CENTRAL / WESTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE / 1818

Jan 14

Pittsford pioneer Colonel Caleb Hopkins, who gave the Village and Town its name (after his Vermont home town) dies at the age of 47.

Jan 17

The Reverend Comfort Williams of Ogdensburg, newly arrived in Rochesterville, is installed as the city's first pastor, for the Presbyterian Society.

Mar 6

The Orleans County town of Shelby is formed from Ridgeway. ** The Wyoming County town of Bennington is formed from Sheldon. ** Rochester bridge builder Thomas Leighton is born.

Mar 13

The Monroe County Town of Rush is formed from Avon.

Mar 19

The New York State legislature declares the Genesee River a ‘public highway’.

Mar 27

The Monroe County Town of Henrietta is formed from the Town of Pittsford.

April

Buffalo's Niagara Journal begin intermittently running an ad of a tavern for sale, recently owned by Gaius Kibbe.

Apr 4

The Steuben County town of Troupsburgh annexes part of the town of Canisteo. ** The first steamboat on the Great Lakes, Walk-in-the-Water, is launched in Buffalo.

Apr 10

The Niagara County town of Wilson is formed from Porter. ** The Erie County town of Amherst is taken off of Buffalo. ** The Cattaraugus County town of Little Valley is taken off the town of Perry (now Perrysburg).

Apr 15

The Erie County towns of Holland and Wales are established.

Apr 18

The Great Lakes shipping season for the Genesee River opens. In the next four months 1158 bushels of pearl ash and 120,000 barrel staves are shipped out for export. The total value of the shipments for the season will reach $300,000.

Apr 20

The Oswego County town of Oswego is formed from Hannibal.

Apr 21

The New York State Library is founded, located in the upper stories of the Capitol.

May 12

Engineer Josiah Wolcott Bissell is born in Rochester.

May 27

Suffragette Amelia Jenks Jenks Bloomer is born in Homer.

Jun 14

The first loaded boat, with its 16-ton cargo – from Schenectady - passes through the newly completed locks of the Seneca and Cayuga Canal at Seneca Falls, New York. The toll is 50 cents. ** Rochester businessman Daniel Powers is born in Batavia.

Jul 10

Contractor Josiah Olcott signs a contract to build Erie Canal Section 40, east of the Nine Mile Aqueduct, with the exception of the embankment in the immediate vicinity of the aqueduct, which William Melville undertakes. Henry Bogardus and Andrew and William Thompson contract for Section 41, west of the crossing. Benjamin Gumaer contracts for Section 50 and part of 51, to the west of Skaneateles Outlet.

Jul 15

Genesee Valley Canal surveyor and minister William Newell Cobb is born in McLean, New York, to William and Achsah Bradley Cobb.

Aug 23

Walk-in-the-Water, leaves Buffalo on its maiden voyage, stopping at Dunkirk, and continuing on to Cleveland and Detroit.

November

Rochesterville bookkeeper Charles J. Hill leaves Bissell & Ely to go into the mercantile business with partner A. V. T. Leavitt.

Nov 21

Pioneering anthropologist-ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan is born near Aurora, to farmer Jedediah Morgan and his wife Harriet Steele Morgan.

Nov 23

Rochester seeds merchant James Vick is born in Portsmouth, England.

Dec 19

The congregation of the Delphi Baptist Church, in Delphi Falls, votes to elect its first minister.

