January
James S. Wadsworth
resumes his legal studies, now at Yale.
Jan 1
Martin Van Buren
becomes governor of New York State.
Jan 24
The Cattaraugus
County town of Lyndon is formed from Franklinville.
Jan 28
Moses and Roxanna
Bates Rathbun have a daughter, Elizabeth, in Buffalo. She is 38 years younger
than her half brother, merchant Benjamin Rathbun.
February
An American
scientific expedition leaves for Antarctica. Among the scientists aboard is New
York naturalist James Eights.
Mar 19
The Sodus Canal
Company is incorporated, capitalized at $200,000, to connect either the Seneca
River or the Canandaigua outlet to Lake Ontario’s Great Sodus Bay. It’s partly
constructed but never used.
Mar 20
The Town of
Cheektowaga is established.
Mar 26
The Onondaga County
towns of Elbridge and Van Buren are formed from Camillus. ** The Seneca County town of
Waterloo is formed from Junius. ** The Niagara County village of Lockport is
incorporated, made the county seat.
April
The official opening
of the Oswego Canal, connecting the Erie Canal at Syracuse with Lake Ontario.
Apr 11
The Cortland County
town of Cortlandville is formed out of Homer. ** Construction of the Crooked Lake Canal is authorized.
Apr 14
The Buffalo &
Erie Rail Road is organized to connect Buffalo and Erie, Pennsylvania.
Capitalized at $650,000, it will be surveyed.
Apr 15
The State legislature
approves funding for the Chemung Canal, linking the Chemung River to the Erie
Canal. Construction begins later in the year.
Apr 17
The Madison County Rail Road is organized.
Capitalized at $70,000, and meant to link Chittenango and Cazenovia, it is
surveyed but never built.
** The Port
Byron & Auburn Rail Road is organized. Capitalized at $50,000, and meant to
link the two upstate villages, it is never built.
Apr 20
The Wayne County town
of Walworth is formed from Ontario.
Apr 23
The Ellicotts Creek
Slackwater Navigation Company is organized, capitalized at $5,000, for
construction in Erie County. Nothing is ever done.
Apr 26
Brockport is
incorporated.
Apr 27
The Salina & Port
Watson Rail Road is organized. Capitalized at $375,000, and meant to link the
village of Syracuse and the site outside of Cortland, it is surveyed but never
built.
Apr 30
The Scottsville Canal
Company is incorporated, capitalized at $15,000, to connect the settlement of
Scottsville with the Genesee River.
May 1
The state legislature
incorporates the Owasco & Erie Canal Company, to connect Owasco Lake to the
Erie Canal. Nothing is ever done.
May 2
English barrister
Henry Tudor sails from Portsmouth, England, aboard the 500-ton New York packet
boat Hannibal, bound for New York.
Jul 24
Chautauqua
Institution co-founder Lewis Miller is born in Greentown, Ohio.
Sep 15
Directors of the Bank
of the United States vote to establish a branch in Buffalo.
Oct 9
The Albany canal boat
Seneca Chief passes through Brockport on the Erie Canal with cargo of oysters.
The toll comes to $13.59.
November
A fire in Buffalo
burns $25,000 worth of stores on the west side
of Main Street.
Nov 13
Daredevil Sam Patch, in his early twenties, is
killed jumping into the falls of the Genesee River at Rochester, before a crowd
of 7,000.
Nov 24
John P. Murray of New
York City writes to Yale law student James S. Wadsworth, thanking him for his
advice to Murray's son on studying.
December
Daniel Webster
marries Caroline Le Roy in Le Roy, New York.
STATE
The state legislature
passes a measure assigning the Syracuse water supply monopoly to Captain Oliver
Teall, through 1831.
** Trumbull
Cary founds Batavia’s Bank of the Genesee (later M&T), the first bank west
of the Genesee River.
** Geneva
attorney Charles Butler and his wife Eliza move into a house they’ve had built
on South Main Street (later the Prouty-Chew House/Museum. ** Newell’s Settlement changes
its name to Wyoming.
** The
town of Canadice is formed out of the town of Richmond. ** Ansom M. Weed and Allen
Warner buy Geneseo’s Livingston Register from James Percival. ** The Reverend Thomas Parker
becomes minister of the East Penfield Baptist Church. ** Granville, Vermont, native Levi Steele arrives
in Connewango from Genesee County, as does Grafton, New Hampshire, native Ziba
Hovey. ** Derick Knickerbocker builds
the Knickerbocker Hotel health spa in Avon. ** Bushnell's Basin innkeeper and philomath
(almanac compiler) Oliver Loud dies. ** Vermont carpenter Brigham Young settles in
Monroe County. ** A bill is passed to
consolidate the Onondaga County courts at Ovid, Levana and Onondaga.
Commissioners Samuel Forman, Oren Hutchinson and John Smith are named to select
a location for the new courthouse, in Syracuse. ** Farmboy Joseph Smith claims to have found golden
plates buried at Cumorah Hill outside of Palmyra. He will found the Mormon
religion. ** The Alexander H. Howell
House is built at 101 Gibson Street in Canandaigua. ** Perrinsville is renamed Fairport. ** Keuka Lake landowner
John Beddoe sells part of his land to James and Rebecca Taylor. John Beddoe
Stafford is born to Charlotte Beddoe Stafford (daughter of John Beddoe) and her
husband George Stafford, in Branchport. ** The approximate date Almira Fowler, younger
sister to phrenologist-architect Orson Fowler, is born to Horace and Mary
Taylor Fowler in Cohocton.
** 1,291,820
bushels of salt are processed at Salina (almost 131,000 more than last year).
Syracuse, Liverpool and Geddes have added to the increase. ** Total income of the canal
system, including tolls and duties on salt, amount to $1,193,979. ** Newfane pioneer James Van
Horn, Sr. is elected as the third town supervisor. ** County clerks are required to report a
transcript of all convictions and sentences to the Secretary of State. ** An inn is built along the
Erie Canal near Pittsford, close to the nearby Monroe Mineral Springs. It will
usually be called the Spring House. ** The state’s statutes are revised. Among the
changes is consolidation of laws concerning apprentices. ** Politician Frederick
Whittlesley served two one-year terms as Monroe County treasurer. ** Poet and hymn lyricist John
Hugh McNaughton is born in Caledonia.
Buffalo
Use of the harbor
increases 20% over last year.
** Merchants
Lyman and Moses Rathbun are brought to court on assault charges. ** With $10,000 pledged
the Buffalo High School Association begins planning construction. ** A branch of the Bank of the
United States is established here. Bank president Nicholas visits the area,
views Niagara Falls, and offers to pay for a circular staircase into the gorge.
The structure will be used for nearly a hundred years. ** Nathaniel B. Rochester
moves from the eponymous city founded by his father to Buffalo, to manage the
Bank of the United States branch there.
Rochester
The Rochester
Athenaeum, a forerunner of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is
founded. ** The Reynolds Arcade is
completed. ** Packet boat builder Seth C.
Jones launches the 15-20 ton Superior on the Erie Canal. The boat has a
7-foot-high cabin and scenic paintings by artist Daniel Steele. ** Banker Abraham M.
Schermerhorn finds himself the owner of the four-story, brick Eagle Tavern,
when the builder is foreclosed. ** Elisha Johnson is elected president of the
community for a third consecutive one-year term.
Massachusetts
New York divinity
student Orson Fowler enrolls in Amherst College, working for tuition and board.
Visitors
Englishman Basil
Hall’s Travels in North America.
© 2013 David
Minor / Eagles Byte
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