Cabaret stars from Aurigema party charged, article (Ton News, 1972-09-05).pdf
DeGraff Mansion, illustration (Dennis Reed Jr, 2023).jpg
For more variations, see my Art section.
DeGraff Mansion, illustration (Dennis Reed Jr., 2023).jpg
Delaware Pool, Bintz pool, Tonawanda, photos (c1955).jpg
The Nationals Twin City baseball team, Amateur Niagara County, team photo (1911).jpg
Myles Joyce to seek 7th term, Buttermilk case, article (Tonawanda News, 1969-06-18.pdf
The so-called "Buttermilk Trial" of Mayor Myles Joyce (who is pulled over for drunk driving, and claims he was drinking only buttermilk) appears to have been covered extensively. Some <a href="https://fultonhistory.com/highlighter/highlight-for-xml?altUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%252011%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%25201944%2520%2520Grayscale%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%25201944%2520%2520Grayscale%2520-%25201644.pdf%23xml%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3D6c610a2b%26DocId%3D2039655%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520U%26HitCount%3D34%26hits%3D1%2B8%2B17f%2B184%2B1b1%2B258%2B311%2B560%2B596%2B61b%2B641%2B859%2B93b%2B9be%2Ba21%2Bb2d%2Bb74%2Bba7%2Bbd2%2Bcc1%2Bccd%2Bd3c%2Bd48%2Be9f%2Bebd%2Bec3%2Bf3d%2Bf47%2Bf62%2Bf67%2Bf92%2B10fb%2B1100%2B1107%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&uri=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%252011%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%25201944%2520%2520Grayscale%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%25201944%2520%2520Grayscale%2520-%25201644.pdf&xml=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3D6c610a2b%26DocId%3D2039655%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520U%26HitCount%3D34%26hits%3D1%2B8%2B17f%2B184%2B1b1%2B258%2B311%2B560%2B596%2B61b%2B641%2B859%2B93b%2B9be%2Ba21%2Bb2d%2Bb74%2Bba7%2Bbd2%2Bcc1%2Bccd%2Bd3c%2Bd48%2Be9f%2Bebd%2Bec3%2Bf3d%2Bf47%2Bf62%2Bf67%2Bf92%2B10fb%2B1100%2B1107%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&openFirstHlPage=false">testimony here.
State grant to fix up Payne Pool, article (Tonawanda News, 1985-03-25).png
Payne Pool renovations postponed until fall, article (Tonawanda News, 1986-02-25).png
Kids at Memorial Pool, photo (c1976).jpg
Council to award contract to fix up swimming pool, article (Tonawanda News, 1986-08-02).png
Closure of North Tonawanda Pool is the end of an era, article (Samantha Christmann, Buffalo News, 2023).htm
As a kid in North Tonawanda, every summer morning in 1988 was the same ritual. I would stretch on my purple swimsuit, still damp from the night before, roll up my towel, tuck it under my arm and slam through the screen door on my way to the Memorial Pool. It was a two-block trip, waving to the watchful elders sitting on porches or working in gardens, and keeping an eye out for the Monarch butterflies that seemed to be everywhere in those days. A tangle of bicycles thrown down under the big willow tree signaled that my friends had beat me to Payne Park and I’d usually find them pumping away on the swings, trying to make it over the top bar. Together, we’d make our way to the giant, brick, above-ground pool and, though my friends had seen it a million times, I’d always point to my great-uncle’s name on the plaque outside the entrance: “Built by Joseph M. Wrazin,” my grandma’s brother. It was the most prestige a working-class kid from the avenues could get. Built just after World War II as a memorial to the veterans, the pool was designed by noted engineer Wesley Bintz. Its patented design, with locker rooms on the first floor, made it easier and less expensive to build and maintain than other models, according to Tegan Baiocchi, an architectural historian in Michigan. To this day, when I smell chlorine, all I can picture are those locker rooms. I can still hear the slam of the metal lockers and the echo of my friends’ laughter bouncing off the walls. I taught myself to dog paddle in the 3-foot-deep shallow end, when I was young enough that my teenage sister, Loree, would deposit me there, then run off with her friends. Life really is sink or swim sometimes. Of course, one day, I became a teenager myself, teasing and spraying my hair before a trip to the pool and spending the whole time trying not to get it wet so I could look good for Seth, the gorgeous head lifeguard. The deep end was for the diving boards and ‘the Plat,’ an elevated platform from which the most daring kids would plunge. I made it up to the second step once before chickening out and having to endure the catcalls of all the cool kids who had witnessed my shameful attempt. The pool used to close for dinner time, signaled by all the lifeguards blowing their whistles at once, and we’d dry off by lying on the sidewalk at the park, baking in the sun. We’d take a few more trips down the tornado slide, waxed for maximum speed with Burger King cups from across the street, and head home. I’m sure my mom fed me before “night swim,” but I can only remember eating popsicles, seated on the hardwood floor in front of the TV, wet hair dripping and fans roaring in the background. Those were the days. Neglected but still popular, the pool has deteriorated. The city has been faced with the choice of spending $2.5 million to restore it to its former glory, or pay $6.5 million to build a new one. Last month, the city chose the latter. When I found out, I sobbed. The tears, I’m sure, were more about nostalgia than the city’s decision. Getting older, losing loved ones, living in the real world. The pool’s closure was just an excuse to cry for days gone by. My own family became less reliant on the Memorial Pool as we moved away, our kids grew older or we opened pools of our own. Recent trips to the pool were made more as a visit to an old friend than out of a desperate need to cool off. But somewhere in those tears was sadness for all of the kids in NT like me, who would never experience those magical days again. I know they’ll create magical days of their own if the proposed replacement pool is ever built. But there’s the rub. Campaigns to tear down Bintz pools are usually paired with grand plans for a replacement pool, but instead – when funds can’t be secured – cities end up slapping down a concrete splash pad, which costs a lot less. And even if the same-sized pool does come, all those kids are roasting in record heat as they wait the years it will take for the project to materialize. And though it checks every box for historic preservation, a designation to the Register of Historic Places requires support and approval from an NT administration that is excited to knock it down and start over. A motion to protect the pool was tabled a year ago and never heard from again. So, I’ve come to terms with the fact that the pool, as so many of us know and love it, will be soon be gone forever. From now on, it will only exist in our minds, which, I guess, is the only place it really exists anymore, anyway.
Memorial Pool, drone photo gallery (Mike Chrzanowski, 2023-09-01).jpg
Bintz Pool examples from other cities, photos.jpg
Wesley Bintz made a career out of building municipal swimming pools across the United States. These examples show how the basic design was adapted to different settings and needs across the decades.
Youth dance slated at Memorial Pool, The Caravans, article (Tonawanda News, 1964-07-28).png
Weather fine for swimmers, platform, photo (Ton News, 1973-07-23) .jpg
TNT Sports Carnival, Inc, ad (Ton News, 1949).jpg
Teen dance is scheduled on north side, Caravans, photo article (Tonawanda News, 1965-07-27).jpg
Snak & Shake, 817 Payne, ad (Tonawanda News, 1959-09-17).png
Payne Pool ready for use after leak repairs, article (Ton News, 1969-06-28).png
NT pool to open Monday; many events on schedule,article (Tonawanda News, 1961-06-22).jpg
NT council defers action on regulation for pools overcrowding, article (Ton News, 1964-06-22).png
Lumber City swim meet is Saturday, article (Buffalo Courier, 1976-07-23.jpg
Hot dog stand removal ordered, article (Tonawanda News, 1978-02-22).png
Estate has deadline to remove Ken's Hot Dog Stand from Payne Memorial Pool property, article (Tonawanda News, 1978-06-08).jpg
1,200 teenagers at dance in NT, article (Tonawanda News, 1964-07-16).jpg
Memorial Pool farewell, photo gallery (2023).jpg
On the Avenues and Beyond by John Kolecki, 2007, book review (Dennis Reed Jr, 2023).htm
It’s disorienting to contemplate how different the Avenues would have appeared to young Master Kolecki in 1925. If you’ve seen photographs of the era, you realize they might as well have been taken in Slovenia. It’s a decidedly more rural existence. Most families keep their own small vegetable gardens “either on their own lot or on a nearby vacant city-owned lot. Many ‘lot gardens’ were located between Gilmore Street and Payne Avenue” (35). The “upper” avenues (9th through 19th) only begin to get filled in with homes during the post-WWII era. Livestock abounds, including poultry, rabbits and pigs (“The aroma of smoked sausages, hams and bacon signaled the Easter season” (35)). The author, John Kolecki, is about as homegrown as they grow ‘em: Born in North Tonawanda in 1920 and educated at OLC and NTHS, he later earns a degree from Canisius. He is a proud Polish WWII war veteran and educator. In the Acknowledgments he says he is now 86 years old, “more like an old horse than a young colt.” The earliest recollections are likely from around 1925, when he is a boy at 5 (a charming cover photo shows him on a palomino pony; we learn later it was staged by an entrepreneurial photographer who roamed the Avenues with the animal). It’s a time when the Polish presence on the Avenues is developing into a self-sufficient community; a time of new automobiles, Prohibition, and then the further privations of the Great Depression and WWII. His narrative is supplemented by church pamphlets preserved by his wife, Violet; articles from the Am-Pol Eagle; resources from local libraries and historical societies. Neither Burger King nor McDonald’s were offering their Big Fish or Fishwich sandwiches yet, so the Niagara River had to provide protein in fish form. The rod and reel, baited throw lines and night lines were common among the “slip area” of the river where the avenues’ fishermen most often plied their skill. In other areas of the river, fisherman use the “unsportsmanlike method” of putting dynamite in a bottle, dropped to the bottom and detonated, stunning the fish above for relatively easy collection. The first and second slips are also popular swimming holes for the kids. The first slip, he writes, is now Fisherman’s Park, while the second is covered by the “industrial disposal complex” (68). Religion is the center of this straight-as-an-arrow military hero. He takes some pains to explain the 1392 origin of Our Last of Czetochowa (it is named after an icon of Mary said to be painted by Saint Luke himself) and the founding in North Tonawanda of the Polish Roman Catholic parish on Oliver Street at Center Ave. “Young men competed to operate the bellows on the antique [church organ]. The Mass was in Latin, but the gospel, homily and hymns were in Polish” (2). There is a good description of the early development of the church and its related buildings, and even a few photographs. Kolecki also describes a short-lived but vicious rivalry between his establish Polish Roman Catholic Church and upstarts from the Polish National Catholic Church, who “initiated a movement to entrench itself on the avenues” by establishing a church at Oliver Street and Wheatfield Street (4). As a proud Pole, Mr. Kolecki palpably resents the tradition of the “Polish joke,” which he says surfaces after WWII. He has two responses to people who want to tell him a Polish joke: either tell it to him in Polish, or say it “in the language of your ancestors so nothing is lost in translation” (92). The upshot: this so-called “dumb Pole” can speak two languages. Can you? One imagines that challenge was especially intimidating issued in-person by a Marine paratrooper. Poles are mistreated in other ways. Prospective Polish home buyers are told properties they are interested in in other parts of the city are suddenly off the market. It is the same with jobs. A qualified mechanic, Mr. Krajanowski, applies for Remington Rand, and is turned down. He applies for the same job two days later under the name “Mr. Taper” and is hired (91). North Tonawanda has always been a hard-drinking town, from the rowdy canawlers and lumbermen to the later industrial workers. According to Mr. Kolecki, taverns are on Ironton. In some circles, Prohibition must have seemed like an existential threat. Not so much the avenues. Mr. Kolecki maintains that the Poles were neither upset or happy about Prohibition. “A casual indifference prevailed” (11). They collectively shrug, and begin brewing at home, as they plant, and milk, and sew. They buy malt and yeast from a local hardware store for beer (three are listed on page 25). To make wine, they ferment whatever they can find. “Cherries were popular because they were inexpensive at 5-6 cents per pound. Dandelions also were experimented with” (15). Even after Prohibition, the practice continues. “A small number of avenue home wine cellars continued with the art of wine making. To them, there was an element of pride and a badge of accomplishment to grace a table with homemade wine” (15). A strength of Mr. Kolecki’s book is that the financial fortunes of the “avenuers” are traced with the national picture in the background. WWI’s conclusion does not immediately increase prosperity, as industries have to be refitted to resume production of consumer goods, and returning “veterans flooded the unemployment ranks and exacerbated a bad situation” (31). Soon things do pick up, and the stock market soars. A few cash in their Liberty Bonds and buy stock—to their eventual ruin. Most of the Polish on the Avenues however were either uninterested in such investments, or couldn’t afford them. “Vast majorities of families were penny-pinching to save enough to own a lot, which was adequate equity to negotiate a mortgage to build a house…Mothers wished to pay off the installments on a Swinger sewing machine; fathers had their hopes on a Ford Model T or A” (32). Even if they didn’t invest directly, residents feel the effects of the 1929 crash in almost immediate widespread unemployment. “The standard of living on the avenues plummeted…Lincoln Radiator on Ironton and Pierce Arrow on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo were just two examples” (33). Unemployment is at 75%. Values of everything from homes to automobiles continues to sink. Scavenging the railroad tracks for spilled coal is a common pastime. When people talk about the good old days and low prices, they sometimes fail to note it was partially because nobody had any money to buy anything. The Strand Theater at First and Oliver asks just 5 cents for Sunday admission; during the week, it was two people for 6 cents. The cinder-covered back alleys are a convenient place to repair and test the early automobiles popular on the Avenues. During the Depression, these go for a song. Mr. Kolecki’s father buys a used 1924 four-door Chevrolet Sedan for just $5. John and his friends raise $35 for their own Model A four-door sedan, steering it around the alleys and fields east of Gilmore Street. (This sedan provides occasion for the funniest moment of the book: when the car needs a replacement carburetor, one of his friends tries to steal one from a local junkyard. A policeman catches him as he is pawing around the old parts. The boy claims he is just urinating. When the policeman demands to see his hands and observes they are black, he quips, “‘You surely have a greasy prick, let’s go to the station for an oil change’” (43)). The sixth chapter is devoted almost entirely to “the play culture of children in the 1920s and 1930s,” and recounts such Avenues pastimes as “Pitching to a box” (throwing coins into a box on the ground), “Baby in the hole” (a form of tag involving rolling a ball into a competitor’s dug hole in the ground), and “Nip” (something like baseball but with a small chunk of wood for a ball). Two pages of photos of OLC sports teams follow. The Avenues belong to the city’s Third Ward, and are mostly registered Democrats. Dom Polski Hall hosts boisterous campaign rallies. Progressive, 5’5,” red-headed Mayor Myles Joyce, Mr. Kolecki relates, becomes the subject of everlasting ridicule for the excuse he offers when he is pulled over for erratic driving in the city’s health car. When asked if he has been drinking, the visibly intoxicated and aromatic mayor replies that he has been drinking only buttermilk. This thigh-slapper allegedly reaches the pages of the New York Times (the only mention I find of the mayor in the Times is a March 26, 1944 article noting a failed attempt to evict him from his home.) Mr. Joyce must have been doing something right: the “fiery” Labor progressive is a six-time mayor of the city, wining in 1937, 1943, 1945, 1951, 1953 and 1959, and running for a 7th term in 1969; This June 18, 1969 article in the Tonawanda News narrates the Buttermilk and other misadventures of the mayor. A chapter on Oliver Street describes it as the “main artery bisecting Polonia” (17). Its evolution from gravel to red brick is recalled, as well as the Gratwick Line of the trolley that joins Oliver from Robinson and continues north to Ward and beyond. After Prohibition, Oliver Street leaps to life with “taverns, ice cream parlors, delis, eateries and candy stores…the butcher and the baker” (18). “Cash registers rang and family coffers were clear of cobwebs” (Ibid). Call boxes for both the fire department and police are provided at Oliver and Center, “almost human-size electric devices” (18). He remembers the State Ditch, aka Pettit Creek, which “most of the year was just a 6-foot wide muddy stream,” once requiring a small stone bridge from the 1880s and just west a “narrow pedestrian bridge with wood handrails” to cross the stream at Oliver. It is now concealed by the OLC grotto. Two pages are dedicated to the taverns of the Avenues, almost every name with a word or two about its specific claim to fame (if you want to talk politics, you went to Turecki’s on 10th; if you want a great fish fry and maybe a floor show, Palka’s Mirror Room on 8th is the place to go). Mr. Kolecki repeats the urban legend that Oliver Street once had the most taverns per mile than “any other municipality in the United States” (21). The many factory jobs in the area are pointed to as the reason for all these “watering holes,” and he lists a few. He tips a toe into the water of the origin of the name of Oliver Street (22) but endorses no one view. The chapter concludes with eight pages of business names, sorted by type. On the Avenues begins with something between a mission statement and a prayer: “Lest we forget, the little, inconspicuous places, people and things that made life on the avenues interesting and unique” (i). Throughout the book, Mr. Kolecki pivots from prose into lengthy inventories of these “inconspicuous places” and once-familiar names, from bakers to milkmen. They are names that will “ring a bell” for an ever-dwindling number of people. But this isn’t mere nostalgia: it's a conscious act of resistance against the erasure of a shared past. It’s the veteran fulfilling his mission. From an 86-year-old who's navigated global upheavals, fought at Iwo Jima, and lived as an exchange student in the Soviet Union, the message is clear: remember, or risk losing the communal fabric that defines us.