State

The first printing press in Cattaraugus County. ** Governor De Witt Clinton buys 1,000 acres at Chadwick's Bay (Dunkirk), lays out a town. The name is changed to Garnsey's Bay after the land agent for the purchase Daniel G. Garnsey. ** The first locks on the Seneca Canal are opened, bypassing the falls of the Seneca River. ** The approximate date Josephus Bradner Stuart begins steamboat service on lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan. ** Connewango settlers Cyrus Childs and Lyman Wyllys arrive from Massachusetts. James Blanchard and his wife Eunice, Daniel Grover, and David Davidson arrive from Vermont, Remus Baldwin arrives from Caledonia, New York. Brothers Nicholas and Thomas Northrup arrive from Stephentown. ** Each county is made a separate legal district with its own District Attorney. ** Joseph Ellicott reports to his superiors at the Holland Land Company that all of their best land has been sold. ** Marlborough, Connecticut, schoolteacher Epaphroditus Bigelow, his wife Sarah and infant son Orimel move to Geneseo; 330 miles in eighteen days. ** Five businesses open in Le Roy between South Street and the Public Square. ** Sylvester Hosmer replaces his log tavern near Avon with a two-story frame structure, which will one day become part of the Genesee Country Museum. ** Erie Canal contracts are signed for raising the Onondaga County summit level between Nine Mile Creek and Jordan, avoiding swamp areas. ** Holland Land Office official David E. Evans is elected to the state senate as a Clintonian Republican. ** Nehemiah Pratt settles in Eagle Harbor in what will become Orleans County. ** John Eddy makes a map of the state. ** Governor Clinton vetoes a bill backed by Martin Van Buren and Tammany Hall for a state constitutional convention, an attempt to extend the franchise. ** Bela Coe builds a hotel in Canandaigua - Coe's Stage House. ** Charles A. Williamson, son of the late land agent Charles Williamson, dies of cholera. ** Peter Porter constructs a second Niagara River bridge to Bath (later Green) Island. ** Medina-area settlers begin using water from the falls of Oak Orchard Creek for powering mills. ** A south wing is added to Auburn Prison. ** A farmer named Pardee erects a two-story building along the future Erie Canal route in Bushnell’s Basin. It will one day become the Richardson’s Canal House restaurant. ** Farmer Barnett Maxfield, along with his wife Hannah and son Andrew, travel west from Herkimer, settle in Pittsford on South Arab (later Clover) Street. ** Future state representative to Congress Frederick Whittlesey graduates from Yale.

Buffalo

Construction begins on the city's South Pier, into Lake Erie. ** William Peacock makes the first complete survey of the harbor. ** The approximate date the Weed Hardware Company opens a store at 292-296 Main Street.

Canandaigua

The approximate date Abner Bunnell’s Congregational Church is built. ** A Methodist chapel is completed, on Chapel Street. ** Oliver Phelps and Company begin a stage line between here and Newburgh, crossing the Catskills to the Hudson River.

Rochesterville

Nathaniel Rochester moves to Rochesterville from West Bloomfield, settles at the corner of Exchange and Spring streets. ** Construction begins to the east, to carry the Erie Canal through the city's Irondequoit Valley. ** Abelard Reynolds holds the first Methodist services in the city. He is named alderman of the first ward ** Band musicians become too drunk to rehearse. ** The town exports 26,000 barrels of flour, as well as other goods, totaling $380,000. ** Saint Luke's Episcopal Church is formed. ** The Baptists begin meeting, informally. ** Charles Harford's grist mill is destroyed by fire. The Phoenix Mill is erected on its foundations. ** Population reaches 1,049. ** Storekeeper Jonathan Child marries Sophia Eliza Rochester, daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Rochester. ** Azel Ensworth builds a two-story tavern at the Four Corners (Main and State). ** The first Sunday School is formed.

© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte

GENESEE VALLEY CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE – SAD NEWS

We were saddened to learn of the death on Thursday of long-time LeRoy round table member Charles P. “Skip” Charvella. Skip, as we all knew him, died at the age of 64, at Batavia’s United Memorial Medical Center, after a brief illness.

Friends may call on Monday, December 26, 2011 from 4 to 8 p.m. at H.E. Turner & Co. Funeral Home, 403 E. Main St., Batavia. His Mass of Christian Burial will be at 9:30 AM, Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at Resurrection Parish - St. Mary's Church, 18 Ellicott Street, Batavia. Memorials may be made to UMMC for the Hospice Care area or your favorite animal shelter.

