    Jacob P. Groat and his family (including a cow) arrive in the Town of Arcadia by covered wagon. It's said the rough roads cause the milk to churn itself.    **     Combined revenue from the Erie and Chanplain canals totals $64,071.    **    All state public lands not already appropriated are given to the school fund.    **    Cortland Academy in the Military Tract at Homer (Onondaga County, later Cortland County) is given Lot 85 of Township 19.    **    David Johnson builds a dry dock at Port Byron.

Buffalo
South Pier, into Lake Erie, is completed.    **    Black Rock receives a $12,000 grant from Albany and begins building the Bird Island Pier into the Niagara River.    **    Ebenezer F. Norton sells the Eagle Tavern to New York City investors for $10,000. Benjamin Rathbun leases the tavern from them, begins making improvements.    **     Walk-in-the-Water builder Noah Brown arrives to build a replacement vessel.

Connewango
Calvin Treat builds a small grist-mill on Spring Brook, the first in the town. John Fairbanks and his wife Experience settle in town. Valentine Hill arrives from Ohio. Julius Gibbs arrives from Chautauqua County. General Seth Wood settles on the land abandoned by the Barton brother two years ago. He later moves to Ohio.    **    Samuel Cowley arrives from York, New York.

Erie Canal
The packet Myron Holley arrives in Bushnell's Basin, south of Rochester. The town of Fairport is created on that spot.     **    The canal reaches Palmyra.    **    The Erie Canal's Great Embankment is built, a mile in length and seventy feet high, to carry the canal over Rochester's Irondequoit Valley.    **    Hamilton opens an inn near South Lima.

Pittsford
Jacob Young buys a farm on Clover Street from F.  G. Reeve.    **    The Lusk family farmhouse is completed by Stephen and Sarah Lusk

Rochester(ville)
The  first court house is built.    **     The village’s population reaches 3,130 by year’s end.      **    Seven-year-old John S. Wilson arrives with his family from Massachusetts.    **    Trustees levy an annual license fee on gambling locations.     **    An attempt is made over the next two years to establish a water supply system for Rochester, but it fails because the current supply from wells and springs is adequate.    **    Construction on a new Erie Canal aqueduct across the Genesee River is begun. Grimsby sandstone quarried at the nearby village of Carthage is used. Mason William Morgan arrives to work on the aqueduct.    **    Printer Everard Peck begins publishing the Western Agricultural Almanac, with astronomical calculations by Lyman Wilmarth and innkeeper Oliver Loud, both of Bushnell's Basin.    **    Peck publishes The New England Primer and The Fashionable Letter Carrier or, Art of Polite Correspondence....    **    The Charlotte Lighthouse is built on Lake Ontario.    **    The Summerhays family business moves from Spring Street to new wooden storage sheds along the Erie Canal.    **    Five mills are in operation on the Genesee River millrace.    **    John Gilbert’s stone warehouse is completed.    **    The first permanent church building is erected. The previous three had only been temporary wooden structures.


© 2012  David Minor / Eagles Byte

Monday, March 19, 2012

Buffalo's Place in American Architectural History


D'Youville Welcomes Local Historian/Preservationist

Expert architectural historian and preservationist Martin Wachadlo will be presenting a lecture on Buffalo's place in American architectural history on Tuesday, March 20 in the Kavinoky Theater at D'Youville College. The turn-of-the-century building is the perfect location for Wachadlo's discussion, which will take listeners on a chronological journey through Buffalo's architectural evolution. 

"Last fall, the lecture was featured at the National Trust Conference held in Buffalo inside of the Common Council chambers to a capacity crowd," said Kathy Mecca of the Columbus Park Association, "so we are excited to offer this celebrated presentation to the community once again."  

Wachadlo's lecture will present his research on buildings produced by some of our nation's most prominent architects, and how our city's inheritance of these precious structures fits into the context of nationwide development. The discussion will also touch on the evolution of the historic waterfront Prospect Hill District and its residents' will to protect its integrity as the city continues to develop in the future. 

"Prospect Hill Neighborhood Alliance is proud to be the sponsor of this event", said Jim Messina, President of Fargo Estate Neighborhood Association.  The PHNA is a collaborative organization comprised of the West Side neighborhoods of Armory Hill, Columbus Park, Cottage District, Fargo Estate and parts of the Kleinhans neighborhood. It was created in 2009 after the Preservation League of NYS, Preservation Buffalo Niagara, and the Campaign for Greater Buffalo acknowledged its historic role in Buffalo's development. "Our mission is to preserve every neighborhood in the Prospect Hill district," Messina said, "and our method lies in educating others with a little help from our friends."

The lecture will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Kavinoky Theater, located at 320 Porter Avenue. Admission to the event will be $5. 

Thursday, March 8, 2012


GREECE POLICE DEPARTMENT


“History of the Greece Police Department” by Sgt. Christopher Bittner


Tuesday, March 13th, 2012, 7:00 p.m. – Greece Town Hall, One Vince Tofany Blvd, 14612
Sgt. Bittner will present a power point presentation on the history and evolution of the Greece Police Department, from the first use of constables during the 19th and early 20th century, until the formation of the Greece Police Department in 1932 (this year marks the 80thanniversary). He will also display various items of interest, to include: equipment, collectibles, news articles, etc.
Sgt Bittner has been an officer with the Greece Police Department over 28 years, becoming a Sergeant more than 23 years ago. He began to collect information on the history of the GPD in 2005 which has evolved into Sgt Bittner becoming the “unofficial” Greece Police Department Historian.
Public welcome, Greece Historical Society members FREE, a “pay as you will” donation is appreciated from others. This program made possible with the support from our members and Canandaigua National Bank & Trust