The Town of Wheatfield, transcribed chapter (Landmarks of Niagara County, 1897).pdf
CHAPTER XXII. THE TOWN OF WHEATFIELD. Wheatfield is the last town organized in Niagara County, and was set off from Niagara May 12, 1836. It lies on the southern boundary of the county, west of the center, and extends farther south than any other town. The Niagara River forms its southwestern boundary and Tonawanda Creek its southern. Its surface is level or gently undulating. The soil is generally a clayey loam, not easy of cultivation, but productive of grains and especially of wheat; this latter fact gave the town its name. Cayuga Creek flows across the northwestern part of the town and empties into the Niagara River, and Sawyer’s Creek flows southeasterly across the southeastern part and empties into TonawandaCreek. The town contains four post offices Martinsville, Bergholtz, St. Johnsburg, andShawnee, besides the city of North Tonawanda, and the hamlet of Walmore, in the northwestern corner. The first town meeting was held on the 6th of June, 1836, in the school house of districtNo. 7, on the north line of the town, and the following were elected as the first officers:Supervisor, N. M. Ward.; town clerk, Edwin Cook; assessors, Isaac H. Smith, JamesSweeney, Hiram Parks; justices of the peace, L. B. Warden, John Sweeney; commissioners of highways, Elias Parks, Matthew Gray; collector, Stewart Milliman; Overseer of the poor, William Towsley; constables, Stewart Milliman, Daniel C. Jacobs, Calvin F. Champlin, Seth F. Roberts; commissioners of schools, Isaac L. Young, James Sweeney, Loyal E. Edwards. These were all esteemed citizens of the town at that comparatively late date. The following have been supervisors of the town: In 1836, N. M. Ward; 1837, Benjamin McNitt; 1838, N. M. Ward; 1839, WilliamVandervoort; 1840, John Sweeney; 1842, Isaac L. Young; 1843, N. M. Ward; 1844—45,Lewis S. Payne; 1846, N. M. Ward; 1847—48, L. S. Payne; 1849, Sylvester McNitt;1850, L. S. Payne; 1851, Seth F. Roberts: 1852, Sylvester McNitt; 1853—54, PeterGreiner; 1855, Joseph Hawbecker: 1856—57. GeorgeW. Sherman; 1858, N.M. Ward;1859—61, L. S. Payne; 1862, Peneuel Schmeck; 1863—66, George W. Sherman; 1867H. H. Griffin: 1868, James Carney; 1869, H. H. Griffin; 1870, Edward A. Milliman1871—73, Joseph D. Loveland; 1874—75. Thomas C. Collins; 1876, L. S. Payne; 18771878, Christian Fritz; 1879—81, Charles Kandt; 1882, Daniel Sy; 1883, C. F. Goerss1884-88, Peter Heim; 1889—94, Chauncey Wiebterman; 1895—96, William Tompkins1897—98, Herman Rosebrook. Charles Hagen, a veteran of Co. D, 100th N. Y. Vols., has served as town clerk since about 1874. Since the incorporation of North Tonawanda as a city, Charles Kohler was elected supervisor of the First ward; Conrad J. Winter, Second ward; and John H. Bollier, Third ward. Although this town was erected so many years later than most of the others in the county, and its settlement in the interior and western parts was so comparatively recent, it still bore a close relation to the important events that took place in early years on the frontier.The banks near the mouth of Cayuga Creek, as the reader has learned, constitute ahistorical locality and witnessed stirring scenes when this town was a part of Niagara.The first settlements were made on the Niagara River on and near the site of the city ofNorth Tonawanda. Even in that vicinity progress was slow, except in the direction of improving farm lands, until after the completion of the Erie Canal. There were few settlers within the limits of the town previous to the war of 1812, and when these learned of the destruction of Youngstown and Lewiston, they shared in the general consternation along the frontier, gathered in haste such property as they could carry, and fled eastward beyond immediate danger. Probably the earliest settler on the site of North Tonawanda was George N. Burger, who came in 1809 and built a log tavern on the river; he remained a resident until about 1825.Joshua Pettit came in 181o and settled near the Niagara Iron Works, where he opened a tavern. He was the father of Mrs. Daniel C. Jacobs and Mrs. Whitman Jacobs. Stephen Jacobs, a soldier at the battle of Bunker Hill, located on the river two miles below in1817, where he purchased 196 acres of Augustus Porter, paying eight dollars an acre. He died in Niagara Falls in January, 1840. William Vandervoorte settled here in 1825, occupying a log house which tradition says was the only one then in existence. It was his intention to make a business of purchasing staves and timber for the Boston market, and ultimately to open a mercantile business. In 1828 he finished the first public house in the place, which was called the Niagara; it was burned in 1844. Later he purchased 1,000acres of land of the Holland Company and sold to Prussian immigrants the largest part of their possessions on Tonawanda Creek and its vicinity. He established the first bank in1836. As before indicated, little progress of a business nature was made here until the opening of the Erie Canal. The interior of the town was still almost an unbroken wilderness and as late as 1850 a large part of the area of the town was unimproved. The prospects at Tonawanda in 1824, as viewed by interested persons, is indicated in the following advertisement: VILLAGE OF NIAGARA. This village is located at the confluence of the Niagara and Tonawanta rivers, where the Erie canal from Buffalo enters the Tonawanta, and where boats pass from the canal into the Niagara river by a lock. At this junction of the rivers and adjoining the village, is a safe and spacious harbor, as well for canal boats as for vessels navigating Lake Erie.These advantages cannot fail to render the village of Niagara the depot of the products of the West, destined to the city of New York, and of return cargoes of merchandise.A dam of four or five feet high will be thrown across the Tonawanta, at the village, so as to raise the river to the level of Lake Erie, and the river will be navigated for the distance of eleven miles, and be united with the canal between Niagara and Lockport. The surplus water from the dam will afford an abundant and steady supply for mills and other hydraulic works. The village is 12 miles from Buffalo, 8 from the falls, 15 from Lewiston, and 16 miles from Lockport. A line of stages passes through from Buffalo to Lewiston daily, and another from Lockport to Buffalo every other day. Travelers to the Falls will leave the canal at this place. A bare inspection of Vance’s or Lay’s map of the western part of this State will at once show the advantageous position of the village for trade, market and manufactures.Building lots are now offered for sale to actual settlers. A map of the village may be seen by application to James Sweeney, at Buffalo, or to George Goundry at the Land Office inGeneva; and the former will enter into contracts of sale. The title is indisputable, and good warranty deeds will be executed to purchasers. GEORGE GOUNDY, JAMES SWEENEY, JOHN SWEENEY, Proprietors. July 5, 1824. The James Sweeney, whose name appears above, settled first in Buffalo in 1811. He became one of the proprietors of the site of North Tonawanda village, and as such settled there in 1828 and built one of the very early frame dwellings. The land owned by him and his associates was cleared to supply timber for the Buffalo pier and breakwater, and at the same time to prepare the tract for sale in small lots. The sites on which were erected the First M. E. church (1837) and the first school house were donated by Mr. Sweeney, and largely through his energy, activity and generosity the village received its early impetus. He died in January, 1850, aged fifty-seven. John Sweeney was his son and long a prominent citizen; he superintended the building of the first railroad depot and was long the station agent. He caused the building of the first dock on the creek next to the bridge, and subsequently extended it 250 feet. He built the first grist mill, which was burned and not rebuilt, and also the first saw mill. James Carney settled as early as 1819, with his father, Edward, on Tonawanda Island, which was known for many years as Carney Island. His purpose was to gain pre emption rights to the island if the boundary settlement should leave it within the United States. In 1854 the State caused a survey to be made and ordered an assessment valuation of $4 50 per acre. In the next year the island was directed to be sold at auction in Albany and required one-eighth of the purchase money to be paid down. Mr. Carney placed the requisite sum in the hands of Judge Samuel Wilkinson, of Buffalo, to make the purchase. But the spirit of speculation awakened by the operations of Mordecai M. Noah and his associates, on Grand Island, created a spirited contest for this island and it was sold to Samuel Leggate at $23 an acre. After that Mr. Carney became one of the most active and energetic of the pioneers; engaged extensively in clearing lands; was employed as a teamster by Porter, Barton & Co.; boated salt and other produce up and down the river; and was otherwise a useful member of the young community. Among other early settlers of the town were Heman A. Barnum, James A. Betts, Wilhelm Dornfeld, Albert Dornfeld, C. F. Goers, Herman F. Stieg, Nelson Zimmerman, John Grey. In 1824 Harvey Miller came from Rochester and settled on the Lockport and Niagara Falls road, in the north part of the town, where he purchased 100 acres of the Holland Company at $5 an acre. He was young and energetic, and although without much means, he soon became independent. During the first winter he was in this town he, with the assistance of one young man, cleared twenty-five acres. In that summer he sowed eighteen acres of winter wheat and raised 8oo bushels; this he sold to other incoming settlers at seventy-five cents a bushel. He was long a road commissioner and aided in laying out all the first roads in the town. He lived to an old age. Among the first settlers in the extreme northeastern part, where the post-office of Shawnee is located, were Timothy Shaw (from whom the place is named) and Volney Spalding, who opened a store and established an ashery there in 1828. John Grey settled about a mile south of Shawnee in 1825; he purchased eighty-four acres of the Holland Company at $5 an acre. In the course of time certain influences brought into this town a largely preponderant foreign element, mainly of Prussian nativity, who settled at first mostly on small tracts of land, but finally became in many instances large owners. By far the greater portion of the territory of the town was finally occupied by them, and the same is true today of them or their descendants. They developed into excellent farmers, frugal and industrious, and patient in overcoming adverse conditions in their surroundings. They cleared the lands, drained the swamps, and rendered the town one of the most productive in this region. Settlements by this element were about simultaneous in separate localities. In 1843 Carl Sack, Erdman Wurl, and Fred Grosskopf purchased of William Vandervoorte 400 acres at $15 an acre; the tract was situated on the Tonawanda Creek, in the southeast corner of the town, and the settlement made there was given the name of Martinsville, through the veneration felt by the inhabitants for Martin Luther. The original purchase was subdivided into small tracts of three or more acres, to suit the wishes of purchasers, and about thirty families came in the first season. Ten log houses were completed in the fall, and into these the families moved, three or four in a house, in some cases, until additional buildings could be erected. Christian Dornfeld settled here in 1843, purchasing six acres of Vandervoorte, and lived to old age, leaving a family of children. His sons William and Albert became prominent business men in the place. William Dornfeld and Christian Fritz purchased, in 1856 the first saw mill, which had been built by Joseph Hewitt. Mr. Fritz built a saw mill and planing mill in 1860, and established a lumber yard. William Dornfeld also carried on a considerable store, which he opened in 1851. He was associated with Krull Brothers in operating another planing mill and sash and door factory, which was built in 1876, and was also postmaster of the place for some time. The present postmaster is Charles A. Graf, who is also a harnessmaker. Other later and present merchants are William F. Fritz, lumber; Charles Grosskopf and Ernest G. Jaenecke general stores; Ferdinand Ziehl, hardware; and Christ Martin, grocery. John G. Jaenecke is proprietor of the Martinsville Hotel, and Charles Rogge is a blacksmith and cider manufacturer. Eugene De Kleist began the manufacture of church and other .organs in Martinsville in 1892, and in 1893 erected a large factory, in which he employed about fifty hands. He has been eminently successful in this enterprise, and enjoys a trade which extends all over the country. Martinsville became a part of the city of North Tonawanda on April 24, 1897, but still maintains its own post office. New Bergholtz (Bergholtz is the name of the post-office) is in the central part of the town and was settled almost exclusively by Prussians. The place is named from one in Germany whence many of the settlers came. In 1843 Frederick Moll, John Williams and John Sy, as trustees, purchased a tract of land for a German Evangelical Lutheran congregation consisting of 120 members. The tract contained 820 acres and was conveyed by deed from the Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company; 176ó acres, deeded by William L. Marcy and wife; 118 acres deeded by Washington Hunt; 200 acres deeded by John J. DeGraff (the two latter tracts including the site of the village); 456 acres conveyed by Blandina Dudley; and 349 acres by the Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company. These transfers were all made in October, 1843. The whole quantity of land conveyed comprised 2,119ó acres and cost the settlers a little more than $16,000. A map of the lands was made and 121 village lots laid out, with proper streets and a large public square. By a general deed executed by the trustees October 12, 1843, they conveyed to Augustus Manske and 118 others each a lot of one acre. The first of these corners found temporary quarters in a large barn that had been previously built for some purpose, until houses could be erected. Washington Hunt presented the community with their first ox team to aid in building log houses, and during the first season a building was completed on nearly every one of the lots deeded. With the community came a carpenter, a blacksmith, a mason, a tailor, a shoemaker and a cabinet maker, which enabled them to live almost wholly upon their own resources. Some of them had considerable money, one of the wealthiest being John Salingre, who brought over about $20,000. His kindness and generosity to his less fortunate neighbors in the new country are gratefully remembered. He died in 1871. The first dry goods store started at Bergholtz was that of Christian Wolf, one of the pioneers. The first post-office was established in 1850 with John Sy, postmaster, who died in 1861. These Lutherans left their own country chiefly on account of the determination of the king of Prussia to force a union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Hundreds of families left their country on that account. Rev. J. An. A. Grabau of Buffalo, preached to these people for about a year from 1843, when their former pastor, Rev. Mr. Ehrenstroem, arrived from Germany. He was succeeded a year later by Rev. Henry von Rohr, formerly a captain in the Prussian army, who remained until his death in 1874. A church was erected in 1848, and was called The Holy Ghost Church. A school was opened and taught by one of the pioneers, and later by G. Renwald. In 1845 the Lutheran Synod was organized in Buffalo and the Bergholtz church became a part of it. In 1866, through dissension, the synod divided into three parts, and in consequence the Bergholtz congregation was divided into two parties, one of which, consisting of fifty-two families, renounced its old pastor, Mr. Von Rohr, and called Rev. W. Weinback. This party had a rriajority of the members and remained in possession of the church property, consisting of about twelve acres of land, the church parsonage, cemetery, and school buildings. The other party, about thirty-seven families, remained loyal to Mr. Von Rohr, held services in a private house, which was later fitted up for a school house, and soon built a new brick edifice, taking the name of Trinity church. Mr. Von Rohr died in 1874, and about two thirds of the Trinity congregation now wished to join with the Buffalo synod; but as the remainder were not willing, they separated, called another pastor, and in 1875 organized the Lutheran St. Jacob’s Congregation. A lot was purchased, and in 1876 a new church, parsonage, and school house were erected. Bergholtz now contains the stores of Charles W. Kandt and August Lange, the latter being also postmaster, and the store of August Retzlaff. At Shawnee, in the northeast corner of the town, a Baptist church was organized in July, 1830, but the large influx of Lutherans caused the abandonment of that organization and the substitution of the other. Land for the church was donated by Isaac Carl and the building was erected in 1847. Shawnee was named from Timothy Shaw, who with Volney Spalding opened a store and ashery there in 1828. In 1863 an M. E. church was erected. Harmon H. Griffin is postmaster and general merchant, and Carl E. Eddy, blacksmith. St. Johnsburg is an outgrowth of Bergholtz, and lies to the southwest of the latter place on the 820 acres deeded by the Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company, before mentioned. It has had very little business interest. A brick church was erected by St. John’s German Lutheran Society in 1846, to which was attached a school. A store was opened and a few shops established. William C. Krull is the postmaster and a general merchant, and Lewis Holland is a harness dealer and proprietor of the hotel. New Walmore, in the northwest corner of the town, was so named from a village in Prussia, whence the settlers came about 1843. A Lutheran church was built there, of brick, in The place is merely a rural hamlet. North Tonawanda formed one of the wards of Tonawanda from the incorporation of the latter village to 1857, when it withdrew, and for eight years was simply a part of the town of Wheatfield. The village of North Tonawanda was incorporated May 8, 1865, with the following trustees: David Robinson, Jacob Becker, George W. Sherman, Alexander G. Kent, Clark Ransom and J. D. Vandervoorte. At that time it contained a population of 440 and an area of 681 acres. The village government was established with its various departments of fire, police, schools, etc., and during the thirty-two succeeding years was brought to its present efficient condition. The village presidents were as follows: James Carney. 