Further details may be found at

www.bataviafuneralhomes.com/posted_obits/Charvella.html

Season’s Greetings

From Joann and David Minor

Rochester City Hall - 2011

PRESERVING ROCHESTER'S CATARACT BUILDING

Hello -

We are putting out an URGENT PLEA for interested persons to come to the ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS meeting this THURSDAY MORNING, where the CATARACT BUILDING (Genesee Brewery complex/St. Paul Street) will be discussed. Details are:

WHAT: City of Rochester Zoning Board of Appeals

WHEN: Thursday, DEC. 15, 2011

10:00 am

WHERE: City Council Chambers - CITY HALLl, 30 Church St., Rochester

As mentioned (below), LSWNY would like to “fill the seats” in City Council Chambers to show that there is significant interest & concern about this highly visible, National Register-eligible, industrial building in the Genesee Brewery complex. The tallest & most distinguished building in that complex, the 19^th-century Cataract Building is also the “signature building” on the east rim of the Genesee River gorge. LSWNY has been intensely involved with the on-going discussions about the possible re-use/re-development of this important building.

Thanks.

Cynthia Howk

CENTRAL / WESTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE / 1817

1817

Jan 27

The Monroe County Town of Ogden is formed from the Town of Parma.

Jan 28

Outgoing governor Daniel D. Tompkins, recently elected U.S. vice-president, sends a message to the state legislature recommending that a date be fixed for the abolition of slavery within the state. In an election to replace Tompkins as governor De Witt Clinton will defeat Buffalo’s Peter Buell Porter.

February

Publisher Horatio G. Spafford puts out the 12th and final edition of his American Magazine - a monthly miscellany.

March

New York State's Bank of Geneva (today's National Bank of Geneva) is chartered.

Mar 19

Naturalist and fish expert Seth Green is born in Carthage (later part of Rochester).

Mar 21

The village of Rochesterville is taken off the towns of Brighton and Gates and incorporated, acquiring a charter. It has a population of 500.

Apr 5

The Niagara County town of Royalton is formed from Hartland.

Apr 7

Tompkins County is formed from Cayuga and Seneca counties. The county courthouse is fixed at Ithaca.

Apr 15

The state legislature authorizes construction of the Erie Canal, after Federal backing is denied.

May 5

Rochesterville holds its first village elections. Francis Brown is elected mayor of the newly incorporated village, which now includes the annexed Frankfort. Also picked are five Trustees, three Assessors, a Treasurer, a Comptroller, a Constable, three Fire-wardens and a Pound-keeper. The office of mayor is merely that of president of the Board of Trustees.

June

Upper Canada widow Hester Hill seeks someone to prepare a letter to her son Jasper, in

Canandaigua.

Jul 1

After defeating Buffalo businessman Peter B. Porter for the state's Republican

gubernatorial nomination, New York City mayor De Witt Clinton, running on a pro-

canal plan, is elected.

Jul 14

Rochesterville's St. Luke's parish is organized in the nearby village of Brighton.

Sep 23

Painter Phineas Stanton is born to farmer and War of 1812 veteran Phineas Stanton and his wife, in Middlebury.

State

Population: Ontario County - 42,032. ** The first printing press in Chataugue (sic), Livingston and Yates counties. Hezekiah Ripley begins publishing the Advertiser and Genesee Farmer, at Livingston County’s Moscow. ** A shipping dock is built three miles from the mouth of the Genesee River, followed by a wooden arch bridge - the longest in the world - across the river's gorge. The new settlement is called Carthage. The steamboat Ontario out of Sackets Harbor is the first to arrive at the landing. ** 5,000 bushels of flour are shipped out of the Genesee River to Montréal during the last three months of the season. ** Port Gibson, in the future Wayne County, is settled. ** Colonel Nathaniel Rochester attends a session of the legislature at Albany in an usuccessful attempt to get recognition of Monroe County. This year he is also made secretary of the convention meeting in Canandaigua to consider De Witt Clinton’s canal proposal. ** Batavia banker Trumbull Cary builds a post-colonial house on East Main Street. ** The Wyoming Academy is founded. ** Vermont native James Battles arrives in the Connewango area to settle. ** Seneca County annexes part of Tompkins County. ** Porter constructs a Niagara River bridge to Bath (later Green) Island. It will be swept away during the ensuing winter. ** Alden sawmill owner John Rogers builds the town’s first grist mill. ** A Methodist class is begun in Canadice. ** Mack & Shepherd buy the Ithaca Journal . ** Botany lecturer Amos Eaton publishes A Manual of Botany for the Northern States . The popular work will go into eight editions. ** Rush coal merchant H. H. Babcock is born to Isaac and Elizabeth Wilbur Babcock, in Albany County. ** NY-to-Liverpool packet captain William Henry Stewart saves the life of a passenger, the daughter of merchant George Ragg, when she’s swept overboard. The two marry and settle on land outside of Penn Yan given to them by Ragg. ** Horatio Spafford publishes the pamphlet Hints to Emigrants, on the Choice of Land, under the pseudonym Agricola. ** Moses Rathbun and his son Benjamin, running business enterprises in Monticello and Hartwick Township respectively, go bankrupt. Moses moves his extended family from Otsego to Batavia. ** Canal commisioners authorize a further 25% increase in capitalization for the Cayuga and Seneca Canal Company. ** Engineer Canvass White travels to Europe to study canal construction. ** James Van Horn, his Newfane mill destroyed by the British in the last war, rebuilds his gristmill. He will add a sawmill and begin work on a brick mansion. ** Eleazor and Mary Southworth build a home at the four corners in Elba. ** Canandaigua lawyer John C. Spencer is elected as a representative to the Fifteenth U.S. Congress, as is New York surveyor and Holland Land Office agent Benjamin Ellicott. The state’s canal fund will receive its revenue from auction duties and salt duties. ** Syracuse doctor, lecturer, and theater owner John Weiting is born.

Erie Canal

Chief engineer Judge Benjamin Wright appoints David Stanhope Bates assistant engineer on the middle division. ** The steamboat passenger tax, established this year to help pay for state canals, brings in $19,000 in revenue for the year.

Buffalo

The open boat Troyer brings Buffalo the first flour from the west. ** The Federal government builds a 30-foot lighthouse on Lake Erie near Buffalo Creek.

Le Roy

Orange Ridson creates a map of the Triangle Tract. ** Judge Egbert Benson, Jr. becomes the third land agent for the tract. ** Innkeeper James Ganson purchases additional property, on the Village Green.

Rochesterville

The population reaches 700. ** Austin Steward, a black grocer, goes into business. ** Spring floods damage the business section. ** Elisha Johnson and Orson Seymour lay out a subdivision on the east bank of the Genesee River. ** A mill is built on Water Street. ** William Atkinson builds the Yellow Mill, the first to make use of the newly-opened Johnson millrace. ** The approximate date Dr. Matthew Brown and his brother Francis arrive from Brookfield, Massachusetts. Their remodeled cotton factory is destroyed by fire, the community's first large one. They will rebuild on the same site. The village's first volunteer fire company is organized. ** The pamphlet "Constitution and Proceedings of the Charitable Society formed in the Western Counties of State of New York, for the Education of Indigent Pious Young Men for the Gospel Ministry " is printed by A. G. Dauby. ** Matthew Dryer of Massachusetts purchases 81 acres in the Brighton area, including the grist mill of John Tryon. ** The Granville, Massachusetts, family of Ezra Parsons arrive in the Allens Creek area.

© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte

1870s FINGER LAKES TEENAGE DIARIES

Enthralling True Stories of Bygone Times

with Diane Janowski and Denny Smith, local historians

Friday, December 9, 2011 from 6:00 - 7:00 PM (book signing from 5:30 to 6:00)

Franklin Street Gallery, 209 North Franklin Street in Watkins Glen, NY 14891

Diane & Denny will read from the diaries of three young people who lived in the Finger Lakes area in the 1800s:

Ida Burnett, a 15 year-old girl, who lived in Logan in 1880, and eventually in Watkins Glen; Earl Gurnee, 18,

who lived in Skaneateles in 1876; and Viola Coolbaugh, a 25 year-old resident of Altay in 1891.