1868; Franklin Warren, 1869; John M. Rockwell, 1870; A. G. Kent, 1871; Franklin Warren, 1872—73; C. W. Watkins, 1874—75; Franklin Warren, 1876; C. W. Watkins, 1877—78; F. S. Fassett, 1879; Alexander McBain, 1880; John Taylor, 1881— 82; William Goinbert, 1883; Conrad Backer, 1884; J. S. Thompson, 1885—87; Fred Sommer, 1888—89; Joseph Pitts, 1890; Benjamin F. Felton, 1891; John E. Oelkers, 1892; James S. Thompson, 1893—94; George Stanley (resigned, and E. C. McDonald installed), 1895; Levant R.Vandervoort, 1896; Albert B. McKeen, 1897. On April 24, 1897, by a special act of the Legislature, North Tonawanda was incorporated as a city with the following boundaries: All that part of the county of Niagara, in the State of New York, comprised within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning at the junction of the middle line of the Tonawanda Creek with the Niagara River, the same being on the south bounds of Niagara county; thence running up said Tonawanda Creek, following the middle line thereof, the same being the boundary line between the county of Erie and the county of Niagara, to a point opposite the mouth of the Sawyers Creek, where Sawyers Creek empties into said Tonawanda Creek; thence northerly along and following the middle line of Sawyers Creek, to the junction of the east and west branches of said creek, in farm lot four, lying along Tonawanda Creek; thence northwesterly along the middle line of the westerly branch of said creek, to the intersection of said middle line with the north line of lot 12, in township 13 of range 8 of the Holland purchase (so-called); thence westerly along the north line of said lot 12, and lots 21 and 28 of said township and range, to the northwest corner of lot 28; thence continuing the same course westerly along the projection of said north line of said lot 28 to the point of intersection of said projected line with the north line of lot 73 of the New York State mile reserve; thence northwesterly along the said north line of said lot 73 and along the north line of lots 71 and 70 and 69 of the said mile reserve, to the intersection of the west line of said lot 69 with said north line thereof; thence southerly along the west line of said lot 69 to the easterly shore of the Niagara River; thence at right angles to the shore line of said river at that point, southerly to the middle line of the east channel of Niagara River. being the boundary between Niagara and Erie counties; thence up the said middle line of said east channel of Niagara River and along said boundary line between said Niagara and Erie counties, to the southerly point or angle of said Niagara county, in the middle of said east channel of said Niagara River: thence easterly and northeasterly in the waters of said river along the boundary line between said Erie county and Niagara county. to the place of beginning; shall be known as the city of North Tonawanda. The city, by this act, was divided into three wards, and the village officers became and held over as officers of the new city, as follows: Albert E. McKeen, mayor; Thomas E. Warner (who had been village clerk since 1886), city clerk; John Kaiser, William M. Gillie. Peter D. Hershey, William Nellis. William Ostwald, Frederick F. Wagenschuetz, Leonard Wiedman, and Martin Wurl, aldermen; Hector M. Stocum, treasurer; James F. Davison, superintendent of public works; Stillman C. Woodruff, superintendent of water works; Augustus F. Premus, city attorney. John Kaiser was elected the first president of the Common Council. A special election was held June 8, 1897, for the purpose of electing supervisors, and resulted as follows; First ward, Charles H. Kohier; second ward, Conrad J. Winter; third ward, John H. Bollier. The city is provided with well organized police, fire, and health departments, the mayor being president of the latter. The police department is under the control of three commissioners, appointed by the mayor, the first (1897) incumbents being Lewis F. Allen (president), George McBean, and John Mahar. The chief is John Ryan, who has under him one sergeant and six patrolmen. The fire department was organized about twenty years ago, the first company being Columbia Hook & Ladder Co., which is still in existence; there are seven other companies, viz.: Rescue Fire Co. (stationed in Martinsville), Alert Hose Co, Active Hose Co., Hydrant Hose Co., Live Hose Co., Gratwick Hose Co. (in Gratwick), and Sweeney Hose Co. The chief is Louis J Wattengel. The water system originated with the Tonawanda City Water Works Company, which was incorporated in 1885 with a capital of $50,000. The works were located on Tonawanda Island, and water was obtained by the Holly system from the Niagara River. The company supplied both Tonawanda and North Tonawanda, but the former finally built a plant of its own. About 1894 the village of North Tonawanda purchased these works at a cost of $275,000, and the city now operates it through its Board of Public Works. Public improvements, such as the laying of pavements and sewers, were commenced by the village about 1889, and up to the present time about $150,000 have been expended for the former and $161,000 for the latter. The Standard Gas Company was incorporated August 21, 1888, with a capital of $25,000, for producing and piping natural gas, which is obtained at Getzville in Erie county. George P. Smith is president. The Tonawanda Lighting and Power Company was incorporated February 23, 1897, with a capital of $150,000, and is the successor of the Tonawanda and Wheatfield Electric Light Company, which was organized in 1890 The company supplies both Tonawanda and North Tonawanda, and operates in all about 290 arc and 2,400 incandescent lamps. Frank M. Gordon is local manager. The Tonawanda Street Railroad Company was incorporated in 1891 with a capital of $50,000. George P. Smith is president. Besides this the city is connected with Buffalo and Niagara Falls by electric lines, and with Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Lockport by the New York Central and Erie Railroads. Much of the early history of North Tonawanda has been detailed in preceding pages of this chapter, and the reader has doubtless observed that no marked impetus was inaugurated until about 1875. The Sweeney and Vandervoort families were the first resident owners of land in the old village limits. James Sweeney bought farm lots 81 and 82 June 14, 1824, and later conveyed a one-third interest to his brother, Col. John Sweeney, and one-third to George Goundry, an uncle of the latter’s first wife. William Vandervoort, a brother-in-law of James Sweeney, bought farm lot 80 June 7, 1826. These three lots comprise three-fourths of the old corporate limits. As stated, development and settlement were slow until recent years, when an impetus was inaugurated that afforded an unprecedented growth and marked North Tonawanda as one of the most enterprising cities in the State. One of the first to effectually promote the business and shipping interests of the place was Col. Lewis S. Payne, who settled in this town in 1841. In 1845 he engaged in the lumber business and in 1847 erected the first steam saw mill here. He was a lieutenant-colonel in the Rebellion, served as county clerk, assemblyman, and State senator, and was long one of the most enterprising of citizens. Beginning within a few years after the completion of the Erie Canal and continuing to the present time, North Tonawanda has been one of the most important lumber markets of the great lakes. A great many energetic business men, both resident and non-resident, have been associated in this business, whose names even cannot be mentioned here. The rafting of logs from Canada and other lake points was commenced during the war of the Rebellion by Hon. H. P. Smith, but the great lumber business properly dates from 1873. Since then it has grown to enormous proportions. The following tables have been prepared by the Tonawanda Herald: [SEE PDF for figures] Among the leading lumber firms of North Tonawanda are the following: Smith, Fassett & Co., Huron Lumber Co., Calkins & Co., Rumbold & Alliger, Kelsey & Gillespie, James B. Huff, F. A. Myriçk, A. K. & W. E. Silverthorne, Rumbold & Bellinger. Dodge & Bliss Co., OilIe & McKeen, Robinson Brothers & Co. Ltd., Robertson & Doebler, John Godkin, Thompson Hubman & Fisher, J. & T. Charlton, Merriman & Merriman, Export Lumber Co., Willoughby & Hathaway, W. H. Cooper & Co., Skillings, Whitneys & Barnes, Harrison W. Tyler, Wisconsin Lumber Co., A Weston & Co., W. H. Sawyer Lumber Co., David G. Cooper, Fassett & Bellinger, Frost, Rider & Frost, Monroe & McLean, Cornelius Collins, George H. Damon. Among former lumber concerns were J. S. Bliss & Co., formed in i886, whose mill, which was burned recently, was built as a grist mill by John and James Sweeney in 1853; The Tonawanda Lumber and Saw Mill Company incorporated in June, 1891, with a capital of $300,000 which succeeded the Tonawanda Lumber Company, whose predecessor was the New York Lumber and Wood Working Company, which was incorporated by George P. Smith and others in 1885; the Hoilister Brothers Company, Ltd., organized in January, 1889, with a capital of $450,000, which on September 1, 1890, was increased to $600,000; the L. A. Kelsey Lumber Company, organized in 1886, which established the first hardwood lumber trade in North Tonawanda; W. E. Marsh & Co., organized about 1888; ; W. H. Kessler & Son, formed in 1887; Plumsteei, Gillespie & Himes, organized in 1890. A. M. Dodge & Co. began business here in 1883, erected a planing mill in 1885, and were succeeded by the Dodge & Bliss The firm of McGraw & Co., consisting of John McGraw, T. H. McGraw, C. B. Curtis and Ira D. Bennett, was for many years heavy dealers in lumber, their yards and docks covering more than six acres of land, with a main dock 400 feet long and two slips of 6oo feet each. W. H. Gratwick & Co., about two miles below the city, established an immense lumber interest several years ago. Others connected with this company were Robert S. Fryer, in Albany, under the style of Gratwick, Fryer & Co., and Edward Smith, in Michigan, under the firm name of Smith, Gratwick & Co. These companies owned more than 30,000 acres of Michigan pine lands, where their mills were capable of turning out 28,000,000 feet annually. Their docks had a frontage on the river of 2,000 feet, with every facility for handling and shipping lumber economically. William H. Gratwick came here and established a lumber business in 1870. In 1880 the Gratwick, Smith & Fryer Lumber Company was incorporated. P. W. Ledoux built a sash, door and blind factory about 1876 and Mr. Gratwick erected a planing mill in 1879 J. & T. Chariton's wood working mill was built by Charles Williams. John Charlton came here in 1862 and was soon followed by Thomas. Grand Island was purchased for the white oak timber in 1833 by the East Boston Company for $16,000. A large mill with gang saws was built and Stephen White, the manager of the company, purchased Tonawanda Island for his home and erected the mansion there. The company did an extensive business until 1837-38. Later William Wilkeson, of Buffalo, became the owner of the island, and from him Smith, Fassett & Co., who had been in the lumber trade since 1872, purchased it in 1882. The island comprises 85 acres, and is one of the largest lumber centers in the world. The W. H. Sawyer Lumber Company was organized in January, 1887. Skillings, Whitneys & Barnes succeeded to the plant of Hall & Buell in June, 1890, and have a dockage of about 1,300 feet on Tonawanda Island. Robertson & Doebler began business here in 1888 and erected a large planing mill in 1889. These and many other lumber concerns have brought the city of North Tonawanda into the front rank of lumber centers of the world during the past quarter century, and it is safe to say that no place in the country has had a more wonderful and sudden development in this respect. With unexcelled harbor facilities, upon which the government has expended thousands of dollars in improvements, and with the great lakes as a feeder and the Erie Canal and numerous railroad lines as outlets, the city has recently forged ahead with an unusual bound, and enjoys extraordinary prospects for the future. Much of the recent prosperity of the place is due to the efforts of the North Tonawanda Business Men's Association, which was organized in May, i888, and of which Edward Evans is president. While the great lumber business has brought capital and fame to the place, other interests have equally shared in promoting its growth and prosperity, and to the most important of these the reader's attention is now directed. The Niagara River Iron Company was organized in 1872 with a capital of $400,000. The company purchased real estate at North Tonawanda to the extent of 165 acres, and in 1873 completed the plant and began operations. The blast furnace was built to turn out fifty tons of pig iron daily, and all of the structures necessary for the business are models of strength and architectural harmony. Early officers of the company were Pascal P. Pratt, president; Josiah Jewett, vice-president; S. S. Jewett, H. H. Glenny, George B. Hays, F. L. Danforth and B. F. Felton, trustees. This company was finally succeeded by the Tonawanda Iron and Steel Company, which tore down the old stack and erected a modern furnace at a cost of $250,000, and which subsequently doubled the capacity of its plant. William A. Rogers is president of the company. The Armitage-Herschell Company had its inception in a small brass and iron foundry established by James Armitage and Allan and George C. Herschel! about 1872. Their shop was burned in 1874, rebuilt, and again burned in 1875. Afterward the present site was secured on Oliver street, and the manufacture of engines, boilers, and machinery was conducted on a large scale. In 1887 they added the manufacture of steam riding galleries, or "merry-go-rounds," which has become a leading industry of the Lumber City and the largest of the kind in the country. James Armitage is president; Allan Herschell, vice president; and George C. Herschell, treasurer. The flouring mill of McDonald & Ebersole was started by C. C. Grove and L. D. Ebersole in 1883. The capacity is over 200 barrels per day. Franklin Getz established his present feed mill in North Tonawanda in 1883, coming here from Getzvilie, Erie county. The carriage and wagon works of McIntyre & Miller were started in 1876. The Tonawanda grain elevator, of which Louis Fick is proprietor, was erected in 1882 by L. G Fuller. The Niagara brewery was started by George Zent in 1867, and early in 1883 passed into the possession of the Niagara River Brewing Company, who in June, 1892, were succeeded by the Bush Brewing Company. The first permanent banking business was founded by Edward Evans on June 1, 1872. He was succeeded May 1, 1877, by the firm of Evans, Schwinger & Co., with James H. De Graff president; Edward Evans, vice-president; William McLaren, cashier. This concern was followed by the State Bank, which was organized May i, 1883, with a paid up capital of $100,000, and with James A. De Graff, president; Edward Evans, vice president; Benjamin L. Rand, cashier. The present capital, undivided profits, and surplus is about $165,000, and the officers are J. H. De Graff, president ; C. Schwinger, vice-president; Benjamin L. Rand, cashier. The Lumber Exchange Bank was organized May i, i886, with a capital of $100,000; Edward Evans, president; Joshua S. Bliss. vice president; James H. Rand, cashier; In 1889 the capital was doubled, and in 1890 Mr. Evans was succeeded as president by James S. Thompson. The bank discontinued business in April, 1897. George F. Rand started a private banking business in 1890. James H. Rand established his present private bank in 1894. Frederick Robertson & Co. began a private banking business in 1897. The various journalistic enterprises have been so intimately identified with both Tonawanda and North Tonawanda that it seems advisable to mention them briefly here. The first in the field was the Tonawanda Commercial, which was started by S. Hoyt on May 2, 1850, and lived a little more than a year. In September, 1853, S. S. Packard began the publication of the Niagara River Pilot, which was sold by him in 18,, to S. O. Hayward, who started the Niagara Frontier in November, 1857, and, after an absence, the Enterprise, which was continued till about 1891. The Tonawanda Herald was started July 19, 1875, by Jay Densmore, who a year or two later was succeeded by Warren & O'Regan. On October 14, 1877, Thomas M. Chapman bought out John O'Regan and in 1880 George Warren sold his interest to Thomas E. Warner; since then the firm has been Chapman & Warner. During six months in 1890 a daily edition was published; otherwise the paper has been successfully continued as an able, influential Democratic weekly. Thomas M. Chapman, of the firm of Chapman & Warner, editors and publishers of the Tonawanda Herald, of North Tonawanda, is the son of Thomas and Margaret Chapman, and was born in Queenston, Canada, November 17, 1844. His father was a native of Hull, England. Mr. Chapman moved with his parents to St Catharines, Ontario, where he received an academic education under Rev. T. D. Phillips. When sixteen he was apprenticed to the printer's trade, which he learned thoroughly. In 1877 he came to North Tonawanda, and on October 14 of that year purchased the interest of John O'Regan in the Tonawanda Herald, thus becoming a partner with George Warren in the publication of that paper. In 1880 Mr. Warren sold his interest to Thomas E. Warner, and since then the firm has been Chapman & Warner. Mr. Chapman is one of the oldest and ablest editors in Niagara county, and during a successful journalistic career has always stood in the front rank of his profession. He is a terse, ready writer, a good judge of literature, and an enterprising, public spirited citizen. In politics he has always been a prominent Democrat. He was deputy collector of customs four years and clerk of the village of North Tonawanda three years, and is a member of Niagara River Lodge, No. 527, I. O. O. F., and other social and fraternal organizations. January 27, 1870, he married Cecelia J., daughter of the late James Stephenson, of Canandaigua, N. Y., and they have two children, James Alfred and Alice M. Thomas E. Warner, of the firm of Chapman & Warner, publishers of the Tonawanda Herald, and the first clerk of the city of North Tonawanda, is the son of Hon. Ulysses Warner and Eliza Ann Jones, his wife, and was born in Orleans, Ontario county, N. Y., March 23, 1844. His father was member of assembly in 1858 and 1859, served as justice of the peace for many years, and was a prominent and influential citizen. Mr. Warner was educated in the common schools of his native town. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to the printer's trade in the office of the Geneva Gazette, where he remained three years. Afterward he spent some time as a journeyman, principally in Detroit, Chicago and New York, and while in the latter city was one of four or five compositors who put into type the first dispatch that came over the second Atlantic cable. He was also warden of the Jersey City (N. J.) Charity Hospital for four years. In 1880 he came to North Tonawanda and purchased George Warren's interest in the Tonawanda Herald, with which he has since been connected under the firm name of Chapman & Warner. He is an able writer, a man of energy and ability, and one of the most public spirited of citizens. He served as village clerk of North Tonawanda from 1886 until it became a city, when he became the first city clerk, which office he now holds. He is a past master of Tonawanda Lodge, No. 247, F. and A. M., and the present high priest of Tonawanda Chapter, No. 278, R. A. M. The Daily News, of North Tonawanda, was commenced about i88o by George S. Hobbie, who had been employed in the office of the Index, which was started in 1875 by J. A. L. Fisher. The News was originally a diminutive two-column sheet. George W. Tong became a partner in 1884, and soon changed it to a weekly, taking the name of the Standard, which was leased to J. W. Works in 1886. In 1887 Mr. Works resumed the publication of the Daily News, having as a partner his brother Arthur. Other owners following them were Hepworth & Lane, George P. Smith, and M. J. Dillon, who sold it on December 4, 1894, to Harlan W. and Walter S. Brush; the News Publishing Company was incorporated in May, 1895, with a capital of $12,000, and with H. W. Brush, president, and W. S. Brush, secretary and treasurer. A weekly edition was added April 1, 1897. Harlan W. Brush, president of the News Publishing Company of North Tonawanda, is a son of James A. and Amelia A. (McCall) Brush, and was born in Nelson, Portage county, O., May 27, 1865. He soon moved with his parents to Alliance, Ohio, where he attended the public schools and Mount Union College, which he left at the age of fifteen on account of his father's death. He spent one year in the office of the Alliance Weekly Standard learning the printer's trade, which he finished with F. W. Lordan, a job printer of that place. In December, 1884, he purchased Mr. Lordan's establishment, and in 1887 also bought the Standard, and combined the two plants. In 1888 he added the Alliance Weekly Review and consolidated the two papers under the names of the Daily Review and Weekly Standard, forming a stock company, of which he was the manager and has since been the principal stockholder. In 1894 he came to North Tonawanda, and with his brother, Walter S., purchased the Daily News. In May, 1895, the News Publishing Company was incorporated with a capital of $12,000, and Mr. Brush has since been its president. Mr. Brush has always been active in politics, as a Republican, and was president of the first McKinley club ever organized (1887) this was in McKinley's own county (Stark) in Ohio. As a journalist he is progressive and enterprising, and has been eminently successful in this profession. He has made the News one of the liveliest and best dailies in the county. Walter S. Brush, secretary and treasurer of the News Publishing Company, of North Tonawanda, is a younger son of James A. and Amelia A. (McCall) Brush, and was born in Alliance, Ohio, September 25, i868. He was educated in the Alliance public schools and Mount Union College, was for two years a clerk for the Solid Steel Company of his native city, and then took a course of short hand in Oswego, N. Y. He became chief clerk in the train master's office of the West Shore Railroad in Syracuse and later bookkeeper and manager of the Minneapolis branch of the Hall Safe and Lock Company. In 1894 he came to North Tonawanda, and with his brother, Harlan W., purchased the Daily News, of which he has since been the secretary and treasurer. Mr. Brush is an efficient business manager, as the prosperous condition of the News shows. The North Tonawanda Cemetery Association was incorporated in 1868 with Hiram Newell (president), Benjamin J. Felton, Garwood L. Judd, Selden G. Johnson, Franklin Warren, and John Simpson, trustees. The first bridge over Tonawanda Creek in the village was erected chiefly for military purposes soon after 1800. It was a temporary structure and soon went to ruin. Passage of the stream was then made by ferry until 1824, when a toll bridge was built under a legislative charter, which gave it an existence of twenty-one years. Prior to the expiration of the charter the shares were bought by the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad Company, which rebuilt the bridge to accommodate its tracks. When the charter expired the bridge became a county and town charge. The third structure was built by Niagara and Erie counties and stood until J875 when the present one was erected. In 1891 another iron bridge was built across the Tonawanda Creek to connect Delaware and Main streets, and still another was erected over Ellicott Creek on Delaware street. Within recent years a number of land enterprises have been inaugurated in North Tonawanda, giving the city an impetus commensurate with its business growth and development. The Ironton addition was replatted and placed on the market in 1890; the North Tonawanda Land Company was incorporated in June, 1891, with a capital of $100,000. One of the moving spirits in each of these incorporations was George P. Smith. At this point mention should be made of a number of business men and residents of North Tonawanda, past and present, who have been instrumental in developing the resources of the city and imparting to it that degree of prosperity which has brought it into prominence throughout the country. Among these are: John Schuimeister, Lehon & Warren, A. & B. M. Krauss, L. G. Stanley, Dr. C. C. Smith, Nice & Hmkey, William J. Kage, M. F. and G. F. Myers, (who succeeded G. L. Faulkner in the coal business in 1890), John 0. Ball, John T. and William Bush, W. W. Tlaayer (afterward governor of Oregon), B. H. Long, Hon. Garwood L. Judd, Lewis T. Payne, Frederick Sommer, Dr. R. G. Wright, Dr. W. L. Allen, Dr. W. V. R. Blighton, Levant R. Vandervoort, George P. Smith, A. F. Premus, James S. Thompson, J. H. De Graff, James Sweeney, jr., Frank Batt, Benjamin F. Felton, William Tompkins, Albert Dornfeld (postmaster), George 0. Miller, Henry Homeyer, C. F. Goerss, Thomas H. Tulley, John T. Hepworth, Edward C. Praker, August M Wendt, James H. Rand, Albert E. McKeen, Fred F. Wagenschuetz & Co., Mundie & McCoy, Charles Hagen. William Allen, Edward Evans, Hon. Henry F. Warner. John E. Oelkers, John P. Christgau, Batt, Kopp & Co. (manufacturers of church and school furniture). John H. Bollier, L. G. Fuller, Gillie Godard & Co. (manufacturers of steam riding galleries), August H. Miller, C. F. Oelkers, Christian Schulmeister. Among other prominent citizens of the town of Wheatfield may he mentioned: Edward A. Milliman, William Krull, Frederick and Martin Kopp, William Boening, William Fritz, Frederick Wurl, William Mauth, Gottlieb Walck, William Beutel, James Briggs, L. B. Bullard, John Chadrick, William Deglow, William Devantier, Frederick Geutz, F. D. and B. A. Habecker, Henry Hall, Peter Heim. Dennis G. Hoover. Martin Klemer, Ferdinand Lang, William Lehon, William Mavis, Oliver and John Miller, \Villiam Pfuhl, Christ Radlaff, Charles Rogge, George Schenek, Joseph Schenek, William Schmidt, John H. and William Schnell, Henry Treichier, William Vandervoort, Henry F. Wagner, Albert and August Walk, Christopher Walk, Gottlieb Walk, William Watt, Fred Weinheimer, William Wench, August and Charles Werth, Chauncey Wichterman, August and Gustav H. Williams, William Williams, George M. Warren, Christian George Krull, J. D. Loveland, Daniel Sy, William Clark, Martin Reisterer, Calvin Jacobs, J. S. Tompkins, Thomas Collins, Daniel Treichler, Harvey Miller. More extended notices of some of these and many others appear in Part III of this volume. Schools and religious services were among the first institutions to be inaugurated by the early settlers. The history of the beginnings of the former, however, is meagre. The first school in the north part of the town was taught by Ira Benedict in 1826, while the pioneers in the south part evidently sent their children over into Erie county, a school having been started there, near the creek, as early as 1816. In 1836, soon after the formation of the town, Wheatfield was conveniently divided into school districts, which in 1860 numbered seven; the present number is eight. In 1866 a portion of the Union School building in North Tonawanda was erected; this is a fine brick structure, known as the Goundry Street school, and was rebuilt in 1882, bonds to the amount of $14,500 being issued for the purpose. There are three other substantial brick schOol houses in the city, viz., the Ironton School, erected in 1889, and the Pine Woods and Gratwick Schools, built in 1892; the former cost $15,000 and the latter two $20,000 each. One of the most successful teachers and superintendents was Prof. Alexander D. Filer, who came to North Tonawanda from Middleport in 1881 and remained until his death, about 1891, being succeeded by Prof. Clinton S. Marsh, the present incumbent. The principal of the High School is F. J. Beardsley. Benjamin F. Felton has been connected with the Board of Education since 1876 and has served as its president since 1877; James H. Rand has officiated as clerk since 1882. Religious services were held in this section as early as 1816-20, when Rev. John Foster was a preacher on the Tonawanda circuit, but no church was organized until many years later. Some of the earlier churches of the town have already been mentioned. The inhabitants of Tonawanda worshiped for some time in a union church which was erected about 1830, on a lot on South Canal street donated by A. H. Tracy. The First Methodist Episcopal Church of North Tonawanda was built in 1842. on the corner of Main and Tremont streets. One of the prime movers in this as well as in the original movement was John Simson, who on July 4, 1867, presented the lot, edifice, etc., to the society free of debt. The present church was completed in 1882. A Baptist church was organized about 1852, but a few years later succumbed for lack of support. The First Baptist church of North Tonawanda was organized September 6, 1885, with eighteen members, and in 1887-88 an edifice was erected on Vandervoort street at a cost of about $8,000. St. Mark's Episcopal church, organized February 17, 1869, is noticed in the chapter devoted to Lockport. St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran church, of North Tonawanda, was organized October 31, 1887. by Rev. H. Kaufman, who also instituted a parochial school in connection therewith. The church was built about 1888. The Church of Christ of North Tonawanda was organized in 1888, and the next year an edifice was built on the corner of Christiana street and Payne's avenue; with the lot it cost about $12,000. The Church of the Ascension (Roman Catholic), of North Tonawanda, was organized by Rev. Father Bustin in i888, and a church and parsonage were erected soon afterward. The present pastor is Rev. Patrick Cronin. St. Matthew's German Evangelical Lutheran church, on the corner of Wheatfield and Bryan streets, was built in 1888-90, the church organization being effected in January, 1890. The first pastor was Rev. W. C. Koch. Connected with the church is a flourishing parochial school. The Evangelical Frieden's church was organized by Rev. Paul Dittman in 1889, and an edifice was built the same year on the corner of Schenck and Vandervoort streets at a cost of $8,000. The North Presbyterian church was organized April 30, 1891, with seventy- five members, and purchased the building erected by the German Methodists in 1887. The Central Methodist church on Oliver street near Fifth avenue, North Tonawanda, was built about 1893. The Young Men's Christian Association of North Tonawanda was organized largely through the influence of the late Rev. I. P. Smith in December, 1886. In 1892 a handsome brick building was erected on the corner of Main and Tremont streets. One of the principals in fostering this institution was Dr. F. M. Hayes, the first president. There are two churches of the Lutheran faith in Martinsville, viz., St. Martin's, erected in 1846, and St. Paul's, built in 1861. Connected with each church is a flourishing parochial school. FROM LANDMARKS OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK EDITED BY: WILLIAM POOL PUBLISHED BY D. MASON & CO. PUBLISHERS, SYRACUSE, NY 1897
Young girl, Clench, cabinet card (c1890) .jpeg
Woman and small child, cabinet photo, RJ Clench, ad on back (c1890).jpeg
Mother and daughter, cabinet card (Torreys Photographic Rooms, c1880).jpeg
Bearded man, Clench cabinet card (c1890).jpeg
You can get anything you may want on the market, article (Tonawanda News, 1910).jpg
Public market directory, ad (Tonawanda News, 1910).jpg
Grand opening, Market Hotel, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-12-15).jpg
Would keep steam company away from NT, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-08).jpg
To liven a dead one, market site property, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-01-22).jpg
Theodore S Fassett, owner of Tonawanda Island, dead at 60, 420 Linwood Ave, article (1908-09-02).jpg
The new (Market) Hotel nearly completed, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-11-16).jpg
The market, editorial (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-17).jpg
The Hoodoo car killed motorman, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-12-09).jpg
State inspector at public market, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-11-05).jpg
Special election to decide fate of market site, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-01-29).jpg
Schumacker guilty of excise violation, Market Hotel, article (Tonawanda News, 1914-12-16).jpg
Scenic Family Theatre, blackface banjoist, illusionist, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-18).jpg
Scenic Family Theatre, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-10).jpg
Saturday week, city market formally opened, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-05).jpg
Rand Company to build again, will raze Market Hotel, article (Tonawanda News, 1920-06-04).jpg
Public market debated, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-01-25).jpg
Program NTMIW band concert, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-18).jpg
Possibly Market Hotel, illustration (1921).jpg
Plans for public market and sewers in two streets ready, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-04-21).jpg
Ordinance creating the North Tonawanda Public Market (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-24).jpg
North Tonawanda Public Market, listing (Tonawanda News, 1925-01-09).jpg
New Market Hotel, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-12-11).jpg
Market to be voted on, article (Tonawanda News, 1897-08-12).jpg
Market shelter, Twin City Dairy, map detail (1951).jpg
Market ready, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-07-18).jpg
Market matters, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-07-22).jpg
Market Hotel opens tomorrow, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-11-30).jpg
Market committee will get nice little trip to Dunkirk, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-02-28).jpg
Look for market on another page, Market Hotel, article (Tonawanda News, 1910-09-02 1035).jpg
Improvements at market, notice (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-08.jpg
Handsome dinner set for Gustave Moll, Public Market clerk, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-12-26).jpg
Gave fine concert at north side market, NTMIW, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-21).jpg
Free (NTMIW) band concert at public market, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-17, 1751).jpg
Formal opening of public market, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-24).jpg
Formal opening of city market will occur Saturday evening, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-19).jpg
Find live toad incarcerared in cement block during Market Hotel demolition, article (Tonawanda News, 1932-08-01).jpg
Contract let, Public Market must be completed not later than July 15, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-05-13).jpg
Come listen to NTMIW band concert, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-17).jpg
Buyers guide of the North Tonawanda Public Market, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-22).jpg
Business directory of public market, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-29).jpg
Band concert at the public market, Weins Twin City Band, ad (Tonawanda News, 1910-05-25ish).jpg
All ready for formal opening of Public Market, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-22).jpg
All is ready for the (informal) opening (of the public market), article (Tonawanda News, 1908-08-12).jpg
A 10K hotel near public market, article (Tonawanda News, 1908-09-01).jpg
Wurlitzer Unit Orchestra Photo Album (Vestal Press reprint, c1975).jpg
Locke role in 1st Presbyterian, article (Tonawanda News, 1972-06-03).png
Johnson household, U. S. Census (1855).jpg
Jesse F. Locke and wife, grave in Sweeney Cemetery, photos (Dennis Reed Jr, 2012).jpg
Alleged grave of Hannah Johnson, Sweeney Cemetery, photo (NOT her grave), photo (Dennis Reed Jr, 2012.jpg
Identified by an old-timer as her grave. Not believed to be true.
Public Market, North Tonawanda, postcard (c1910).jpg
North Tonawanda Musical Instrument Works in the background before its 1911 expansion.
When trains and trolleys traverse, article (Tonawanda News, 1976-11-11).pdf
Gratwick trolley line was first in North Tonawanda, article (Tonawanda News, 1925-10-20).jpg
Busses replace trolley, cars on Oliver St. line, article (Tonawanda News, 1925-10-20).jpg
Electric Railway, Stumpf cabinet photo (1917-09-29).jpg
Creo-Dipt, Shingles and Stains catalog excerpts (1946).jpeg
Souvenir history of Niagara County, New York - Commemorative of the 25th anniversary of the Pioneer Association of Niagara County (1902).pdf
North Tonawanda and Martinsville, map detail (Beers Atlas of Niagara and Orleans, 1860).jpg
Carney's Island, Distillery, Ayer Estate, Fisher, Cap. o. Shepard, Rosebrock, Kibber, Roney, A. Jerbitz, Zimmerman, Rumbolt, Dreggs, Nutting, J. Johnson, J. Chadwick,D. Locke, Fritz, Kopp, Taul, others.
Van Slyke & Company, round silos, illustrated letterhead (1912-12-10).jpg
Tonawanda Power Company, Bell and Home Phone, ad (Tonawanda News, 1908-11-28).jpg
Tonawanda Brewing Company, Crackers, Cheese and Beer, ad (1917).jpg
The Pirate Michigan with a cargo of ferocious animals, handbill (1827).jpg
Telephone franchises, Home Telephone to be awarded, Bell possible, article (Tonawanda News, 1900-04-18).jpg
Stardust Lounge ad, 775 Oliver St., logotype (Tonawanda News, 1986).jpg
River Road Flea Market, 555 River Rd., ad (Tonawanda News, 1986-01-31).jpg
River Road Flea Market, 555 River Rd., ad (Tonawanda News, 1985-12-28).jpg
Rainbow Roller Rink, heart-shaped illustration (c1950).png
Piece-a-Dough, 313 Payne Ave., ad (Tonawanda News, 1981-11-05).jpg
NT Cheer Squad, photo (John Baran on Facebook, 1935).jpeg
Keystone Coin, Kerr Jeweler, Tonawanda, card (c1890).jpg
Wurlitzer Statesman, women, photo (c1970).jpeg
Wurlitzer jukebox, teen dancer, photo (c1960).jpeg
Wurlitzer jukebox, showgirls, photo (c1950).jpeg
Wurlitzer factory floor, photo (1953).jpg
Wurlitzer 1700, girl with soda, photo (c.1955).jpeg
Wurlitzer 1100, vendor training, photo (c1960).jpg
Wurlitzer, Groucho Marx, photo (c1945).jpeg
Wurlitzer entrance court, postcard (1936).jpeg
Tonawanda Iron Works, postcard (1909).jpg
River Road China Shop, 861 River Road, ad (Tonawanda News, 1938-01-18 - 1942).jpg
Niagara Silk Maid, postcard (c.1920).jpg
King Construction Co., mill wood workers, photo (c1910).png
Lumber shovers strike culminates in an ugly riot, article (Buffalo Courier, 1892-06-12).pdf
Mother and children, cabinet card, Oliver Studio (474 Oliver Street).jpeg
Megown's Cabins (Niagara Falls Blvd near Kreuger Rd), postcard (c.1940).jpg
Mayor Ollie Vetoes Bell Telephone Franchise, article (Tonawanda News, 1902-03-05).pdf
IRC High Speed Train, Facebook, photo (c1920).jpg
Interference, Bell said to hamper work of Home Telephone Company, article (Tonawanda News, 1900-10-12).jpg
Home Telephone connected with Median, article (Tonawanda News,1902-04-17).jpg
Franchise awarded to Rawson Electric Company, Home Telephone, article (Tonawanda News, (1900-05-16).jpg
Five Star Markets, 981 Payne Ave., ad (Tonawanda News, 1959).jpg
Failure, Bell Telephone Company, ad (Tonawanda News, 1904-04).jpg
Clover Club, 367 Oliver, formerly Horvath's, ad (Tonawanda News, 1947).jpg
Cheerleaders, photo (1948, Liz Woods).jpg
Letter from C.M. Leslie in response to Thayer business ad (1884-07).png
Goundry Street, looking east from Paynes Avenue, postcard (c1910).jpeg
Fenton Fibre Box Company, illustrated envelope (1924).jpeg
F. Ziehl & Son Groceries, unlabeled photo (August 1918).jpg
Ellicott Park Court, 2470 Niagara Falls Blvd, postcard (c1950).jpg
Divers in Tonawanda Art Noble and Robert Christiansen simulate longest dive, press photo (1965).jpg
DeLuxe Lanes, Bowl for Health, ad (Tonawanda News, 1947).jpg
City of North Tonawanda, 1 of 3 (George W. Millener, excerpted from Souvenier History of Niagara County, 1902) .jpg
Charles Douglas Miller with Wurlitzer player piano, photo (c.1915).jpeg
bowl-for-health-retro-ad-art-banner (c1945).jpg
Antique silver case, Charles Butts (c.1890).jpg
Avenues, Payne Estate, future Mid-City Plaza, aerial photo (1938).jpg
47 Fifteenth Ave., aerial photo (1938).jpg
Many of the upper east avenues were still unoccupied in 1938.
Niagara County map, North Tonawanda as Niagara, map (1838).jpg
Tonawanda Industries: The growth of second lumber port in the world, transcription and article (Buffalo Courier, 1887-10-07).pdf
Good general, early description. Earliest settlers seem to only account for south-siders Lock built for Niagara-Creek access. Cleveland Commercial enterprise draws attention. McGraw opens up lumber business, which starts growing around 1870. To avoid high shipping costs, William H. Gratwick towed a massive raft full of lumber (3 million feet, or 20 canal boats' worth) from Bay City, Michigan to (North) Tonawanda over two weeks. People in the village marveled to see it. Gratwick paid the men well to see the lumber unloaded, and the incident drew attention to the Tonawandas' natural advantages as a lumber port. Other lumber firms described Box factory on Tonawanda Island ---- *AI transcriptions may contain errors, though I have done a few sanity checks* TONAWANDA INDUSTRIES. The Growth of the Second Lumber Port in the World. EARLY DAYS OF THE TOWN, A List of the Lumber Firms Doing Business There. OTHER FORMS OF BUSINESS PURSUED. The Rise in the Value of Real Estate in the Last Fifteen Years. Like Buffalo, Tonawanda owes her growth primarily to the Erie canal, which here connects with the water-supply, the Niagara river. Her harbor affords excellent facilities for the transshipment of lumber and forest-products generally to the eastern markets. Previous to 1825, when the Erie Canal was planned and surveyed to this, its western termination, there was no village, not even a hamlet, in Tonawanda. The first settlement was made in 1805 by three men, Alexander Logan, John King, and John Hershey. Henry Anguish, who in 1821 opened the first tavern at his residence, came in 1808, making his home near Tonawanda Creek, a short distance above the old Tonawanda burying ground. The only road from Tonawanda Creek to Buffalo was a rude highway extending along the Niagara shore from Buffalo to the Falls, little traveled, with nothing but a wretched scow ferry to carry wheeled vehicles over the creek. Very few settlers came, for what squatters there were on the low marshy land lying along the creek were subject to fever and ague from its annual floods. Such was the situation until [1823], when a boat lock was constructed, as Mr. Lewis F. Allen noted in his interesting sketch of early days in Tonawanda, connecting the Niagara River with Tonawanda Creek, which was intended to be a part of the canal eastward twelve miles to Pendleton. A few enterprising capitalists of Buffalo—Townsend and Coit, Albert H. Tracy, Judge Samuel Wilkeson (the last named, with his partner, Dr. Ebenezer Johnson, having considerable contracts for canal labor there), Judge Latham A. Burrows of Oswego, and William Williams of Utica—bought a large tract of land on the south shore of the creek to take advantage of any commercial prospects of growth in the future. It was at about this time also that the brothers James and John Sweeney, the former the father of James Sweeney of Buffalo, and who had previously been in the tailoring business with Elijah D. Efner of Buffalo, bought about 200 acres on the north side of the creek, fronting on the river, part of which is now the site of Smith and Fasset’s docks, and all of which is to prove a fortune to the heirs of James Sweeney. John left no children. Soon after making his purchase, James Sweeney with his family became a resident of Tonawanda, where he built a log house and furnished it most comfortably. When the Erie Canal was finished, a rude bridge was thrown across the creek, and over this stagecoaches daily passed to and from the Falls. The little hamlet increased very slowly, as Mr. Urial Driggs, Joseph I. Bush, John Simpson, Benjamin Long, and others bought land and settled on the south side of the creek, the Sweeneys holding and controlling their extensive lands on the north side. On the whole, however, the town slumbered. There was little life within the northwestern part of Erie County. A few log houses, a tavern or so, and a store were all that existed on the present site of Tonawanda, which, together with Grand Island, then unbroken forest, was part of the territory of Buffalo. One of the three days of the annual November election was held there, creating quite a commotion in its usually monotonous existence. Even in the earliest days, however, the principal trade of Tonawanda was in wood. When it was unredeemed marshland, subject to constant overflows of the creek, and sparsely settled by a few victims of fever and ague, its source of revenue was cordwood, boated to Buffalo for the use of the lake steamboats. Among the young men who afterward became prominent citizens of Buffalo and who at this early date gained their living by wood-chopping for the Buffalo trade, was the late George Howard, who, upwards of forty years ago, chopped cordwood in the neighborhood of Tonawanda for $12 a month. The town of Tonawanda was formed from Buffalo, April 16, 1836. The village of Tonawanda was incorporated January 7, 1854. It then included what is now known as North Tonawanda in Niagara County. There were four wards, one of which was north of the creek. Becoming discontented by reason of the superior power wielded by the part lying in Erie County, the residents of the portion situated in Niagara County in 1857 procured the passage of an act withdrawing them from the jurisdiction of the village. That it came about that the two towns lying on either side of the creek now have their independent governments. The great natural advantages of Tonawanda as a lumber receiving and distributing point, now considered by many as unequaled anywhere on the continent, were overlooked until 1851, when the Cleveland Commercial Company established itself at Tonawanda, purchased 500 feet of river frontage, and erected what was then the largest elevator at this end of the lake. The elevator was burned in [1861?], and the enterprise gradually lapsed, but it was the indirect source of great good to Tonawanda by attracting attention to its advantages as a lumber port. Previous to this time a few rafts of round and square timber per annum comprised the entire transactions. Today Tonawanda is second only to Chicago as the lumber port of the world, but it was not until 1870 that the lumber trade here began to assume these large proportions. John McGraw, whose daughter, the late Jennie McGraw, married Prof. Fiske of Cornell University, was the first man to extensively open up the lumber business at Tonawanda. Mr. William H. Gratwick of the firm of Gratwick, Smith & Fryer tells an interesting story of one of the first lumber ventures at Tonawanda. About the year 1863?, when the freight on lumber was $7 or $8 a thousand, his firm, being unable to stand such a high rate of transportation, resorted to the novel plan of building an immense raft. It contained 3,000,000 feet of lumber, or an amount equal to the capacity of about twenty canal boats. The raft was successfully towed from Bay City, Michigan, to Tonawanda, occupying about two weeks in the passage. On its arrival at Tonawanda its immense size drew people from near and far to see it. Mr. Gratwick, who was responsible for the safe landing of this 3,000,000 feet of Michigan lumber, advertised for helpers and secured 100 men. The raft was under water to the depth of many feet, and, foreseeing that the hardest part of the work would be towards the end, when it came to landing and piling the muddy lumber on the bottom, he not only offered good wages but a bonus to every man who stayed with him until the job was done. In this way, although there was some grumbling, the lumber was, in brief time, all neatly sorted and piled in the company’s yard. This enterprise was so unique that it largely advertised Tonawanda’s advantages as a lumber port. The lumber receipts by lake and rail of the port of Tonawanda for 1888 were 918,000,000 feet, or an amount which, if piled twelve feet high, would have extended fifty-five miles. The receipts of lumber by lake for the first three months of the present season, May, June, and July, which are the heaviest months, foot up the total of 259,068,000 feet, and the indications are that the receipts of the present season will equal the astounding figures of last year. The following is a complete enumeration of the lumber firms doing business at Tonawanda: A. Weston & Son. One of the largest lumber firms is that of A. Weston & Son. The members of the firm are Alijah Weston of Painted Post, N. Y., and James Douglas Weston of Tonawanda, who is the manager. This firm does a business of from a million and a half to two million dollars a year. It handles from 60,000,000 to 65,000,000 feet of lumber a year, besides a large amount of round timber, shingles, and laths. This vast amount of business requires five yards, comprising about twenty-five acres of land and having about one mile of dock front, and a large planing mill. The firm handles the entire cut of the three mills owned and operated at Manistique, Mich., and controlled by the senior member of the firm. The firm of A. Weston & Son has standing timber enough to last twenty... Mr. Abijah Weston is also interested in and controls the following firms which he founded: Bronson, Weston & Co., Ottawa, Ont. J. W. Dunham & Co., Albany, N. Y. For, Weston & Co., Painted Post, N. Y. Weston, Dean & Aldrich, Gouverneur, N. Y. Weston Engine Co., Painted Post, N. Y. Weston Bros., Oswego, N. Y. Weston, Moses & Co., Portville, N. Y. Bronson, Weston, Dunham & Co., Burlington, Vt. The round timber handled is from Alger, Smith & Co., of Detroit. Mr. Alger of the firm is the well-known ex-governor of Michigan with whom Mr. Weston is also associated in various other business enterprises. A. Weston & Son ship their lumber on their own barges from Michigan, and their yards and planing mill at Tonawanda give employment to from 150 to 175 men. The firm's payroll is from $1,250 to $1,500 a week. Besides their own planing mill, the firm in order to fill its contracts has the use of others during the present season. Gratwick, Smith & Fryer. This house was established in 1862. The officers of the company and their places of residence are: William H. Gratwick, president, Robert Livingstone Fryer, vice-president, Buffalo, N. Y.; Edward Smith, Detroit, Mich., secretary and treasurer; C. J. Fillmore, general manager. The main office is at Tonawanda. The branch offices are at Detroit, Oscoda, Otsego Lake, Mich., and Albany. The establishments of the firm are: THE SAW MILLS [unclear] YARDS [unclear] The firm has a planing mill at Tonawanda, from which port and Albany all the lumber is sold. The firm’s lumber yards and planing mill at Tonawanda give employment to about 150 men. The company has about 300,000,000 feet of standing timber in Michigan, and handles from 60,000,000 to 65,000,000 feet of lumber annually from Tonawanda. It ships largely by canal and operates its own logging railroad in Michigan. The lumber is transported on the firm’s own boats from Michigan. Seventy-five million barrels of salt are annually manufactured by the firm at Oscoda. The amount of standing timber owned by this firm in Michigan is such that if it continues to cut 65,000,000 feet a year, it has a twenty years’ stock for its mills. The policy is to buy each year nearly as much standing timber as it cuts, thus keeping its base of supplies good. A distinctive feature of the firm’s business is that the 60,000,000 feet of timber annually taken from its own forests is manufactured into lumber in its own sawmills, freighted on its own vessels, and handled entirely in its own yards and planing mills, and finally put into the boats of its own customers, the retail dealers, without the aid of middle men. The firm’s fleet of six barges represents a capital of $300,000 and a carrying capacity per trip of 1,800,000 feet. A. M. Dodge & Co. The firm of A. M. Dodge & Co., which began doing business at Tonawanda in 1888, is composed of Arthur M. Dodge of New York and Henry A. Crane of Buffalo. The firm has three large yards in Tonawanda and North Tonawanda and a planing mill in North Tonawanda. It has a dockage fronting on Niagara river and Tonawanda creek aggregating one mile, giving good facilities for handling, as it does, about 65,000,000 feet per annum. It has a storage capacity of 30,000,000 feet. The large and conveniently equipped planing mill of this firm is conceded to be one of the finest in the east and has a capacity of 200,000 feet a day. It is supplied with all the most modern machinery and latest approved devices for protection against fire, the Grinnell automatic sprinkler having been recently introduced for additional protection. The firm employs in its mill and yards at Tonawanda about 150 men. While the main office is at Tonawanda, there is also a New York office. The firm is largely interested in timber lands in Canada and Wisconsin. Mr. Dodge is president of the Georgian Bay Consolidated Lumber Company. This is conceded to be the largest lumber manufacturing company in this country. It has seven sawmills at different points on the Georgian bay and timber lands covering over 400 square miles, the product of which is largely handled through Tonawanda. Mr. Crane is president of the Penokee Lumber Company, which owns considerable timber lands on the Penokee range in Ashland county, Wis. The main office of this company will also be in Tonawanda. The company was organized by a syndicate of gentlemen owning large tracts of fine timbered lands in Wisconsin, including the range formerly owned by Cornell University. It is expected another season to bring the product of the Wisconsin mills to Tonawanda. Other Establishments. The firm of Smith, Fasset & Co. owns in Tonawanda, or White’s Island, a tract of less than 18 acres. They control some 1,500 feet of water front, about one-third of which is docked and either leased by themselves or rented. They employ fifty men, and their payroll is $450 a week. About 20,000,000 feet of lumber a year are handled by this firm, whose market extends as far east as Boston and Portland, and south to Washington. The Tonawanda Lumber Company employs fifty men, and its payroll is $500 a week. The firm handles about 15,000,000 feet of lumber a year and has smaller timber land in Michigan and Canada. F. Hollenbeck’s is one of the oldest lumber and timber houses in North Tonawanda. Mr. Hollenbeck, who lives at East Saginaw, employs some forty men in his yard and has a payroll of $350 a week. He handles about 7,500,000 feet of oak and 2,000,000 of pine every season, shipping principally to the eastern states, and making a specialty of selected oak building materials for railroads. Another prosperous lumber firm is that of I. A. Keeley & Co. This firm, which is a recent and valuable addition to the number of Tonawanda lumber firms, confines its business chiefly to hard wood. The establishment of a hard wood lumber yard in Tonawanda supplies a long-felt want. The firm of Hollister Brothers employs seventy men and handles annually about 25,000,000 feet of lumber. It does both a wholesale and retail business, having a planing mill at Tonawanda and a yard in Rochester. The Eastern Lumber Company employs upwards of seventy-five men and handles from 15,000,000 to 18,000,000 feet of rough lumber a year. All the stockholders in the South Branch Lumber Company of Chicago are included in this firm, as well as many others. So far as cleanliness, correctness, and evenness of details in arranging lumber are concerned, this firm is said to have the best yard property in Tonawanda. Messrs. Shepard and Morse are a Boston firm having a branch office in Tonawanda. They have saw mills at Grosse Ile, East Saginaw, Mich., and at Buckingham, Canada. They handle 15,000,000 feet of pine lumber annually at Tonawanda. The W. H. Sawyer Lumber Company employs ninety hands and handles from 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 feet of rough pine a year. This is another large firm, comparatively a new comer to Tonawanda. Only a branch of the business of this company is at Tonawanda. Its main office is in Boston, whence it ships largely to South America and the West Indies. The firm of J. & B. Crockin completes the list of lumber dealers. A part of this firm’s property was recently burned; few of the smaller firms own the land on which their lumber is piled. Most of them rent it. Other Forms of Business. The receivers and forwarders of lumber at Tonawanda, Cowper & Gregory, Fassett & Bellinger and F. W. Scribner, have a great extent of dockage. The largest cargo ever carried by a lumber barge was unloaded last August at the dock of one of these commission dealers, Mr. F. W. Scribner. The barge, the Washington, carried 2,400,000 feet of lumber, for which she received $1.50 a thousand, or $3,750 for the cargo. The insurance on the cargo was $15,000, the largest marine insurance ever placed on a load of lumber. The industry of Tonawanda is by no means confined to her lumber yards. She has a box factory, a pipe mill, engine and boiler works, a foundry, and a veterinary hospital. One of the most interesting manufacturing interests of Tonawanda, and one of the longest established (1857), is that of Wyckoff water-pipes and steam-pipe casting by Ayrant Brothers & Co. Common rough pump logs were used to convey water as early as the sixteenth century. In 1857 some of these pipes were taken up and removed from before the houses in Piccadilly extending from the Duke of Devonshire's to Clarges street, after having been there 249 years. While it was found that there is nothing so pure and healthful as wood for conducting water and also that if filled with water the decay of the timber was prevented on the inside, the fact that in some soils these pipes would rot on the outside and that they were not of sufficient strength for practical use in works where water was thrown directly from hydrants in cases of fire rendered them untrustworthy as first-class water mains. To overcome these deficiencies the Wyckoff pipe is banded with heavy hoop iron, spirally wound, pressed on tightly and passed through a preparation of cement, thus giving it a coat under as well as over the band. It is an exceedingly interesting process to watch. Ordinary white pine logs in regular eight-foot lengths are cut at the company’s logging camp at Salamanca. A log is drawn from the creek by means of a chain operated by machinery, bored the required size and the outer surface removed. The log is then made to receive when dry the iron coating. All the outside waste is used for shingles. Ayraut Bros. & Co. give employment to some fifty families at their works, covering about four acres of ground. The Buffalo Pressed Brick company of Tonawanda makes 1,000,000 bricks a year and employs fifty men. Its payroll is about $450 a week. The company owns about eighty-two acres of clay sand in Tonawanda. Still another industry is the sash, door and blind factory of J. F. Parkes & Son. Its output is $50,000 a year. Messrs. Gombert & Thompson are the leading contractors for building in Tonawanda. F. H. Barnes's box factory on White's—or Tonawanda—Island is one of the newest industries of Tonawanda, and has no equal of its kind in the world. The building is 200 feet long by 75 feet in width, with two floors, on which are eight planers and eight saws. It has been running about six months. It has orders ahead that will use up 300 car loads of shooks. It has an engine of 250-horse power and a capacity for turning out 25,000 box shooks or 150,000 feet of lumber a day. There are from 110 to 150 men employed at it. This factory makes all sizes of boxes for a great variety of purposes. They are shipped ready to be set up and are nailed together by machinery in the large establishments using them. Mention should also be made, among the manufacturers, of C. C. McDonald & Son's flour mill. Its capacity is about 250 barrels of flour per day. Another flourishing manufactory is that of Stevens & McIntyre, carriage makers. A word should be said of the Tonawanda horse infirmary. Dr. H. S. Wende's infirmary occupies a commodious two-story frame building comfortably fitted up for the care of sick horses. Dr. Wende is one of a family of eight sons, seven of whom are physicians. Reference has already been made in the COURSES to the new State Bank building of Tonawanda, which entered its new premises August 1. Erected at a cost of $25,000 on a piece of land valued at about $15,000, it is the finest building in Tonawanda and one of the finest for its purposes in western New York. Buffalo herself has no bank building more conveniently or elegantly fitted up. It is brick, with gray stone trimmings, facing Webster street, its side lying along the creek. The entrance is flanked with polished granite pillars. The capital stock of the State Bank is $100,000, the surplus stock $25,000. Opposite the State Bank across the creek, the foundations of the Lumber Exchange Bank building have been laid. Work will be continued on this building next spring, which, when completed, will be a finer structure than the State Bank's. The Tonawanda post office ranks as second class. Its postal receipts for the last fiscal year were $9,000. Its money orders during the last fiscal year amounted to $67,000. One item alone, that of Dr. Harold D. Hayes, mails from 1,500 to 2,000 circulars and from 300 to 500 letters daily. Board of Trade. Tonawanda has her board of trade, which assists and encourages all who desire to establish themselves in business there. It lends a hospitable hand to newcomers having important enterprises in view, such as will develop Tonawanda as a commercial center. Tonawanda has been spoken of as particularly adapted to the grain traffic. Although there are many desirable sites for elevators, and the landowners and citizens generally stand ready to offer inducements to such as will start the business there, it is not probable the grain trade will ever be diverted from Buffalo. Real Estate. Since 1870 there has been a slow but steady advance in the price of real estate at Tonawanda. This advance does not represent a boom but an honest growth of the town, the land being in actual demand by settlers. Land which up to 1872 sold for $100 an acre now brings $1,000. A tract of less than an acre, 50 feet by 80, bounded by Fort, Tremont, and Tremont Streets, was lately sold for $4,000. In 1870, this same piece of land, which is said to have been sold for less than its actual value, could have been bought at the rate of $30 an acre. Syndicates are opening up much valuable land which has hitherto lain idle. but is now being divided into building lots and selling briskly to working men at prices ranging from $100 to $300. Tonawanda’s population is estimated at from 10,000 to 12,000—conservative estimates rate it at the former figure—and at least 4,000 of which represents the growth of the past five years. Each division of the town has its own educational department, besides the Catholic and Lutheran schools in the southern division. There are twelve churches, fourteen physicians, four dentists, and five lawyers. The stevedores and the lumber pilers and handlers with their stout leather aprons are picturesque figures on the lumber docks at any hour of the day. The ordinary handlers and pilers earn $1.50 a day. The stevedores, who unload barges and load canal boats, earn $4 a day. It is said that fully 3,000 of Tonawanda’s population are lumber hands. During the summer season at about noon a procession of tidy-looking white-aproned women is daily seen passing along the streets in the direction of the lumber yard. Each woman carries a shining tin pail. They use this when carrying hot dinners to the lumber hands on the docks. It is somewhat surprising that a town having such heavy business interests as Tonawanda should have no paved streets. In the wet season the muddy highways do not add to its attractions as a place of residence. Tonawanda is said to have a waterworks system and a fire department that are “perfect.”
William H. Gratwick vessels, photos (c.1882-1900).jpg
Wooden steam barge, bulk freighter, package freighter and tugboats. The tugboat would sink in the Niagara River on July 16, 1900, killing the two men aboard.
It is a lockout now, article (Buffalo Courier, 1892-06-13).jpg
Union Riot at Tonawanda, New York Herald, article (1892-06-12).jpg
Lumber shovers strike culminates in an ugly riot, article (Buffalo Courier, 1892-06-12).jpg
Gratwick School pupils, teachers, parents cooperate to win trophy, article (Tonawanda News, 1948-04-17).jpg
Gratwick School children mobilize in safety drive, photo (Tonawanda News, 1948-04-23).jpg
Gratwick pupils win trophy in 62-school safety drive sponsored by bike institute, article (Tonawanda News, 1948-05-12).jpg
Map of North Tonawanda, Gratwick School area highlighted (c1948).jpg
Shows Bushes Bridge, Nor-Ton Courts, "Sweeney Park", numbered avenues from 20th-24th, and a planned Tesla and Edison Street. Not yet here: Mid-City Plaza, Wurlitzer Park, North Tonawanda High School, lots of southeast (Spruce) area development.
Gratwick School showing 1924 addition, photo (Marjorie Crosby thesis, 1949).jpg
Gratwick School playground in winter, photo (Marjorie Crosby thesis, 1949).jpg
Gratwick School faculty, photos (Marjorie Crosby thesis, 1949).jpg
Gratwick School before additions, photo c. 1895 (Marjorie Crosby thesis, 1949).jpg
Gratwick School, class photo (Cynthia Lustig, c1923).jpeg
Gratwick School wins county bicycle safety award, April 1948, photos (Marjorie Crosby thesis, 1949).jpg
A History of the Establishment and Development of Gratwick Elementary School, North Tonawanda, New York, 1894-1949 (Marjorie Crosby, 1949).pdf
Tonawanda strike over, article (New York Times, 1893-06-24).jpg
A terrible riot, article (Niagara Falls Gazette, 1892-06-11).jpg
Weston's foreman, William Wood, has a bio in Landmarks of Niagara County (1897): Wood, W.W. — This representative citizen of North Tonawanda has been connected with its lumber history and business life for the past ten years. He came here in 1887, with A.P. & W.E. Kelly from Chicago, but in 1890 entered the employ of A. Weston & Son, and had charge of the yards for four years. He laid out the second lumberyard at Tonawanda Island, now occupied by A.K. & W.E. Silverthorne, and was active in the interests of his employers during the great strike. In 1894, he went into the hotel business in the Twin City Hotel, but in April 1895, secured his present large place, Union Hotel. Mr. Wood is a prominent Republican and has been active in the interests of his party ever since coming to North Tonawanda; he is an exempt fireman and a member of the Royal Arcanum. He married Velna McMullen, and they have two children, Edward and Peter. Mrs. Wood's father was an old millman of North Tonawanda, and Mr. Wood's parents were Edward and Anna Wood; Edward Wood was long known as the "Lumber King" in Chicago.
Excerpts from "Fixed Bayonets - The New York State National Guard during the era of industrial unrest, 1877–1898" by Ronald Howard Kotlik, 2005.art
Webmaster's Note: This 2005 dissertation from a UB student examines the seven times the Guard were dispersed between 1877–1898 to mediate local labor disputes. Below are the portions related to the two visits to the Tonawandas, in June of 1892 and June of 1893. Photo: 42nd Separate Company during one of these Tonawanda deployments. Another version here. [Background of the strikes] The lumber strikes that will be discussed here in Tonawanda and Oswego both involved lumber shovers, men whose main responsibility was to handle the lumber on the docks or decks loading and unloading it from various vessels. It has been argued that shoving was extremely hard for the men especially when the same shovers worked both on the docks and served as crews on the ships. “Down the boards would come end on end on to the schooner’s deck, from the lumber shovers on the piles, to be caught and carried to the hatches, passed down to splinterfilled fists in the hold, and laid along carefully on the floor-ceiling, starting at the bilges and sides, until they mounted up to the deckbeams, like haystraws in a mow.” It has been argued that during the prime period of the lumber industry, roughly from the 1880s to 1907, attempts by lumbermen to either merge or pool their interests ultimately failed leading to abusive competition and falling prices that punished all those involved in the industry.8 This phenomenon had detrimental effects to both workers and management in the industry. “To lower expenses, lumbermen cut wages and reduced their labor force, and in communities where logging and lumber manufacturing dominated local business, there were no other industries to offset layoffs and unemployment." Tonawanda Lumber Strike of 1892 The events that resulted in the National Guard being called to Tonawanda in 1892 began with attempts by lumber handlers, whose primary job was to unload barges of lumber, to form a union to gain more control in compensation issues. The men were opposed to the stevedore system in which they were paid by the company on an individual basis per job, or per barge that needed to be unloaded. No long term contracts were involved, which relegated the men to day laborer status. In an open letter by the lumber workers to the Lumbermen’s Association, an organization of lumber mill owners, the lumber workers expressed their grievances. “The union men said they were opposed to the stevedore system of unloading barges, and that they preferred working on the cooperative plan, dividing the fruits of their labor equally among themselves.” The men were willing to concede to work at the same rate as the stevedore system, but asked that their organization be recognized by the Lumbermen’s Association, and claimed it would bring no threat to their interests. The Lumbermen publicly expressed their sympathy with the lumber handlers stating that, “The interest of the lumbermen of Tonawanda and the handlers of lumber are the same.” However, while they claimed to be willing to listen to the lumber handlers’ complaints, they warned them to be wary of outside agitators from Buffalo who were attempting to organize a union for their own interest and not that of the lumber handlers or that of Tonawanda: We believe that the men have the unquestionable right to select their own bosses or form gangs among themselves, and on this point they will receive the sympathy and support of all lumbermen, but as we firmly believe that, with the condition of business at this port now and in prospect, any such organization or union as now proposed must be unsuccessful, work to the disadvantage of the laboring men, and cause them both loss of wages and other troubles, we must refuse to recognize or support it, and we trust the cool judgment of the worthy workers will lead them to see the difficulties they are attempting to fasten on themselves and on this market, and at once withdraw from the domination of the Buffalo advisors, allowing business to pursue the natural as heretofore. For reasons started we shall feel it in our duty to protect by lawful means, any and all men who desire to work as independent workmen. These comments by the lumbermen coincide with the historical account of the changing conditions in the lumber industry. During the late nineteenth century lumber production and distribution was decreasing from its highpoint in the northeast during the 1870s. Fierce competition between lumbermen, which resulted in failed attempts to pool their interests, resulted in an extremely volatile lumber market which forced lumbermen to seek different means to post profits despite the failing prices of lumber. It is evident from the events in Tonawanda in 1892, that workers were feeling the strain of economic conditions within the industry and tried to combat them through greater unionization. While the efforts of workers to unionize were discouraged, lumbermen themselves organized through the Lumbermen’s Association to combat the very same market forces that were bearing down upon the interests of their workers. While both the lumber handlers and the lumbermen expressed their willingness to discuss work related issues peacefully, calm and restraint did not prevail. On June 11th, about 300 lumber handlers trying to get union recognition marched to the lumber yards of A. Weston and Son. At the yard, order quickly eroded as the crowd disrupted work within the yards and on the barges in the docks. While initially the men expressed no ill will, clubs and stones began to be thrown at the non-union workers within the yard and on the barges. The police who were stationed within the yard to guard the non-union workers fired into the air to restore order. Someone within the crowd returned fire striking one policemen, John Miller, in the knee while wounding another man, Frank Kinzley, seriously in the abdomen. With the shootings, the eight policeman on duty fled the yard and the non-union men quickly left from their positions while the crowd made its way to neighboring barges and yards of other lumber companies. Non-union workers at Smith, Fassett and Company and at Gregory, and Robinson Brothers Lumber Company were also driven off as, “…several men were quite badly used up by the strikers.” Without police protection, non-union men were unable to work, which allowed the strikers to continue pressuring the lumberman for their demands. With control quickly slipping from local law enforcement authorities, Sheriff Nathan Ensign of Lockport asked for assistance from the local company of the National Guard, the Twenty- Fifth Separate Company from within Tonawanda. Brigadier General Peter C. Doyle received word from Sheriff Ensign on June 11th, to make ready for the possibility of “considerable bloodshed and violence” that may occur during a riot on Monday, June 13. Doyle also requested the Forty-Second Separate Company from Niagara Falls to be ready in case of an outbreak of serious violence.16 It is important to note that in this situation, similar to events during the four transportation strikes detailed in the previous chapter, Guardsmen were only activated once local law enforcement was ineffective at preventing violence. The Guard itself did not choose to become involved in this situation, but was activated upon the request of local officials. It is difficult to argue that the Guard was a tool of industry considering that local officials, not industrial interests, were responsible for activating the Guard. Tonawanda Lumber Strike of 1893 During the Tonawanda strike little violence took place, and most of the troops requested encountered no difficulties while on duty. However, a similar conflict between the lumber handlers and the Lumbermen’s Association in Tonawanda erupted again a year later in 1893 which did involve more direct use of Guard forces to restore the peace. Before the peak lumber season commenced during the summer months, speculation was rampant throughout Tonawanda that the Lumbermen’s Association would attempt to break the Lumber Shovers’ Protective Union by trying to use the stevedore system and only employ persons or offer contracts to unload vessels to those they saw fit. In essence the Lumbermen’s Association was threatening to employ the readily available Polish workers to take the place of the lumber shovers within Tonawanda. The shovers did not understand the Lumbermen’s Association’s hard stance against the union. Since the workers were only attempting to organize for their own protection seeking insurance and medical treatment. The shovers vowed that if Polish labor was used all attempts would be made to bring these workers into the union. Polish workers were seen as a threat because it was believed that they would be willing to work for lower wages and through the stevedore system. In addition, many of the Polish workers were recent immigrants who had settled in nearby Buffalo. The Pole’s immigrant status and their Buffalo residence increased the perception, form the point of view of the local Tonawanda lumber shovers, that the Poles were outsiders threatening to take their positions on the docks. As summer approached, the Lumbermen’s Association offered the Tonawanda workers one final chance to abandon their union. If the workers continued with their demands contracts would be given to the non-union men already working. “We individually and severally affirm that we have not changed our view regarding the organization known as the Tonawanda Lumber Shovers’ Protective Union, one iota,” proclaimed William H. Cooper, secretary of the Tonawanda Lumbermen’s Association, “and for the same sufficient reasons heretofore publicly stated and argued. The local organization was formed last year and is not immical to the interests of the entire community, as well as to the lumber and vessel interests, and we cannot recognize it under the circumstances.” Cooper made it known that contracts for the present non-union workers have been withheld in the interests of the Tonawanda men for the Association preferred to make contracts with the local men. However, the Association offered June 14th as the deadline for union men to offer proof of their disassociation with the union and return to work. After that date contracts would be offered to the present workers for the remainder of the season. James Morrisey, spokesmen for the union men offered a strong rejection of the proposal. “I think I represent the views of the majority of the members of the said union when I say that we will not go to work again except as union men.” Local law enforcement was well aware of these developments and anticipated trouble during the upcoming lumber season. In April, Sheriff Ensign of Niagara Country, traveled to Buffalo to confer with National Guard officers over the possibility of needing the Guard to serve in Tonawanda if any violence broke out. It is interesting to note that two months before any violence did occur because of the lumber shover lockout; local law enforcement realized that they would be inadequate to keep the peace if trouble did occur. The sheriff was forced to rely in such events. Law officials, during this strike and others, usually proved to be unable to preserve order within their local communities and constantly relied on the Guard to fulfill this service. The warranting of the use of troops in Tonawanda did not initially occur because of any actions taken directly by the striking lumber shovers, but by grievances expressed by the nonunion Polish laborers who replaced the shovers. The Poles were initially paid forty cents per hour but that wage was eventually reduced to twenty five cents per hour. “The laborers say they could not make as much money at the new rate,” cited the Buffalo Courier, “but the lumbermen say they would make more if they were not lazy.” These remarks in combination with the changes in wages enabled the union shovers to recruit the Poles into the union. The union Poles intimidated any of their fellow countrymen who still attempted to return to work and, “threatened to drive them off the docks if they touched a plank.” On June 16th, the striking Poles gathered at the offices of the Smith and Fassett Company to demand their back wages owed. They were told to be patient for they would have to wait for their wages, “…but many of them were filled up with beer and threatened violence.” As time passed tensions rose as some incendiary speeches were made and stones were thrown at the paymaster’s office. Sheriff Ensign was unable to clear the crowd with his deputies and felt it prudent to call out Tonawanda’s Twenty-Fifth Separate Company of the National Guard. Seventy men under the command of Captain H.M. Fales quickly arrived and cleared the docks and placed guards at the bridge to prevent others from joining the strikers. Later in the day the Twenty-Fifth was reinforced by the Forty-Second Separate Company from Niagara Falls under the command of Colonel S.M. Welch. With the upon Guardsmen when such disorder was threatened. This serves as further evidence that the arrival of over 150 troops the, “…village has quite a war like appearance.” The events in Tonawanda made national news. The New York Times commented, “What has been threatened and expected all season happened today, and Tonawanda is under guard of the militia.” During many of the transportation strikes Guardsmen often demonstrated reluctance in performing police duty and becoming involved in labor-management disputes. This reluctance served as evidence that Guardsmen should not be considered as active supporters of the rights of capital over labor. Rather, the Guard was usually thrust into a labor dispute when local law enforcement authorities were inadequate in preserving the peace. The Guard had little control over its deployment, literally being at the beck and call of local officials fearing outbreaks of mass violence. The Guardsmen called to duty in Tonawanda in 1893 also expressed a similar reluctance. Many of the men of the Twenty-Fifth Separate Company were excited once the Polish workers were paid believing that they would be relieved of duty; however, this feeling was quickly dashed as word circulated that their service would be extended. Many of the men began to scorn the idea of extended strike duty. The Buffalo Courier reported that a, “…majority of them [soldiers] are not overjoyed at the prospect of several days’ guard duty without even a free-for-all fight to break the monotony.” Members of the Forty-Second Company expressed similar feelings of having to stay longer. Many of these Guardsmen blamed the sheriff for not being prepared for the possible conflict between the shovers and the lumbermen and taking necessary steps before having to call in the Guard. .. [Use of violence during the strikes] Tonawanda Lumber Strike of 1892 Of the three lumber strikes, the first in Tonawanda in 1892 was by all estimates the most peaceful with no outward violence occurring between strikers and the troops sent to protect private property. Strikers still demanded recognition of their union and an end to the stevedore system that hired men individually without any union support. The strikers looked to remedy the situation through an arbitration board that would come to Tonawanda on June 14th and hopefully end the standoff through negotiation. In addition, the strikers continued to deny their involvement with the shooting of the police officer that occurred when strikers gathered in the lumberyards on June 11th. However, sixteen union men were arrested for involvement in the shooting of the officer. Despite the arrests, no large outbreaks of violence occurred. “The strikers are keeping under cover,” reported the New York Times, “The barge Botaford has been unloaded and the men are engaged in unloading lumber from the Racine as fast as possible. The Guard was a force at the demand of local officials and did not actively seek to become involved Sawyer Lumber Company’s yardmen are at work on the Dan Rogers.”36 Non-union men who were under the watchful eyes of the strikers conducted this work without molestation. Peace was also maintained by the eighty troops of Tonawanda’s Twenty-Fifth Separate Company and by the eighty troops of the Forty-Second Company from Niagara Falls. In addition, the Sixty-Fifth Regiment from Buffalo was also notified to be ready for a call up if any other violence escalated. The troops on duty marched throughout the streets of Tonawanda near the docks expecting trouble from the strikers, because non-union men were unloading barges. However, the troops experienced no resistance from the strikers or the community. The troops also enjoyed a hearty breakfast as the Hotel Sheldon without any interference from strikers or sympathizers. In comparison with the events that transpired in many of the transportation strikes, troops on duty in Tonawanda in 1892 experienced fairly light duty. Even though the troops were received fairly well by the community and the strikers, community support was still firmly behind the strikers’ demands. Out of the over 700 lumber shovers who joined the Protective Union, around 500 of them were property owners within Tonawanda. Most of them were German ethnics who were not transient labors, but tax paying property owners. In addition, one the largest complaints against the stevedore system was that there was no contract given to the men for steady wages since the stevedore set the wages per job. Most of the stevedores were saloonkeepers who paid off their men at the saloons. In most cases the stevedore would hire the men who had accumulated the largest debt at their establishments. The community recognized the corruption within this system and pledged to support the workers who wanted to remain continuing members of the Tonawanda community. On June 14th, state arbitrators arrived in Tonawanda and organized a meeting of the union men, the Lumbermen’s Association, and the Tonawanda Common Council at the Hotel Sheldon. During the meeting a solution was proposed by the Lumbermen’s Association that would allow the lumber shovers to organize in gangs that would be hired directly by the lumbermen or the captains of lumber vessels. The men would receive the current prices for the season, but the captains and the lumbermen had the right to hire union or non-union gangs. The most alluring part of the proposition that attracted the acceptance by the union men was the abolishment of the stevedore system. Reaching a settlement, the lumber shovers agreed to return to work on June 15th. With the return to work of the shovers, the Guard was also disbanded. Tonawanda Lumber Strike of 1893 Despite the peaceful end of the Tonawanda Strike of 1892 which involved no direct violence against troops by either strikers or the community, conflict broke out a year later between the same lumber shovers and the Lumbermen’s Association. The Lumbermen’s Association abandoned the settlement reached in June of 1892 and tried to reinstate the stevedore system and completely eliminate the Protective Union as the lumber season approached in the spring of 1893. The Lumbermen’s Association brought in Polish workers from Buffalo to work the docks but were slow in paying the men for their labor. Many of the Polish workers eventually rioted because they were not paid. The Poles’ grievances against the Lumbermen also made them easy recruits for the Protective Union of shovers. With the riot on June 16, the Twenty-Fifth and Forty-Second Separate Companies were once again called to restore order, as was done a year prior in 1892. The Twenty-Fifth Separate Company from within Tonawanda, under the command of Captain H.M. Fales, and the Forty-Second Separate Company from nearby Niagara Falls, under the command of Colonel S.M. Welch, arrived on the scene on June 16th. The troops quickly cleared the yards and established pickets. Guards were also placed on a railway bridge to prevent others from joining the strikers. When the Poles were informed that they would be paid as soon as the payroll was completed, in combination with the presence of armed soldiers, their angry sentiments were quelled. “When the men were informed that the paymaster was ready to receive them they flocked towards the building which he occupied like a flock a sheep,” detailed the Buffalo Courier, “The soldiers, with fixed bayonets, drove them back and put them in line so they would get to the window one at a time. During the excitement one Pole was struck in the left arm near the shoulder but the bayonet scarcely penetrated his clothing.”41 This minor wound was the only injury to either a worker or a soldier during this incident. In contrast to the accounts of the transportation strikes discussed in the previous chapter, both of the Tonawanda lumber strikes were fairly mild events. Perhaps the lack of widespread violence was owing to the speedy arrival of the soldiers to the yards and the local origin of the troops that resulted in more restraint. While this is mere speculation, such conjecture does warrant attention. These events also warranted attention from the national press. The New York Times also believed that the, “quick responses of the soldiers to a call for help prevented bloodshed.” However, despite the optimism expressed by the Times, officers in charge of the troops were still cautious about being overly optimistic. “It is almost impossible to tell what the outcome will be,” remarked Colonel Welch, “We all hope the matter will soon be settled peacefully, but yet there may be bloodshed.” Tensions lessened despite some speeches by the strikers calling for more opposition. Once the Poles were paid, most returned to Buffalo, and outright conflict between strikers and non-union men subsided. Even though the hostilities between strikers and non-union works were quelled, members of the Twenty-Fifth and Forty-Second Companies remained on duty for most of the week of June 18th within Tonawanda. The mayor of Tonawanda, George W. Stanley put the community under martial law as soldiers continued their pickets and guard duty. “While the militia are here I want the lumber shovers to understand the soldiers are not here for fun,” proclaimed Stanley, “but to do the work they were called to do.” Further, Stanley believed that if the troops were removed too soon violence would break out once again. “These union men know we will never recognize their union and they are getting desperate and ugly, and when they know the soldiers are not ready to suppress them they will do something that will shock this end of the state.”44 While Stanley painted the union in a fairly negative light, revealing his sympathies for the Lumbermen’s Association against union efforts, the strikers themselves questioned the use of troops, because they were committed to peacefully settling their grievances. President Cramer of the Protective Union reaffirmed the union’s commitment to their demands of recognition and an end to the stevedore system. Speaking about the riotous actions of the Poles, Cramer denied any union responsibility for inciting their actions. “We have not been threatening these non-union men, and certainly cannot be held accountable for their strike on Friday. I do not see the necessity of ordering out these troops if it is thought violence is feared from our men. I have asked them all to refrain from doing anything unlawful, and they have all promised to do so.” Cramer placed blame for the violence on the Polish workers and argued that troops may be needed to guard against these men, but certainly not his union members. “If the militia were called out to suppress the men they brought down from Buffalo, then that is another thing. We are not going to give up out fight until our union is recognized." Cramer’s comments focus on the union’s determination and willingness to refrain from using violence, and they also reveal that the union expressed no ill will against the soldiers called for duty. In comparison, during many of the transportation strikes strikers openly expressed their hostility toward the troops through violent actions. During this strike the union was less hostile toward the Guard and only verbally protested the need for troops since no violence was enacted by the strikers. Again it can be argued that this peaceful co-existence between strikers and Guardsmen was a result of local troops being used in a localized incident. During the transportation strikes, local troops were always accompanied by out of town regiments and companies. As violence escalated and as the blood of strikers, community residents, and soldiers were spilt, resentment for the use of troops increased. In addition to the peaceful co-existence between the strikers and the Guardsmen, outright community resentment for the soldiers was also not found within the evidence available. When the troops arrived, the president of Tonawanda, George W. Stanley encouraged citizens to remain in their homes until the disputes were settled. Stanley warned against, “…all persons from assembling for unlawful purposes and disturbing the public peace, and command all good citizens to remain at their several homes and to pursue their lawful and useful pursuits in a peaceful and lawful manner.” 46 Stanley, who was well aware of the threat of the lumber dispute spilling over into the larger community, made a concerted effort to prevent loss of life, especially from innocent citizens that usually gathered during such events. During his proclamation, Stanley used the word “law abiding” to describe the citizenry. During the transportation strikes, other community leaders also used this term when referring to those that supported the use of the Guard. Law abiding was also used in reference to the middle and upper class status of those citizens who disliked the spread of violence and welcomed the Guard as a force to restore order. Within the context of the 1893 Tonawanda strike, it is difficult to interpret if Stanley was referring to the same class of citizens during his proclamation. When the strike concluded and troops were sent home, a reference was made in the local newspaper that there was, “…rejoicing among all classes in both villages (referring to the village of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda).” This is the only evidence found that makes a direct comment about the classes of people within the community and their reaction to the events. Taking this example, in conjunction with the other details of striker cooperation with Guardsmen, it can be argued that troops on duty within Tonawanda did not experience the hostilities of the community that were existent in many of the larger transportation strikes. Troops on duty were from within the community, a community that wanted to see the disruption of lumber traffic resolved as quickly as possible. Also, strikers refrained from using violence against the troops, and there was no indication of any outside agitation by individuals who usually congregated during strikes to incite violence. For the remainder of the week the troops on duty continued to guard the lumberyards. No violence was used against the troops, and strikers did not interfere with non-union labor. On Thursday, June 22, more Polish workers arrived from Pittsburgh to work the docks. However, when the train approached the area and when the Poles caught sight of the Guardsmen, several jumped from the cars and tried to find a lawyer in town. Once the Poles realized that the troops were not there to suppress them, but only there to protect private property, they returned to work. With a steady supply of labor available, strike leaders made more attempts to negotiate with the Lumbermen’s Association. Agreements were made between the Protective Union and the Lumbermen’s Association that allowed the workers to return to their jobs as individuals and not as a union, and the Lumbermen’s Association would have control over choosing the foremen to run the labor gangs from the men who returned to work. In return, the men would be given twenty-seven cents per thousand of unloading rather than the previous twenty-three cents.49 President John Robinson of the Lumbermen’s Association thought this was an equitable agreement that catered to both sides. Speaking to the Protective Union, Robinson defended the agreement, “That I will obtain a contract from the Lumbermen’s Association to unload all barges at card rates, as published by the Lumbermen’s Association, and employ so far as possible the men now belonging to your organization on condition that they withdraw from your association and agree not to join any other labor organization during the term of my contract.” With the agreement, the men lost their union but received better wages that the previous stevedore system. The Guard was withdrawn once the workers agreed to the arrangements. There was little commentary following the strike on the effect of the troops on the outcome. Unlike many of the transportation strikes, the strikers conducted themselves in a peaceful manner and there was no evidence of agitation by outsiders against the troops. While the Guard did protect the property and non-union workers in the name of upholding the law, in this circumstance their presence still had an effect on the outcome of the strike. The presence of the Guard allowed the Lumbermen’s Association to have an available workforce to undermine the strikers’ efforts to disrupt their business. While the Guard may have not purposefully sought to weaken the strikers’ position, their very presence benefited management. ... During the Tonawanda strike in 1893 the Lumbermen’s Association was firm in its resistance in refusing to recognize the Lumber Shovers Protective Union, even if the holdout lasted the entire season. The Lumbermen’s resolute stand was warranted for they believed they could find all the workers that were needed, but their success with such non-union workers depended heavily on the protection the National Guard provided against abuses by the strikers. President Robinson of the Lumbermen’s Association made the position of the group known in an open statement to the strikers. “We are in this fight to stay and we will hold out as long as our money lasts. We can get all the men we need if we can only insure them protection. That is what we are going to do if we have to call for the entire National Guard of the State.” Robinson believed that events in Tonawanda offered a great test of who had the upper hand in the business, the owners or the shovers. “We have been fooling with the old hands too long. This is the time to see whether we shall run our business as we think best or let those lumber shovers dictate how it shall be run.” ... Even though no additional troops were summoned to Tonawanda, and despite the bold proclamation of President Robinson of the Lumbermen’s Association, local business owners in the city were actually pleading with local law enforcement authorities and Mayor Stanley to have the troops recalled. Local business owners circulated a petition asking for the recall of the troops and issued a statement decrying the presence of soldiers within the community. “The presence of an armed body is calculated to bring the citizens and constabulary into disrepute in the eyes of the people of the State and country.” (57 New York Times, 21 June 1893, p. 3, col. 6.) Businessmen within the city believed the expense of having two companies of Guardsmen was unwarranted when adequate protection could be offered by local lawmen. More importantly, businesses worried about losing customers who avoided the city because of all the publicity of an armed presence within their midst. Other histories of the National Guard have argued that businessmen usually allied themselves with the Guard and welcomed their presence during a strike to combat disorder. In this particular circumstance, businessmen in Tonawanda believed the presence of troops was a threat to their very livelihoods. The response of Tonawanda’s businessmen can be contrasted with the reaction of other groups during the transportation strikes. It was noted that during many of the transportation strikes, community leaders, such as businessmen, welcomed the presence of the Guard because it restored order. Those who usually protested the presence of the troops sympathized with the strikers, were outside agitators, or felt directly threatened by a large contingent of armed men. It can be argued that during the Tonawanda strike in 1893, business was certainly not on the side of the National Guard, and despite the bold proclamation of President Robinson of the Lumbermen’s Association about calling out the entire National Guard, only two companies remained on duty during the incident.
"Fixed Bayonets - The New York State National Guard during the era of industrial unrest, 1877–1898" by Ronald Howard Kotlik, 2005
The Evolution of an Ethnic Neighborhood that Became United in Diversity - The East Side, Niagara Falls, NY, 1880-1930 (H. William Feder, 1999.pdf
Info about NT's role in Niagara County politics, Klan activity
42nd Separate Company of Niagara Falls 50th, illustrated article (Niagara Falls gazette, 1935-11-16).pdf
Article claims company organized in 1885 in response to need to enforce Niagara Falls State Reservation of that year. H. William Feder notes that the company also was used "to protect the investments of the coming Tunnel project," noting that "the wood frame Niagara County Armory was placed on a high vantage point [6th and Walnut] from which access to the Tunnel construction area could be observed and controlled. The 42nd Company commander was Col. Charles B. Gaskill, the president of the new Hydraulic Tunnel Corps of Army Engineers Survey. In the coming years the 42nd Company shared a complementary mythology with the military mission of Deveaux College that is worthy of review." (The Evolution of an Ethnic Neighborhood that Became United in Diversity - The East Side, Niagara Falls, NY, 1880-1930 (H. William Feder, 1999) Article also claims the company was dispatched to Tonawanda to quell labor troubles among canal men on June 14, 1862 and on June 21, 1893 (This NY Times article says the 1893 date should be June 16th).
Lone Star Wurlitzer Jukebox Model 416, photo (1937).jpeg
Hugo with player piano at Wurlitzer factory, photo (c.1915).jpeg
Frontier Beer label, Tonawanda, (c.1940).jpg
Clear the Track, Buffalo Sled Company, illustrated ad (Saturday Evening Post, 1917).jpeg
Chief of Police, John F. Ryan, photo and bio (Tonawanda News, 1903-04-20).jpg
Charles E Hewitt Jr, Publisher of the News, dies, article (Tonawanda News, 1947-08-12).pdf
Captain's Quarters, 248 Oliver, ad (Tonawanda News, 1947-04-04).jpg
Twin City Service Station, Tydol, Weatherbest Shingles, pamphlet (c.1920).jpg
Ray Bennett Lumber Co., catalog excertps (c1928).jpeg
North Tonawanda Fire Dept certificate, Frank Ensminger (1930-05-07).jpg
1903 Ziehl's General Store (Martinsville) listed in Ton News 1910 Ferdinand Ziehl of Martinsville juror, politician 1916 Louis A Ziehl Foreman on Rescue Fire officer 1936 - Mr and Mrs Walter Ziehl Klemer Rd. Obits: Beiter, Matilda E. (Ziehl) Died September 1981 Ton. News 9/9/81 Dischinger, Carol (nee Ziehl) March 1965 Picture Ensminger, Ida (nee Ziehl) Died August 30, 1981 Ton. News 8/31/81 Gau, Marion Z. (nee Ziehl) d. Dec. 6, 2010 Bflo. News 12-7-2010 Ton. News 12-7 & 8-2010 Hosmer, Doris V. (nee Ziehl) Died June 6, 1989 Ton. News 6/7/89 White Chapel Ziehl, Alice P. (nee Wurl) d.May 9, 1981 Ton.News 5-11-1981 Ziehl, Alma E. (nee Boening) d. Sept. 6, 1961 age 86 Ton.News 9-7-1961 p.11 9-8-1961 p.12 Acacia Park Cem. Ziehl, Andrew W. Nov.1965 Ziehl, Augusta, Mrs. d.May 31, 1930 Ton.News 5-31-1930 6-2-1930 Ziehl, Beatrice M. d.June 12, 1950 ton.News 6-13-1950 p.7 Resthaven Ziehl, Carl d.May 15, 1901 Ton.News 5-16-1901 p.1 Ziehl, Carl J. Mar.27, 1975 Ton.News Ziehl, Curt C. d.June 4, 1992 Ton.News 6-5-1992 Ziehl, Daughter of Mr.&Mrs.F.Ziehl d.Dec.20, 1893 Ton.News 12-22-1893 p.3 Ziehl, Dorothy E. (nee Arnts) d.Mar.26,2007 Ton.News 3-28-2007 Ziehl, Edward d.Apr.5, 1938 Ton.News 4-5-1938 p.3 Ziehl, Eleanor d.Dec.1, 1897 Ton.News 12-1-1897 p.1 Ziehl, Elton d.July 10,2001 Ton.News 7-11-01 Acacia Park Ziehl, Emma (nee Peters) d.May 6, 1953 Ton.News 5-6-1953 p.19 White Chapel Ziehl, Ferdinand d.Dec.4, 1945 Ton.News 12-5-1945 p.4 Ziehl, Fred d.Jan.19, 1949 Ton.News 1-19-1949 p.8 Ziehl, Fred d.Feb.23, 1901 Ton.News 2-25-1901 p.1 Ziehl, Gerald R. Jan.10,2000 Ton.News 1-12-2000 Ziehl, Gustav d.Dec.24, 1951 Ton.News 12-24-1951 p.9 12-26-1951 p.7 Resthaven Ziehl, Jeffrey Walter d.Oct.4, 1951 Ton.News 10-5-1951 p.7 St. Paul's Lutheran Cem. Ziehl, John d. May 5, 1963 age 74 Ton.News 5-7-1963 p.13 white Chapel Ziehl, John d. Dec.12, 1943 Ton.News 12-13-1943 p.5 St.Paul's Cem. Ziehl, Louis A. d.Sept.5, 1981 Ton.News 9-7-1981 Ziehl, Lovina W.(nee Aderman) d.Aug.26, 1993 Ton.News 8-27-1993 Ziehl, Margaret (nee Waterstrat) Dec.1, 1975 Ton.News Ziehl, Marie A. d.July 16, 1926 Ton.News 7-17-1926 p.2 St.Paul's Cem. Ziehl, Mary M. (nee Goerlitz) d.Apr. 8, 1934 age79 Ton.News 4-9-1934 p.2 St. Paul's Cem. Ziehl, Minnie, Mrs. Charles d.June 18, 1932 Ton.News 6-22-1932 Ziehl, Walter d.June 27, 1953 Ton.News 6-29-1953 p.13 St.Paul's Cem. Ziehl, William d. Dec. 22, 1959 age 84 Ton.News 12-24-1959 p.21
Ziehl - Four generations survive Marie A. Ziehl, article (Ton News. 1926-07-17).jpg
Ziehl's Groceries and Meats, 356 Falls Blvd, ad (Ton News, 1935-02-20).jpg
Union Trading Stamps merchants, including F. Ziehl, ad (1904-03-29).jpg
Louis A Ziehl, groceries and deliveries, 356 and 748 Falls Blvd., ad (Ton News, 1931-05-12).jpg
Herds destroyed at Martinsville, foot and mouth disease, Ziehl and Schultz, article (Ton News, 1908-12-11).jpg
Genuine values are offered at Ziehl's, article (Ton News, 1935-02-06).jpg
F. Ziehl & Son Groceries, Martinsville, photos (August 1918).jpg
Courtesy of Scott Ensminger, who writes: "Someone gave me this photo many years ago. I was told F. Ziehl & Son Groceries was in Martinsville. Person 6 is my grandmother." In the undated family photo, she is second from right.
356 Old Falls Blvd (former Ziehl's Groceries, Schwartz's Deli) photo (Google Maps c2022).jpg
Souvenir program, NTPD Fourth Annual Ball, excerpts (1928-04-20).jpg
Includes photographs of Commissioner William A. Kohl, Judge Edward B. Harrington; ads for Walsand Dairy, Hamilton Transfer Company, Wurlitzer and Durez.
Clear the Track, Buffalo Sled Company, illustrated ad (1917).jpeg
Auto Wheel Coaster, photo and art detail (c.1925).jpeg
Auto Wheel Coaster, Buffalo Sled Company, ad (c.1916).jpg
INSIDE photo tour of former Gilmore School, North Tonawanda (2023).jpg
The Board of Education is now headquartered in the southern part of the building, while the Christian Academy uses the original section. The repurposed elementary school retains many of its original interior features. Pictured are the cafeteria, gymnasium, the "breezeway" (which connected the original and new sections), the boys' bathroom, the principal's office door and sign, the original entrance from the inside, a renovated kindergarten classroom, and the northwest entrance. Two historic keepsakes from other former North Tonawanda schools are on display: the bell from the demolished Ironton School (according to my tour guide), and a stone salvaged from the 1866 Goundry Street School. The school in the photo accompanying the bell doesn't look like the Ironton School to me, but I may be wrong. According to this 1905 article, the bell hung in the area's first district school (later the site of the parsonage of the 1st M.E. Church) from 1831 until the 1870s, then was used a few years later in a second district school at the corner of Dahlgren and Wheatfield, before moving to the Ironton School in 1890.
Niagara Silk Mills, postcard (c.1905).jpg
To drain wet spot on Felton Field, article (1933-04-12).jpg
Television schedule, Tonawanda News (1976-01-27).jpg
North Tonawanda lots at a great sacrifice, avenues near Payne, ad (Tonawanda News, 1917-04-01).jpg