Join with us as we listen to their own words telling of school days, life and death on the farm, and young love.

The diaries are truthful and poignant, slices of real-life Americana. Photographs, maps, and items of local interest help to illustrate these first person histories of the Finger Lakes

To buy the books directly, visit New York History Review.

For more information please call the Franklin Street Gallery at 607-535-2571

CAYUGA COUNTY CHAMBER CELEBRATION

Chamber Holiday Celebration
December 7, 2011
Highland Golf Club
3068 Franklin Street Road, Auburn NY
5:00 pm-7:00 pm

The Chamber cordially invites you to this member exclusive celebration to show appreciation to our members for your involvement and support of the Chamber throughout the past year.

Enjoy wine tastings, hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.

To register, please contact (315) 252-7291 or email: admin@cayugacountychamber.com
(This event is FREE and exclusive to chamber members)

CENTRAL / WESTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE / 1816

1816

February

The first settlers - Vermonters Isaac Smith, Rufus Trumbull and Reuben Wolcox, and Otsego County’s Elias Smith - arrive in Allegany County and settle the future Town of Granger.

Feb 10

Future Pittsford farmer, grocer and politician Jarvis Lord is born in Ballston Spa.

Mar 8

The New York State Canal Commission submits its final report to the legislature, based on surveys done by Benjamin Wright.

April

The approximate date Jacob Townsend sends his son Sheldon to Oswego aboard the schooner Niagara to work for his partner Alvin Bronson, a Lake Ontario commission agent.

Apr 4

Connecticut–born silversmith Eleazor Southworth and his wife Mary Southworth settle in Elba.

June

Killing frosts over the next three months wipe out all major crops in the Genesee Valley - The Year Without a Summer.

Jun 7

Light snow falls over the Finger Lakes.

September

Edwin Scrantom is apprenticed to A. G. Dauby, publisher of the new Weekly Gazette, the first newspaper in Rochesterville.

Sep 3

Holland Land Office clerk David E. Evans marries Lucy Grant in Batavia.

Sep 7

The steamboat Frontenac is launched in Buffalo for the Lake Ontario trade.

November

Bethlehem, Connecticut, store clerk Charles J. Hill, left without a job when his employer retires, and having moved to Rochesterville, then to Utica, then back to Rochesterville, accepts a bookkeeper’s job with Bissell & Ely.

Dec 2

Rochester nurseryman George Ellwanger is born at Gross-Heppach, Germany.

Dec 30

Two Oswego, New York lake sailors – Captain McDonald of the schooner British Queen and sailor Duncan Campbell - fight a duel with rifles at 15 rods - over claimed advances made to Campbell’s wife. Both men survive the incident.

State

The grandparents of temperance reformer Frances Willard settle in the Churchville area. ** The first printing press in Monroe and Seneca counties. ** The approximate date David Rumsey founds the Bath Gazette and Benjamin Smead begins the Steuben (& Allegany) Patriot. ** General Peter Porter is appointed to the commission studying the boundary with Canada. He resigns from Congress this year, builds a house in Black Rock (Buffalo). ** A front porch with Doric columns is added to Batavia’s Holland Land Office. ** Dansville’s Colonel Nathaniel Rochester is appointed a presidential/vice-presidential elector for the second time. ** Elisha Swift tours the state as a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. ** Eliphalet Follet settles on Chautauqua Road to the east of Rutledge, founding he village of Connewango, where he will soon build a tavern. ** The first church in Brutus is founded by the Methodist Episcopalians. ** The state office of Deputy Superintendent of the Onondaga Salt Works is abolished and the salary of the Superintendent is increased by $250 a year. A duty of 12.5¢ per bushel is levied on Onondaga salt for the increase of the canal fund. The Superintendent, instead of making a yearly report, is required to make one quarterly, and pay into the State treasury , all money collected, except expenses, on the first Tuesday of February, May, August and November. ** The Seneca Republican becomes the Ithaca Journal . ** Amos Bliss opens the first inn in the Erie County village of Alden. Seth Eastabrook opens the first store there. ** Nathaniel and Mehitable Kellogg arrive in Sodus with their family, from Williamstown, Massachusetts. They build a frame house at Main and Mill streets. ** The capital earmarked for the Seneca Lock Navigation Company project is increased to $60,000. ** Joseph Adams and his son Bina, along with Joseph Bartlett, make the first settlement in the Cattaraugus County Town of Otto. ** Canandaigua's St. John's Episcopal Church builds a wooden building at 183 North Main Street. ** Settler Horace Fowler becomes a deacon in Cohocton's First Presbyterian Church. ** The U. S. Government declines to participate in an Erie canal project. ** Bela Coe sells Coe's Stage House in Canandaigua for $14,000 and moves with his brother Canfield to Auburn, where they purchase William Bostwick's tavern. ** Benjamin Wright appoints Nathan Roberts assistant engineer, responsible for the section of the new canal between Rome and the Seneca River. ** The Comstock family of Quakers buy land in the future Lockport area, plant an orchard. ** Michah Brooks of Bloomfield and Jellis Clute of Leicester begin negotiations to purchase part of Mary Jemison’s Gardeau Reservation lands on the Genesee River. ** Educator Simon Newell begins raising $4,000 for a academy at Middlebury. ** Penfield sawmill owner Samuel Rich builds a home on Five-Mile-Line Road, still standing in the 21st Century.

Alfred

The town annexes part of the town of Angelica. ** The first Seventh Day Baptist church is completed.

Auburn

Judge Elijah Miller has a house built in Auburn. He will give it to his daughter Frances and her new husband William Henry Seward in 1824. Carpenter Brigham Young works on the house. ** Auburn Prison is built. ** The original Auburn Academy is destroyed by fire.

Bath

The approximate year David Rumsey attempts to revivie the Farmers’ Advocate; the paper lasts about a year. ** A two-square -mile area based on Pulteney Square is incorporated into the village.

Buffalo

The city is reincorporated. ** The Old Red Warehouse is built on the waterfront just north of Main Street. ** A request for harbor improvement funding is sent to Albany. Only a survey results.

Geneva

Hardware merchant Phineas Prouty, Sr. begins advertising in local newspapers. He joins the first fire company, formed this year. ** Branchport landowner John Beddoe advertises 5,000 acres for sale, in the Geneva Gazette.

Pittsford

A house (later known as the Guetersloh house), is built on Church Street, for the village’s first doctor, John Ray. ** Village Presbyterians begin meeting in a frame house at the Milepost.

Rochesterville

Pioneer Oliver Culver builds a house and tavern on East Avenue. ** Pioneer Ashbel W. Riley arrives. ** Elisha Johnson buys eighty acres of Enos Stone's farm on the eastern bank of the Genesee River for $10,000. ** A cotton mill, utilizing 1,392 spindles, is built. ** The population totals 331 at the beginning of the year, approaches 500 toward the end. ** Albany printer Everard Peck, a native of Berlin, Connecticut, moves his business here. ** Forms for "Petitions for a Division of the Counties of Genesee and Ontario" are printed here, the first printing job in the village. Forms will be made up again in 1818, 1819, and 1820. ** Matthew and Francis Brown, Sr. have a 1200-foot mill race dug along the western rim of the Genesee River gorge.

Sackets Harbor

The Ontario, the first steamboat on the Great Lakes, is launched. ** Construction of the Madison Barracks military post is begun.

Steuben County

The board of supervisors, contravening last year's decision to not pay Indians bounties on wolves and panthers, pays Tall John, a Bath-area native, $27.50 in bounties on wolves. ** The county’s tax levy amounts to $11,696.61. **

© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte