1 200 26 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pettit's Run and the Easiest Victory of the War of 1812 - Excerpted from Pioneer Period of Western New York, Chipman P. Turner, pp. 35-36 (1888).htm Description An account of the resource A slight haze rose from the marshes on the borders of the Niagara River, but not enough to shroud the banks or the road that lay along its shore in obscure darkness. It was the route from the year 1800 for military transfer from Fort Niagara to Black Rock, Buffalo and other western points. The march of regiments, companies and detachments, was a common, hourly expected occurrence, not usually creating surprise or apprehension of peril. The tragedy of Lewiston had been enacted, creating constant fear in the minds of all. Buffalo and Black Rock were threatened points. Volunteer regiments had been drafted from eastern sections to the rescue, timidly approaching the scene of war, to which they were unaccustomed; crackling brush, a rustling leaf, were startling omens, and prudence in advancing was deemed “the better part of valor,” and made the adopted strategy in the instance related. The scene of action, according to the record of the time, may be placed at what is known as “Pettitt’s Run,” taking the name of Joshua Pettitt, locating at its junction with the Niagara river, a short two miles below Tonawanda, as early as 1810. Nearly as early a settler as Pettitt, was George N. Burger, who made a beginning by erecting a log house, which in the exigency of war was appropriated by the government as an arsenal for the depositing of arms and ammunition, guarded by a small number of volunteer citizens. The hour of midnight had but just passed when the vigilant watchman were aroused by the footsteps of marching men, tramp of horses and mud-bound wheels of a wagon train, in slow progress up the river. Whether friend or foe was yet to be determined; moments were not to be wasted or retreat justified, without at least the best defence that could be made. Necessity became “the mother of invention,” and proved to be the available relief. The stream passed through a bed of mud, mixed with melting snow, bridged in rough corduroy, that proved fitting for the success of the exploit they had resolved upon. An old dilapidated, one-horse lumber wagon was employed to represent a cannon, “big gun,” by trundling it over the uneven logs. Burger in the full strength of his voice, giving the command: “Bring up the guns, form in line!” while the wagon was drawn again and again by the squad noiselessly through the mud, and thundering back over the bridge, to create the imaginary array of a host. Soon an order was heard directing a halt of the approaching volunteer militia, that was yet to see battle, if at all, while preparations commenced to meet the sudden surprise. Outlooks detached from both the trembling parties approaching each other in hailing distance and in sight of each other, it was discovered they were the same color of clothes; greeting each other as friends, the Colonel, surprised that “ten should overcome a thousand and one,” while Captain Burger exulted that he and his few comrades had gained the easiest victory of the war of 1812. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1813-12-24 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/373bf6ddf27dd22cfb21f430b61c2601.jpg 38f4cc921630613c2f6ba519c95bfbfa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Buffalo Norsemen Hockey Club (1975-1976) Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" alt="A team photo of the Buffalo Norsemen in their only season, 1975-1976." src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/9c.jpg" />The Buffalo Norsemen team photo at Tonawanda Sports Center. Front row, L-R: Mario Viens, Paul Crowley, Willie Marshall (GM), Larry Gould (C), Guy Trottier (player-coach), Bill Steele (A), Jim Mackey. Back row, L-R: Gary Stevens (trainer), Derek Harker, Wayne Morin, Shane McConvey, Reg Lahey, Dave Peace, Greg Neeld, Charlie Labelle, Claude Noel (A), Jim Stanfield, Keke Mortson, Denis Anderson, (unknown), Dave Given. Photo from late in the season, after Feb. 7, 1976. This NAHL semi-pro hockey team plays a single season (1975-1976) at the <a href="https://nthistory.com/collections/show/116">Tonawanda Sports Center</a> on Ridge Road in North Tonawanda. Today, the facility is used at the North Tonawanda bus garage and NT Inter-Church Food Pantry. <div style="margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><img src="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Norsemen-mascot-Hagar-small-1.png" style="width: 150px;" /></div> <div style="font-size: 0.8rem; font-weight: 800; width: 100%; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.14em; color: #244b2e; display: block; text-align: center; margin: 2.6rem 0 3rem 0; padding: 1.1rem 0 0.9rem 0; border-top: 5px solid #244b2e; border-bottom: 2px solid #a4b89f; background: #f2f5f1; margin-top: 0px;">THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BUFFALO NORSEMEN</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/buffalo-norsemen-part-1/">Part 1: Tonawanda Sports Center</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/buffalo-norsemen-2-training-camp/">Part 2: Countdown to Training Camp</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/buffalo-norsemen-3-norsemen-v-sabres/">Part 3: Hockey Night in Tonawanda: Norsemen v. Sabres Rookies</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/norsemen-4-characters/">Part 4: Inside the Norsemen Locker Room: The Cast of Characters</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/buffalo-vs-everyone-the-norsemens-winter-of-discontent/">Part 5: Buffalo vs. Everyone</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/an-unbelievable-end/">Part 6: An Unbelievable End</a></li> </ul> <div style="border-bottom: 2px solid #a4b89f; background: #f2f5f1; margin-top: 0px;"></div> Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Norsemen are here, article and transcription (Paul Moran, Norsemen Magazine, c.1975-09) Description An account of the resource “THE NORSEMEN ARE HERE” Paul Moran Progress very often is an intangible sort of thing. But at times it comes at you more quickly than a Guy Trottier wrist shot. Consider the Norsemen. A year ago they were not yet a glimmer in the eye of Willie Marshall, now general manager, or any of the 10 owners. Now the Norsemen are the most exciting attraction in hockey north of Memorial Auditorium and south of Maple Leaf Gardens. “The Norsemen are here” shout bumper stickers on what seems to be half the automobiles in the Tonawandas. They are, to be sure. And if the early interest and excitement the team has generated in its infancy is any indication of its future, the Norsemen are here to stay. The Norsemen appear to be a certain bet to attain success in the North American Hockey League, both on the ice and at the turnstiles. But the scene at the Tonawanda Sports Center was not always one of congratulations and backslapping. The future was not always as promising as it now is. In fact, for a time, however brief, it was rather bleak. Professional hockey was not an integral part of anyone’s plan for the future. But, that was last year. Remember the Tondas? A year ago Marshall and his employers, Drs. Dudley Turecki and Syde Taheri, were fighting to keep the Tondas from being banished from the Sports Center. The details of the Tondas’ saga are too intricate and lengthy to discuss here. Suffice it to say that the team was a victim of the bureaucracy which holds the reins of the amateur hockey world on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. The ill-fated efforts to bring, and later to keep, amateur hockey and the Ontario Hockey Association in North Tonawanda failed to deter the Turecki-Taheri combo from the goal the doctors had set for themselves. They would bring hockey to North Tonawanda. The doctors and the North American Hockey League first crossed paths just when each needed the other. The doctors sought an avenue leading directly toward their goal. The league, looking toward expansion and solid market potential, was looking for franchise owners. Liz and Dick or Ike and Mamie could have been no more a perfect match than Turecki-Taheri and the NAHL. They sized each other up for awhile. The league looked at the market, and at the Sports Center. The doctors looked at the business end. Marshall looked at the hockey end. It may not have been love at first sight, but a beautiful marriage resulted nonetheless. The doctors had a franchise. The next step was the formulation of a recipe for success. They brought in eight other individuals — each an expert in a certain field — and sold shares in the club. The groups handled the business of putting together a hockey team. The appointment of Marshall to oversee the hockey portion of the operation came shortly thereafter. The formation of the Norsemen was formally announced at a press conference at May at the Statler Hilton. Plans at the time were generally sketchy, but the wheels of progress, which would before long begin to whirr, slowly began turning. Each of the 10 owners assumed part of the burden of plotting the club’s course of action during those formative days. The efforts of each, combined with the owners’ resulted eventually in a meld that is a hockey organization from top to bottom, professional in every respect. The wheels of progress had become a whirr by early summer. But the whirr was not out of control. No decision was made without full consideration being given to all the alternatives. Things progressed quickly, but not too quickly. Perhaps the most important decision made by Marshall and the owners was the appointment of Guy Trottier as player-coach. The decision was another in a line of good ones. Marshall and Trottier have become a team, the goal of which is to put together a top flight hockey team in the shortest possible time. They work well together, and it shows. With the aid of the parent WHA Toronto Toros and NHL Buffalo Sabres, the Norsemen appear well on their way to making a name for themselves in the NAHL. Their early showings prove that a challenger to the Lockhart Cup lurks in North Tonawanda. It wears green and gold and answers to Norsemen. That’s progress. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975-09 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/5852b82a6ecce7f8e784082140fa629f.png 49c196ea46ba9828499b222396b2951b https://nthistory.com/files/original/6328a4b48a526a068ebe4c3d600e1621.png 44b227e2ab7a87b0df2b01e13b612277 https://nthistory.com/files/original/8864b09633f21b7ae881a0012b3b8ec3.png 7ebb6640b088762fe4ebc6209689fc29 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John and Hannah Johnson (ca. 1833 - 1883) Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" alt="A low‐angle view shows a weathered split-rail fence in the foreground, beyond which a lone cow and calf graze on a grassy field. About 100 ft behind them is a humble one-story frame farmhouse with old tools and a wooden wheel leaning against its side. Rows of crops stretch toward a distant treeline under warm, late-evening light from the west." src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/8c.jpg" />The Johnsons lived in a small frame house on a 12-acre farm in the area of present-day South Meadow Drive. Photo made with AI. Behind every "ghost" was a person <blockquote>At the Sweeney Cemetery a large gathering assembled to take a last look at the aged soothsayer, and much regret was manifested at her departure. No more will the winsome maidens repair to the old shanty near the woods to learn their fate on future Fridays, for Hannah's work is done...The town of Wheatfield has lost an ancient landmark and one of its most widely known characters. May her spirit rest in peace. <a href="https://nthistory.com/items/show/1037">Tonawanda Herald</a>, June 28, 1883.</blockquote> Generations of North Tonawanda youth were told she haunted the thick, primordial woods that still cover much of the city’s eastern edge. Legend has it she arrived as an escaped slave via the Underground Railroad in the 1860s. Some say she was part of a Black settlement that tried to take root here, only to be driven out when their belongings were thrown into Tonawanda Creek. Hannah, the story goes, was allowed to stay because she worked in the homes of white families. She was also said to practice divination and root magic—whispers passed down by city elders and local Boy Scout leaders around campfires. When she died at the ripe old age of 100, strange flowers reportedly bloomed across the area. Those who dared enter her woods were chased out by a shrieking crow—or something worse. In these wild tales, kernels of truth remain. As always, the truth is stranger—and far more satisfying—than the legend. Birthplace and legal status Local legend said that Hannah was an escaped slave. That is not exactly true. She is born around 1803 in Albany County, New York. We do not know her maiden name. At the time the state is in the process of phasing out slavery under the "Gradual Emancipation Act." The law holds that children born to slaves after 1799 are "indentured" servants until age 25 before gaining their freedom, a concession to New York's slave-holding elite. If Hannah's birth date is correct, it means she finally gets her freedom 1828--ironically, a year after the final abolition of slavery in New York.  Though technically not enslaved, her life would have been nearly indistinguishable from slavery: unpaid, under the complete control of her mother's enslaver, with no legal rights or protections. If she had children before gaining her freedom, they too would have been indentured under the same system.  A servant to New York Governor Joseph Christopher Yates (1823-1824) Although born in Albany County, Hannah lives for a time as a servant in the household of superstar New York politician Joseph C. Yates in nearby Schenectady, New York. The only evidence we have to date of this part of Hannah's life is a single line in her Tonawanda Herald <a href="https://nthistory.com/items/show/1037">obituary.</a> It's a plausible story: the 1820 federal census shows that Yates did have eight "free colored persons" in his household at the time: two males ages 14-25, and three females: one under 14, one 14-25, one over 45. Could Hannah (who would be about 17) be the 14-25 year-old? Could her mother be the 45+ year-old? Could her future husband John Johnson (who is born in Washington County around 1800) be one of the two males? We may never know, but Hannah evidently told people she served the governor, perhaps impressing her frontier neighbors with her tales of brushes with the high and mighty in the home of the most powerful man in the state--even if she was literally a servant. A well-known fortune-teller Hannah's obituaries prominently mention her purported ability to see the future, and the popularity of her services among the locals. The Lockport Daily Journal notes that Hannah "has acquired quite a reputation during her long residence in this county, as a fortune-teller," and notes that she depicted past lives and futures of those who consulted her with "startling accuracy." The Tonawanda Enterprise calls her a "fortune-teller," and relates that "for years there was scarcely a man, woman or child in all this section of country that had ot heard of "Black Hannah." The Tonawanda Herald obituary claims Hannah "was visited almost every week by dozens of women and young people who had great faith in her powers as a fortune teller." Tea cup reading "Tea cup reading was one of her methods," Elizabeth Wherry writes in a <a href="https://nthistory.com/items/show/1059">1961 article</a> fantasizing about the olden days. Did Hannah pick this skill up in Schenectady? By the 1830s, tasseography (tea‐leaf reading) was already a “thing” among genteel Easterners who could afford imported china and black tea. From New York City parlors to ladies’ salons in Albany or Buffalo, a fascination with “what the leaves say” filtered out along tavern routes and stagecoach lines. So if Hannah grew up in Albany County, she might have eavesdropped on some well‐to‐do white ladies experimenting with teacups, then adapted the basic idea for her own circle. In that era, many white frontier families saw African Americans as having access to “secret knowledge” or an “otherworldly” mystique simply because of racist stereotypes about African spirituality. Hannah could lean into that, holding her Bible in one hand for respectability and a teacup in the other for showmanship—and farmers or farmers’ wives might pay a small fee or trade a chicken for a Friday fortune‐reading. If Hannah is freed by Gradual Emancipation in 1828 at the age of 25, what is her next step? At some point she marries farmer John Johnson from Washington County, just up the Hudson River. His legal status on censuses is also free Black. It is unknown if he was ever indentured or enslaved. He dies July 9, 1873, and is buried in Sweeney Cemetery two days later. His age is given as 73 or 74. A new start in Western New York Another part of the story that is true: She is not born here. On the state censuses of 1855 and 1865, husband John Johnson's birthplace is recorded as "Washington [County, New York]." Hannah's is recorded as "Albany [County, New York]." While definitive records are lacking, the Johnsons (and any companions) most likely reached this area around 1833* via the newly opened Erie Canal. By substantially reducing travel time and expense, the canal would have offered them a practical means to relocate, and to redefine themselves in a frontier town. When the Johnsons arrive the area is sparsely populated and heavily wooded. Flooding along the Tonawanda Creek is common on account of the dam built for the canal ten years earlier. A small village first called "Niagara" but now known as "Tonawanda" has made a modest start where the canal meets the Niagara River through a lock. The East Boston Timber Company comes here around the same time as the Johnsons, to harvest the white oak of Grand Island. A public house (The Niagara Hotel), a stage coach line to the Falls and Buffalo (the railroad was still a few years away), and a small handful of schools, taverns and churches is about the extent of the goings-on. Why the Johnsons end up here is a mystery. Did they already have contacts in this area? Did they intend to go to Canada but encounter sympathtic citizens? The first time we see them at all in the historical record is the 1840 census. Interestingly, they are not alone--the document records three "Free Colored Persons" in the household: A male and female 24-36 (John and Hannah), and another male, 55-100. Did they travel here in a larger party? One Tonawandas old-timer claims many years later that the Johnsons are part of a small "colony" of Blacks whose possessions are tossed in Creek and sent on their way, with Hannah alone permitted to stay since she was willing to do housework. * This date of 1833 for the Johnsons' arrival is suggested by Hannah's 1883 death certificate, which says she lived here for 50 years. The 1855 state census suggests 1830. Living on Dr. Jesse F. Locke's property "She and her former husband, John Johnson, lived on the farm a number of years with Dr. Locke and family." - Obituary of Hannah Johnson One way or another the Johnsons find themselves on the country property of the area's first "physician & surgeon," Jesse F. Locke. Whether he lived here already not known (he arrives in 1838 according to History of City of Buffalo and Erie County p. 419). Donna Zellner Neal thinks they may be "squatting" on the property, and permitted by the doctor to stay. A mineral / sulphur spring lies in the adjacent lot. Census never shows them in household of Locke. Perhaps Hannah helped the family, and John works the farm. [Census Locke household info]. Locke is born...studies medicine...temperance...Whips a faking man...has office on Webster....friends with Payne...religion and politics...household...Sweeney plot. The Vandervoort family lives to the south. Changes come to the property. To combat flooding, a State Ditch is dug east-west through the Great Lots. A railroad comes and goes. In ten years, William Vandervoort will sell the farmland to the north to a group of Germans, laying the groundwork for Martinsville. The Johnsons farm and home The first appearance of a structure. Not sure when farm is cleared. Fence along south line in deed. Frame and value. 1880, our clearest picture: Live stock. Mown vs un-mown. Hay to sell or trade. Hannah at 77. Hired laborer for 15 weeks. More details may be filled in by later accounts: Cellar with cream cheese. Chair of logs.  Nearby is John Chadwick, Jr. He'll play a crucial role in Hannah's life. A connection to the Underground Railroad? Others in the Johnson household Unlike Buffalo or Niagara Falls, there are no surviving primary‐source accounts (letters, minutes of vigilance committees, manumission records) explicitly naming “Tonawanda” safe houses or stationmasters. Fugitives moving along the canal probably passed through or near Tonawanda—boatmen and canal‐side laborers in Wheatfield or across the river might have whispered directions.  There is no contemporaneous documentation: e.g., committee minutes, abolitionist newspapers, manumission registries.  The Tonawandas region certainly saw movement—especially after 1840—of free Black canal hands and possibly some fugitives.  From the beginning, censuses show others living with the married couple: <ul> <li>1840: One "free colored males between ages of 55 and 100"</li> <li>1850: Four additional people, including Joseph (38) and Ann (30) Polly from Canada and Ireland, respectively, Henry Hall (20) from Virginia, and  Stephen Smith (35) (no origin given). All are Black except Molly, who is white or "mulatto" (the census mark is hard to read).</li> <li>1855: One "Henry Hall" who is 65 and from Maryland</li> <li>1860: Three people, Isaac (61) and Clarissa (42) Davis and an infant, Dennis Colens, all Black, all from New York.</li> <li>1865: After Civil War, no more Blacks beside the couple are recorded</li> </ul> Federal and state census enumerators in the mid‐19th century were explicitly instructed to record anyone “whose usual place of abode” was with the family on census night. That means a seasonal farmhand, boarder, or canal laborer boarding with the Johnsons would be listed. The Johnsons’ 12-acre farm was a temporary home to a rotating cast of free Black laborers tied to the canal economy, or to work on the Johnsons' 12-acre farm.  Free Black households and seasonal mobility: Tonawanda sat on a major canal artery, so its free Black population included both long-term residents and itinerant laborers. The Davises (1860 Census) at 61 and 42 could have been year-round residents (elderly “Isaac” perhaps retired from farm or canal work, “Clarissa” running household duties), while baby Dennis represented the next generation—perhaps born locally or recently relocated from Albany County. Boarders were commonplace. Small farms and canal families frequently took in boarders (including single men, widows, or small families) to supplement income. The Davises might have paid rent in kind (eggs, milk) or cash to live on someone’s property—perhaps even the Johnsons’ 12-acre farm discussed earlier. It’s hard to know just how commercial Hannah and John’s farm really was—some of that land might have been left fallow, used for pasture, or simply rented out—yet even at minimal production the work would have outstripped what two people alone could manage. In mid‐19th‐century Western New York, planting and harvesting windows were tight: a late start in spring could invite frost, and a slow harvest could mean losing grain to rot. John may have handled the bulk of plowing and field maintenance, but Hannah’s days were likely filled with running the household—cooking, preserving, and caring for anyone under their roof. Bringing in an extra hand during busy seasons was a common solution: a boarder or hired worker might live on the farm, perhaps paying rent in produce or a small wage, and help with tasks like weeding, fence repairs, and hauling crops to market. Without that occasional assistance, even a modest twelve‐acre operation would have been difficult for a couple to sustain. If we explain the other names on the censuses this way, very little seems left to connect the Johnsons with the Underground Railroad. <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/2014">A document on the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area website</a> (page 192) offers some measured reflections on the subject. John Chadwick, Jr. <blockquote>Subsequent owners attempted to eject black Hannah, but in John Chadwick the old woman found a friend who protected her interests even at a high cost before the courts. - Obituary of Hannah Johnson (1883)</blockquote> Chadwick begins acquiring property in Lot 10. In 1853, Locke & Payne sell Chadwick a thin strip in the middle of Lot 10 land for $500. He builds a home with a pond on the other side of Sweeney Street, on the edge of the Tonawanda Creek, a front row seat to the pageantry of the canal, around present-day Mayors Park. In 1859, Locke sells Chadwick another thin strip in the middle of Lot 10, this one just west of the 1853 purchase, for $1550. This one does overlap about 1/3 of Johnson's property, though not the  frame house. The death of Locke: Who owns the Johnsons' 12 acres?  The Johnsons have lived almost 30 years on the farm. Locke dies March 12, 1861, one month before the Civil War. He dies "intestate" (without a will), and all hell breaks loose. Johnson says he owns the land, but he has no deed. In 1868 Locke's heirs sell swaths of the western part of Lot 10 (including the Johnsons) to John & Elizabeth Fonner. The Fonners take legal action to evict John & Hannah Johnson for trespass. On September 17, 1869, Johnson, Chadwick and Sherman file a complaint with the Niagara County Clerk, and serve public notice in the newspapers (through at least late February of the following year) that the Fonners have twenty days to reply "or the plaintiffs will apply to the Court for the relief demanded in the complaint"(that Locke did indeed sell Johnson the land, but never filed the paperwork before his death). Attorneys for the plaintiff are Farnell and Brazee. In July 1873 the Johnsons sell the land (quit-claim) to Chadwick for $1. The document describes a refereed action against the Fonners and Locke heirs. This quit-claim is not necessarily proof that the Johnsons ever owned the land. Chadwick wins [date?] a refereed judgment which is at first sustained in court, and is granted the 12-acre parcel on July 21, 1874. A judge rules that the property is granted by parole, even in the absence of a deed, and finds sufficient evidence that Johnson bought the property and paid for it on accounts of statements Locke made to others in his lifetime.  [John Johnson dies sometime after 1873, in the midst of the proceedings. ] The Fonners appeal the judgment. This time they win on a legal technicality: Johnsons' testimony included his statement that he never agreed to pay Locke a certain price per acre. Deemed harmless to referee and first judge. Appeals court disagrees, and throws out the judgement on the legal principle that when Johnson answered question, he testified on what a dead man said during his lifetime, which is inadmissible. An ironic cadence, that the testimony of Johnson, now dead, was used to dismiss the case, and strip his widow, Hannah, of their property of 40 years. Strangely, no eviction ever seems to take place. According to her obituary, Chadwick gives Hannah a "life-lease" on the property (though in NY this should appear in Deeds but does not). If he didn't own the property how could he? Would the public not know this? Perhaps the Fonners have mercy on the old widow, having had their victory in court. Hannah's death Hannah dies in 1883 after an illness of two weeks. The village mourns its beloved cook and babysitter. The Tonawanda Herald <a href="https://www.nthistory.com/items/show/1037">reports</a>: <blockquote>At the Sweeney Cemetery a large gathering assembled to take a last look at the aged soothsayer, and much regret was manifested at her departure. No more will the winsome maidens repair to the old shanty near the woods to learn their fate on future Fridays, for Hannah's work is done.</blockquote> It is rumored that non-native flowers grow on the site (unusual red trilliums grew during her lifetime). She is buried in Sweeney Cemetery (although the grave site appears to be lost). The late Donna Neal Zellner states in her booklet "Story of Hannah and John Johnson and the Underground Railroad" that "Jesse Locke was buried in Section B, Plot #7, between Simson and Smith Avenues in Sweeney Cemetery. It is believed that Hannah Johnson's body was interred in a grave on his plot. The grave marker noting H. Johnson is located in the area of the cemetery which would be included in Locke's plot"(37). <iframe style="width: 920px; height: 510px; max-width: 100%;" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g8_GGxU7uvM?si=ZpnulipHiWLoMM9F" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Hannah is the subject of a song by my musical gang Yellow Jack on our album <a href="https://yellowjack.bandcamp.com/album/a-horse-apiece">"A Horse Apiece"</a> Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Chadwick, Johnson and Sherman v. Fonner, report (Reports of Cases Heard and Determined in the Supreme Court of New York, Vol. 13, 1876) Description An account of the resource This appellate decision [later reversed?] upholds a referee judgment confirming that Johnson held an equitable title (a court-recognized right to the benefits of ownership despite the missing deed) to the contested twelve acres. It reasoned that Locke’s own spoken admission of payment during his lifetime created a trust in Johnson’s favor, and Johnson’s open, ongoing possession put any later buyer, like Fonner, on notice of that claim. [Johnson seems to have given some inadmissible testimony] *AI Transcription* JOHN CHADWICK, RESPONDENT, v. JOHN FONNER AND OTHERS, APPELLANTS. Parol declaration of vendor of land—against whom admitted. Parol declarations of the vendor of land, showing that the vendee has paid the purchase-price thereof, are admissible in an action by or against him, or by or against any other person deriving title from or under him, with notice of the vendee’s claim. Actual possession of land by a vendee is, in law, equivalent to actual notice of his claim, whatever that may be. 544 CHADWICK v. FONNER. Fourth Department, January Term, 1876. Appeal from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, entered upon the report of a referee. This action was commenced by John Johnson, John Chadwick and David Sherman against John Fonner and wife, and the heirs of Jesse F. Locke, deceased, to compel them to convey to the plaintiff John Johnson, twelve acres of land in the town of Wheatfield, in the county of Niagara, which land, it was claimed by the plaintiffs, Jesse F. Locke had sold to said Johnson in his lifetime, and had received the purchase-price thereof, but had executed and delivered no conveyance thereof. Jesse F. Locke died in the spring of 1861. The defendant John Fonner purchased the premises, with other land, sixty-two acres in all, of the heirs of Jesse F. Locke, by deed dated in April, 1868, paying for this whole farm sixty dollars per acre. At the time of this purchase Johnson was in possession of the premises to recover which this action was brought, claiming to own the same, by virtue of an agreement made by him with the said Jesse F. Locke. Upon the trial of this action, evidence was given on behalf of Johnson to establish his right to the said twelve acres of land, consisting of the admissions of Jesse F. Locke made in his lifetime and after Johnson had gone into the possession of the land. Johnson died soon after the entry of judgment herein, and this action was revived and continued in the name of John Chadwick, the present plaintiff. Lewis & Gurney, for the appellants. William S. Farnell, for the respondent. GILBERT J.: That the parol declarations of a vendor of land are admissible in an action by or against him, to prove that the vendee has paid the purchase-money, is an elementary principle in the law of evidence. The declarations of Locke, therefore, would have been competent against him. He died intestate. The land in controversy descended to his heirs, and they conveyed it to Fonner. Those declarations being evidence against Locke in his lifetime, they are, since his decease, evidence against all who have derived title through or under him, with notice of the vendee’s claim. It is very true that parol declarations are insufficient to destroy a man’s title to lands. But when made by a vendor against his interest they are sufficient to fasten a trust upon the legal title in favor of a vendee, as against the grantees of such deceased vendor, immediate or remote who took the title with notice of the claim of the vendee, and the actual possession of the land by the vendee is, in law, equivalent to actual notice of such claim, whatever it may be. Declarations of that kind do not affect the operation of deeds by virtue of which the legal title is held, but serve merely to show that the vendee has an equitable right to maintain his possession, and that in equity, he has a beneficial interest in the land, notwithstanding the legal title is vested in another. They affect the interests of a grantee of the vendor, or of his heirs, precisely in the manner that they would have affected the interest of the vendor himself if they had been proved in an action to which he was a party, and they have no other or different effect. If uncontradicted they are, and ought to be, sufficient to defeat an ejectment against, or to compel a conveyance to, the vendee in either case. The authorities on this subject are numerous, and they have established the principle stated. (Gr. Ev., §§ 147, 154, 189; Jackson v. Bard, 4 Johns., 230; Padgett v. Lawrence, 10 Paige, 170; Spaulding v. Hallenbeck, 35 N. Y., 204; Schenck v. Warner, 37 Barb., 258.) We are of opinion that the referee erred in allowing the question put to the witness Chadwick, as to the declarations of Johnson, regarding the character of his possession. But the answer of the witness was hardly responsive to the question, and as no motion to strike out the objectionable testimony was made, the objection to the question may well be deemed waived. We are satisfied that it did not affect the result. The referee does not allude to this testimony in his opinion, and an examination of the whole case shows that it could have had no material influence in its determination. It had no legitimate effect, except upon the question of fact involved, and there was abundant evidence without it to sustain the referee’s conclusions upon that question. When that is the case, the error becomes harmless, and it affords no just ground for reversing the judgment. (Vandevoort v. Gould, 36 N. Y., 644.) -- Cite the case either way: Official series: Chadwick v. Fonner, 36 N.Y. 544 (1876) Reporter series: Chadwick v. Fonner, 13 Hun 544 (1876) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876-01 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/074819111d0fd4154c8b78e48ecc13c8.jpg 85775288531fec195404f107b5102be8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Niagara Hotel and the unreliable stagecoach, article excerpt, transcribed (1833-09).jpg Description An account of the resource AI transcription: THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. EXTRACT TO THE EDITOR, DATED Niagara Falls, Sept. —, 1833. Having arrived at Tonawanda about 1 o’clock, on the morning of the 16th August, 1833, we left the packet boat, and set off for the Falls of Niagara, about 11 miles distant. We were undecided at first how to travel; a stage, it was said, would leave Tonawanda for the Falls, by which we were advised to go, as the best and most expeditious conveyance.—We accordingly roused the inmates of the Niagara Hotel, in order to ascertain at what hour the jumbling vehicle would start. We were informed that that depended on the number of passengers; but that if there was a load, the coach would leave the hotel at 8, A. M. Time being of importance, we determined to walk, so that by arriving at the Falls sooner, we might have more leisure, for the inspection of that interesting phenomenon. We left Tonawanda between one and two o’clock. There is, I believe, nothing remarkable in this place, except that it was originally a settlement of the Senecas, and now a small village on the creek of that name, at which the Erie Canal issues, and where canal (not canailles) voyageurs, who wish to visit the Falls, leave the boats. Our road, a mere trackway, lay through a wood, and for some way along the Niagara Creek. The night was clear, cool, and moonlight; the wide waters on our left reflected her beams upon us so strongly, that the opposite wood appeared veiled in gloomy darkness. After a walk of six miles, we crossed the Cayuga creek, where our approach to the Falls was first indicated by the sound of a distant roar. The way was lonely, and Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1833-09 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/f0f0994d774202f169cafadd953b31da.pdf 2fe00cc8fe841d43b386b6ad99c0b047 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Agricultural Tour No.4, Tonawanda, article, transcribed (Genesee Farmer and Gardener's Journal, 1837-06-17).pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1837-06-17 Description An account of the resource AI Summary: This installment of the New York Farmer casts Tonawanda as a rising transport and agricultural hub: its dammed creek feeds the Erie Canal, a new rail line will soon slash the three‑hour boat ride to Buffalo to under one hour, and the deep water anchorage—despite Niagara’s rapids—promises to be a shipbuilding site alongside Black Rock and Whitehaven. The limestone‑rich soils yield 25–30 bushels of wheat per acre for decades without manure (not to mention peas and hay), although local farming still awaits the productivity boost that regular clover sowing and better drainage could bring. Vast stands of oak, walnut, maple and elm fuel Grand Island sawmills, and the Niagara River corridor—from Black Rock through the whirlpool to the glittering expanse of Lake Ontario—offers a succession of truly unrivalled scenic views. With steam power, canal extensions and railroads on the way, the author predicts that Tonawanda is poised to blossom into one of New York’s most prosperous and picturesque regions. AI Transcription: From the New York Farmer. Agricultural Tour. — No. 4. Tonawanda is a small stream flowing into the River Niagara about twelve miles above the Falls. It is dammed at its mouth and is used for several miles as part of the Erie Canal. A considerable village is growing up at the mouth of the river, nearly opposite to Whitehaven on Grand Island; and the timber from Grand Island, destined for the New York and Boston shipyards is here admitted into the Grand Canal. The railroad between Buffalo and Niagara Falls passes through the village; and in future, passengers in the Canal packets will probably disembark here and take the cars to Buffalo by which means a distance, which by water occupies about three hours, will be passed over in less than an hour, three quarters of an hour, will ordinarily be deemed sufficient; a great and most valuable gain to travelers. The river Niagara, at the entrance of the Tonawanda into it, presents deep water and a secure anchorage for large vessels, which may be employed in navigating the lakes; but the difficulty of reaching the Lake again; a strong current and some difficult rapids, excepting under peculiarly favorable winds or very strong power of steam, may be thought to present strong obstacles to its use and improvement as a port of shipment. These, however, will be easily overcome by steam power; and availing of the ship canal at Black Rock. This and Whitehaven, being in the immediate vicinity, offer a most favorable situation for the building of vessels. The village is destined to extraordinary prosperity from its advantageous situation and the great improvements now in progress. The land in the vicinity of Tonawanda is of an excellent description. As far as the backwater of the creek extends, a distance of three or four miles, this circumstance is prejudicial; the cultivation in some places being necessarily hindered, and the general healthiness of the country has been supposed to be affected. The latter circumstance, however, is becoming obviated by clearance and cultivation. But when the land is not so affected the soil is eminently favorable to wheat, oats, potatoes, and grass. Indian corn is sometimes cultivated with success but it cannot be considered a safe crop. The soil is improved by cultivation. The whole country is of calcareous formation: loam resting upon limestone and intermixed with limestone gravel, which in the form of a carbonate is seen intermixed abundantly with the soil in small grains. These, being brought to the air by the plough, become decomposed; and the soil in this way acquires constantly increased blackness and fertility. Peas are a favorite and very productive crop. On visiting one of the best farms in the neighborhood of the creek, the farmer informed me that his crop of wheat usually averaged from twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre; of peas thirty bushels; of grass one and a half to two tons per acre. He uses no manure for his land excepting that he has spread some on his grass land; and he showed me a field which with the exception of three intermediate years, had been in wheat 13 years without a diminution of the crop. I have perfect confidence in the honor of the gentleman who made these statements, but possibly there may be some little unintentional overstatement; as it almost always happens, where crops are not matter of exact measurement, but of estimate or conjecture merely, there is a tendency to oversate. A crop of wheat certainly, without very careful cultivation, averaging from twenty-five to thirty bushels is quite large. The aftermath in the fields was short; and by no means a fair test of what the land is capable of being made to do. The farming in most parts of this country was inferior and slovenly; and the regular introduction of clover, with all the grain crops and the ploughing it in, would produce a most favorable and extraordinary change in their condition. Speculation however, is so rife, other means of procuring money seem to promise so much quicker returns; and labor is indeed so difficult to be procured, and withal so expensive and troublesome, that mere cultivation, it is to be feared, will continue to be regarded as a secondary interest. The passage of the canal through this country, and the multitude of canal boats which seem to pass and repass in an almost uninterrupted succession, afford a ready and cash market for all the produce of their farms. Their wants even then are but imperfectly supplied. The growth of the country here is in many places magnificent—oak, black walnut, maple, whitewood and elm of the largest description. Most of the wood, which is cut here, is sent to Buffalo, or sold at the Steam Saw Mill on Grand Island. Much of that which is suitable for timber is sawed at the same establishment for this purpose. The ride from Black Rock to the Niagara Falls, by the side of the Niagara River, is extremely beautiful; the expanse of water, the several fine islands skirted with rich foliage to the waters edge, and the excitement of an approach to the Falls, which it is not easy to suppress, though you may have visited them repeatedly, render this jaunt exceedingly interesting and delightful. The ride for some miles below the Falls towards Lake Ontario increases in picturesque effect; and presents many points of view embracing the Falls themselves, the wonderful passage of this torrent through its walls of natural masonry, which it would seem, must have occupied centuries, not to erect, but to excavate and widen, the compression of the torrent before it branches into the whirlpool, where owing to the narrowness of the passage, and the velocity with which it is forced onward, the central ridge of waters like the roof of a barn is elevated at least ten feet above the edge of the waters at the shore; the whirlpool itself, and afterwards the whole course of the river until it enters into Lake Ontario, which is seen distinctly from the high grounds, and lastly the magnificent and glittering expanse of the Lake itself, present a succession of views unrivalled and enchanting. The land on the shores of the Niagara River from Tonawanda to a distance of three miles below the Falls as far as my ride extended, is similar to what I have already described, excepting that in some places the clayey portions predominate much more here than in others. A good deal of this land has been a long time cleared and the stumps removed. It is much of it of a very fine character for wheat. A highly intelligent gentleman of the village at the Falls, who accompanied me, showed me a field which with the exception of one year had been for thirty years in succession in wheat, without manure and without any apparent diminution of its fertility. Twenty to twenty-five bushels of wheat are considered an average yield; thirty are often obtained. The first ploughing is generally shallow; afterwards deeper ploughing improves the soil. Plaster and clover have not yet been tried. Improvements are in progress and a spirit of enterprise awakened, united with intelligence, from which the best effects will result; and which must soon put a different aspect on the whole face of this splendid country; for which in respect to picturesque scenery, nature has lavished her gifts in prodigal and almost unrivalled profusion. Opposite Tonawanda, and lying along in the riv- transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/89b58f54175e9f91d636e106d48da75e.jpg 19dab26692081122e1e0371cba43c0ae Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda Island Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" alt="1853 illustration of Tonawanda Island, showing the Beechwater residence, and a ferry The Saratoga plying the waters of the Niagara River." src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/55e.jpg" />1860 illustration showing the southern tip of Tonawanda Island. The lavish Beechwater residence and a smaller building are seen to the left of a  mysterious mound (Harper's Monthly Magazine, May 1860) This small island in the Niagara River is today home to the N.T. (Water) Pumping Station, Taylor Devices, a booming feral cat population and (we expect) a very few skillful mice. But a mysterious structure at the south end of the island drew some of the earliest widespread attention to our area. Early explorers encounter burial mounds left by Native Americans. Or giants. Early European explorers notice a roughly 15 foot-high mound of earth near the southeastern end of the island. One explorer dates the peculiarity to the Native American Squawkie Hill phase (100-400 A.D.), which "included a religious aspect involving the burial of high-status individuals" (John Percy). Indeed, human remains are discovered within, though there is little consensus on who (or what) they were. In 1853, <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/557">Gleason's Pictorial reports</a> that resident Mrs. White (more on the Whites below) personally unearthed "the skull and bones of a human body, supposed to be an Indian chief...not...less than eight feet in stature." (The article adds vaguely that "Many other curiosities are found on the island.") An 1860 article in <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/2980">Harper's tells</a> of "several heaps of bones, each comprising three or four skeletons" found just under a circle of stones with indications of fire. Modern mysteriophile Mason Winfield points to sensational accounts in frontier newspapers claiming at least two "very bizarre skulls" were excavated from the enclosure, with a "portentous, protruding lower jaw and canine forehead," and buried in a way inconsistent with the traditions of the locals. An 1865 presentation before the Buffalo Historical Society claims the mounds are of Neutral Nation origin: <blockquote>Once in every ten years the survivors of each family gathered the remains of their deceased ancestors from the platforms on which they had been deposited, and buried them in heaps, with many superstitious ceremonies. This was called the " Feast of the Dead." Many of the mounds thus raised may still be seen in this vicinity. A conspicuous one on Tonawanda Island, is affirmed by the old Senecas to have had such an origin.</blockquote> The skeletons are not confined to the great mound, either. Yet more human remains are found while digging the foundations for the Beechwater mansion, the <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/2326">Tonawanda News reports</a> in 1906. Across the Little River, on the mainland, <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/1565">evidence of</a> a Native American armory is discovered, with numerous broken flints and arrows. Earliest birth on the island? (From The Niagara Frontier, p. 29) <blockquote>The Senecas have a different name for Tonawanda Is land. They call it Ni-ga -we-na/i--a-ah, signifying The Small Island. It contains less than one hundred acres. Its upper end having a fine elevation above the surface of the river, was an occasional camping ground of the Senecas, before their final settlement in this region. Philip Kenjockety (hereafter more particularly noticed), claims to have been born there, while his father s family, then residing on the Genesee, were on one of their annual hunting expeditions.</blockquote> Carney's Island (1791) The island's first European inhabitant arrives as early as 1791, one <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/1070">Edward Carney</a>, who hopes to "squat" his way into possession of the island. The property's value skyrockets however when <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/2352">Mordecai Noah's plan</a> to turn nearby Grand Island into a refuge for the world's displaced Jews gets underway around 1825, and the land is purchased at auction from the state by Samuel Leggate of New York City (<a href="https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/lifestyles/niagara-discoveries-tonawanda-island-stephen-white-and-his-magnificent-mansion/article_657aa96e-c9eb-54ca-8237-dc7dcc2e0afb.html">Lockport Union-Sun & Journal</a>). Stephen White's Island and the Beechwater mansion (1833) The next speculators to turn their eyes to our area are the moneyed men of the East Boston Timber Company in 1833. They harvest the white oak of Grand Island to build ships in New England. President Stephen White purchases Tonawanda Island as a headquarters and residence, and it becomes known as "White's Island."  <blockquote>To cement his claim, White built a magnificent mansion at the southern end of the island. “Beechwater,” as White called it, was designed by Boston architect Samuel Perkins in 1835 for $18,000. The interior contained cherry, black walnut and marble embellishments (<a href="https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/lifestyles/niagara-discoveries-tonawanda-island-stephen-white-and-his-magnificent-mansion/article_657aa96e-c9eb-54ca-8237-dc7dcc2e0afb.html">Lockport Union-Sun & Journal)</a></blockquote> The Beechwater mansion <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/1565">boasts</a> "chimney pieces from Italy," surrounding pleasure grounds with "choice fruits, ornamental shrubbery and graveled walks," and was called the finest residence in Western New York at the time. Famous American lawyer and politician Daniel Webster (after whom Webster Street is named) <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/2326">visits  Beechwater</a> on several occasions. Webster's son Fletcher is married to White's daughter Caroline there in 1836. Further plans of the East Boston Timber Company are thwarted by a poor economy. By 1840 the white oak of Grand Island has been cut down and floated away to New England. Stephen White dies, and his widow stays on. Summer resort and pleasure grounds Beechwater is offered as a summer resort beginning around this time. Local organizations come to Tonawanda Island for picnics by the hundreds, brass band blaring away as the tugs pull their boats to the platforms. Writer N.P. Willis <a href="https://nthistory.com/items/show/4002">extols its beauty</a> in an item in this collection. Some propose turing the island into a <a href="https://nthistory.com/items/show/4038">sportsmen's paradise</a>: other a military training ground. William Wilkeson purchases the property from the White family in 1869, planting orchards and vineyards. There are some rumors the old mansion is haunted. Lumber and industrial era In 1881, William Wilkeson sells the property to Smith, Fassett & Company, one of the many lumber concerns flocking to the Tonawandas. The natural harbor of the Little River make the island and opposite shore perfect for stacking, processing and shipping immense quantities of lumber, and North Tonawanda has become a major lumber market. The ferry that operated will no longer be adequate. Apr 21 1883 "An act to incorporate the Tonawanda Island Bridge Company, for the purpose of constructing and operating a bridge from Tonawanda island to North Tonawanda [passed]" - <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IYJZAAAAYAAJ">Gen Statutes of State of New York</a>.  Beechwater, Stephen White's mansion, coexists for a while with the lumber around it: "The mansion is now [1887] the home of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore S. Fassett, who have renovated it and thoroughly restored its decaying beauties." <a href="https://nthistory.com/items/show/3942">1891 Buffalo Express Pictorial:</a>  "The Tonawanda Island Lumber District, which is shown in our largest illustration, is rapidly becoming famous as the *ne plus ultra* of all lumber plants. Being an island docked and navigable all around, it allows a compactness in the arrangement of the yards, which on any mainland would be impossible. Visiting buyers appreciate this feature of the district. They are able to get quickly into the midst of 100,000,000 feet of lumber without the usual long tramp to accomplish the same result, in a five-minute walk from North Tonawanda railroad station, they find lumber in front of them, lumber behind them, lumber on each side of them. In every direction millions of white pine are in sight, bright and clean, the gangways all planked, and an air of perfect neatness and cleanliness everywhere. "This property, when nothing but forest, fruit farms, and swamps, was purchased of our deceased townsman, William Wilkeson, by James R. Smith and Theodore S. Fassett with its development into a lumber district solely in view. This meant a very large operation for industrial development, requiring a heavy outlay of money to put the island into any shape for business also of $1,000,000, Mr. Lewis A. Hall becoming a director in the company, with a large holding of the stock. Railroad switch tracks ran into every yard, and while these tracks are owned by the N.Y.C. & H.R.R.R., all other roads have equal privileges on the Island by the provisions of the Bridge Charter. "The Tonawanda and Wheatfield Electric Co. are now building a $40,000 plant near the north end, to furnish power for an electric street railroad. These facilities, with a telephone service and telegraph office, leave but little to be desired. The docked frontage on the property is now nearly two miles in length. The Tonawanda City Water Works, located on the west side of the island, are fully described elsewhere. "The discouragements met by Messrs. Smith & Fassett in reaching the present grand development of the property are said to have been many and great, but the work is done, and the hurry and bustle of wheeling lumber from every direction, into planing mills or direct into cars, gives no outward evidence that but one year ago orchard and forest and swamp would have seen the sight where now three mammoth planing mills are throwing off their smoke high in air, and millions of lumber loom up in regular piles over 100 acres of level well-drained ground." National Guard billets there during a labor uprising. Although said to still be largely structurally sound, the mansion is <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/2326">torn down in 1906</a>, as the "demand for lumber yardage makes its razing imperative." It was long been rumored to be haunted. A section of its fireplace is preserved and cared for by the Historical Society of the Tonawandas. Later significant occupants of Tonawanda Island include the International Paper Company and the R. T. Jones Lumber company. Emile Durkee Bridge. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <ul> <li><a href="http://www.lockportjournal.com/news/lifestyles/niagara-discoveries-tonawanda-island-stephen-white-and-his-magnificent-mansion/article_657aa96e-c9eb-54ca-8237-dc7dcc2e0afb.html">NIAGARA DISCOVERIES: Tonawanda Island, Stephen White and His Magnificent Mansion, Ann Marie Linnabery</a></li> <li><a href="https://archive.org/details/pioneerhistoryof00turne/page/n6">Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York, 1849</a></li> <li>Percy, John. <a href="https://www.wnyheritage.org/product/buffalo-niagara_connections_a_new_regional_history_of_the_niagar/index.html">Buffalo-Niagara Connections: A New Regional History of the Niagara Link.</a> Western New York Heritage Inc. 2001</li> </ul> Relation A related resource <ul> <li><a href="http://www.nthistory.com/collections/show/92">International Paper Company</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.nthistory.com/collections/show/48">Lumber Scenes</a></li> </ul> Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda Island for a fishing and sporting club, article, transcribed (On Dits in Sporting Circles, 1844-04-13).jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1844-04-13 Description An account of the resource AI Summary: A call for ten or more gentlemen to form a club and purchase Tonawanda Island, a 100‑acre river island eleven miles above the Falls, noted for its fine timber, fruit trees, cultivated land, a luxurious brick villa, excellent shooting and fishing grounds, and clear title—proposed as an exclusive sportsmen’s retreat. AI Transcription: Fishing and Shooting Club.—Cannot a club of ten or more gentlemen be found in this city for the purchase of Tonawanda Island, now advertised for sale or exchange? The island is delightfully situated in Niagara River, eleven miles above the Falls: it contains 100 acres of land, 20 of which are under good cultivation, the remainder being well timbered with a fine growth of oak, walnut, and cedar. There are also upwards of 200 choice fruit‑trees of every description, and numerous grape vines—all from Buel’s Garden, at Albany. On a commanding situation is an elegant brick dwelling house, of two stories, forty feet square, erected in 1839, at an expense of \$15,000, in the most approved style of domestic architecture, furnished in an unusually luxurious and costly manner, with the doors of polished black walnut, window sashes of cherry, \&c.; the rooms are spacious and conveniently arranged, and there are ten large sleeping chambers, with a view of the river from every window. The house is entirely surrounded with a broad and elegant piazza, and at a convenient distance are all the desirable appendages of such a villa, including a fine spring, a gardener’s cottage, stables, bath‑houses, boat‑house, wharves, fishing‑places, \&c. The Island contains fine shooting ground, and the river affords a great variety of fishing—the place being well adapted to the enjoyment of sportsmen. The title is perfectly good, being derived directly from the State of New York. This is the “paradise” referred to by Willis, as “the most beautiful and aristocratic property in this country”—“the best cradle nature could possibly form for the cradle of a luxurious exclusive.” Further particulars may be learned at 533 Houston Street, in this city. Why cannot a club be organized here upon the plan of those in Chesapeake Bay, and on the Potomac, for sporting and social purposes? transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/e816e2893be71df19b56a6c88d293ae0.png e5337404bf748e5bd886fe0fa8f37bad https://nthistory.com/files/original/c65e16da8d7cc46a40f843950bc46755.png 0aa6b444090c5ecdf675d685d2ad77fe https://nthistory.com/files/original/34ffc224d09a2e5d220913c678bbeee0.pdf 75eca57d19b98977bc84aeab9f738023 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda Village and Town History, transcription (from History of Buffalo and Erie County, Chapter XL, pp 412-426, 1884).pdf Description An account of the resource (Illustrations: Urial Driggs and John Simpson)  <div style="text-align: left;">CHAPTER XL</div> <div style="text-align: left;">HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF TONAWANDA</div> <ul> <li><a href="#history">History of the Town of Tonawanda</a></li> <li><a href="#first-settlement">First Settlement</a></li> <li><a href="#war-of-1812">War of 1812</a></li> <li><a href="#post-war-settlement">Post-War Settlement</a></li> <li><a href="#erie-canal">Construction of the Erie Canal</a></li> <li><a href="#railroad">Railroads and Infrastructure</a></li> <li><a href="#civil-war">Tonawanda in the Civil War</a></li> <li><a href="#town-formation">Formation of the Town of Tonawanda</a></li> <li><a href="#supervisors">List of Supervisors</a></li> <li><a href="#village-of-tonawanda">The Village of Tonawanda</a></li> <li><a href="#business">Business and Economy</a></li> <li><a href="#education">Education</a></li> <li><a href="#post-office">The Post Office</a></li> <li><a href="#churches">Churches</a></li> <li><a href="#urial">Urial Driggs</a></li> <li><a href="#john">John Simpson</a></li> </ul> <a name="history"></a> THIS town lies in the northwest part of the county, having Tonawanda creek for its northern and Niagara river for its western boundary. It has an extreme length of six miles from east to west, and an extreme width of five miles from north to south. Its area is about twenty-two square miles, and it is entirely situated in township twelve, range eight, of the Holland Company’s survey, except a strip a mile wide along the river which is in the State reservation described in the general history. The surface of the town is generally level: the soil along the Niagara being a clayey loam, while that of the interior is a sandy loam. Ellicott’s creek runs northwesterly through the town emptying into Tonawanda creek near its mouth. <a name="first-settlement"></a> The first settlement was made by Alexander Logan, John King, and John Hershey, who located themselves in the southeast part of the town in 1805. Oliver Standard settled on the Niagara River in 1806, and in the same year John Cunningham, Josiah Guthrie, Ebenezer Coon, Thomas Hannan, and Joseph Hershey located in the town. Henry Anguish came in 1808, making his home near Tonawanda creek, a short distance above the old Tonawanda burying-ground. Robert Van Slyke soon after settled near him. Frederick Buck located on the river, above Standard, in 1809, and not long afterward James Burba made his home still farther up the river, and near the southwest corner of the present town of Tonawanda. In 1811, Henry Anguish opened a tavern, the first in the town, at his residence. Robert Van Slyke also became a landlord, although somewhat later. During the same year (1811) Robert Simson located himself near Ellicott creek, about a mile above its mouth. At this time the site of Tonawanda village and almost all of the town was a forest. The only road from Tonawanda creek to Buffalo was along the beach of the Niagara River. Another road had been underbrushed but was not used. John P. Martin and a Mr. Stevens settled on Wright’s creek about 1812, but soon moved away. Among the settlers of this period, or a little later, were David Carr [then spelled Kerr], (father-in-law of General T. S. Hopkins, of Williamsville,) who located himself on Tonawanda creek, just outside the site of the village, and Charles Carr, Alvin Dodge, and a Mr. Miller, who made their homes on what was called “The Guide-board road,” running from Tonawanda to Williamsville. John Foster, also, about the same time opened a farm adjoining that of Henry Anguish; he was the pioneer Methodist exhorter of this region. He held services at the house of Robert Simson, at his own house and elsewhere, and was occasionally assisted by Rev. Glezen Fillmore, who came over from Clarence. Mr. Berlin, father of James and John Berlin, Richard Rogers, James Robinson, and Henry Simondon located themselves on the Military road from Tonawanda to Buffalo; their farms being in the order named, beginning at Tonawanda. William Best was the first surveyor in the town; his son, R. Hamilton Best, was the sheriff of Erie County in 1862-'64. <a name="war-of-1812"></a> Just before the war of 1812, a block-house was built on the south side of Tonawanda creek, near its mouth. In August of that year it contained sixteen soldiers. A rumor got abroad that the British and Indians had taken possession of Grand Island and might, perhaps, cross to the mainland. The few men of the vicinity were called to the guard-house; a day or two later several hundred British Indians appeared on the shore of Grand Island opposite Tonawanda. The soldiers and citizens were turned out and after parading in sight of the enemy were marched back, and then reappeared with their coats turned wrong side out, to impress the enemy with the idea that a new force had arrived. Whether on account of this strategy, or for other reasons, the Indians did not attempt to cross the river. Throughout the war the scattered settlers of this region were kept in a constant state of excitement, either on account of threatened attacks from Canada, or by the marching to and fro of bodies of American troops, which were expected to carry the war across the river. After the capture of Fort Niagara by the British, on the 19th of December, 1813, the danger became more serious than before. About a week later, just before the attack on Buffalo, a detachment of the enemy came up from the captured fort, burning every building along the road. They burned the guard-house before mentioned, and all the other buildings in the vicinity, with one exception. There was no village, but there were a few log farm-houses scattered along the road, and we believe, a log tavern on the north side of the creek. The building which was not burned was occupied by Mrs. Francis (a daughter of Robert Simson,) who was sick and unable to flee. Her house was set on fire three times, and each time she crawled downstairs and extinguished the flames; probably the house was of logs, and did not burn easily. The enemy went little if any farther south than Tonawanda at this time. When Buffalo was burned, on the 30th of December, the straggling settlers of Tonawanda felt themselves in greater danger than ever and most of them retreated eastward. As the enemy, however, made no more raids across the river, the people gradually returned to their homes, and when a well-appointed American army appeared on the frontier in the spring of 1814, their confidence returned, nor were they again disturbed by an invader. During the war, we believe in 1814, James Burba, who as before stated had settled in the southwest part of the town of Tonawanda, was murdered by three soldiers of the regular army. They had been ordered to go a mile and a half below Scajaquada creek to see if there were any signs of the enemy. They went three miles below the creek to the house of Burba, who kept a wayside tavern, and probably, after indulging freely in his liquor, endeavored to carry off some vegetables from his garden. He attempted to prevent them and a quarrel ensued, in which they killed him. One of the murderers escaped, but the other two, Charles Thompson and James Peters, were tried and convicted at Buffalo, in June, 1815, and were executed in August following. This was the first trial and execution by civil law within the present county of Erie. The Burba property was afterwards bought by John Foster, the Methodist exhorter, who also kept a tavern. An incident of pioneer life in this town was related by the late James Harrington, a reputable man, a sixty-years’ resident of Buffalo, long connected with its stage and railroad business, who died a few years ago aged upwards of 80 years. Making his way from an eastern State to Buffalo, in the summer of 1815, he embarked in a vessel at Oswego, landed at Lewiston, on the lower part of the Niagara, and took the road up that river for Buffalo on foot, with his extra clothing in a small bundle, hung on a stick thrown over his shoulder. Arriving at Tonawanda creek, he espied a canoe on the opposite side, but no conveyance on the side where he stood. Standing on the bank, for it was a deep stream, he hallooed to the occupants of a log cabin on the south side, to call someone to set him across. Soon a stout woman came to the door and asked what he wanted. He told her he wanted to cross the creek. “Very well,” said she, “give me a quarter of a dollar and I'll ferry you over.” “But I haven’t got a quarter; eighteen pence is all the money I have left,” replied Harrington; “I will give you that for a passage across.” “No matter,” returned the woman, “a quarter is the price, and if you can’t pay that you can stay where you are.” Harrington was bound for Buffalo. The weather was warm so he threw off his coat, lashed it to his bundle, entered the water, swam across, and trudged on his way, giving little credit to Tonawanda hospitality. <a name="post-war-settlement"></a> After the war, settlement was again resumed and the forest was steadily cleared away, though not as rapidly as in some other towns. Edward Carney settled in 1816 on Tonawanda Island. His son, James Carney, mentions an unoccupied house then standing, situated near where the road leaves the river, which was soon after fitted up as a schoolhouse; it was the first in that part of the town, and he thinks in the whole town. Ephraim Kelsey was the earliest teacher. Miss Hannah Pettit, now Mrs. Jacob Whitman, attended school under him. About 1820, Peter Taylor kept a tavern in a hewed log house near the crossing of Tonawanda creek. <a name="erie-canal"></a>It was not until 1823 that any marked change was made. About the beginning of that year the commissioners in charge of the construction of the Erie Canal made a contract with Judge Samuel Wilkeson and Dr. Ebenezer Johnson, of Buffalo, to build a dam near the mouth of Tonawanda creek, as it was intended to use that stream as a part of the canal from its mouth along the northern border of the present town of Tonawanda, and the greater part of Amherst. The work was begun early in the spring and a large number of men were employed. Wilkeson and Johnson also constructed three-fourths of a mile of the canal and built a toll bridge. During the year the village of Tonawanda was laid out. Of this more will be said a little farther on. During 1823 and 1824, and perhaps the early part of 1825, the canal was constructed along the Niagara river from Buffalo to Tonawanda. A tow-path was also made by the side of Tonawanda creek, which became a part of the canal, the whole great work being completed in September, 1825. <a name="railroad"></a>Outside of the village the further progress of the town was not marked by any exciting events. The land was steadily cleared off, framed houses were substituted for log ones, the ground was drained where necessary, (as in some places was the case,) and the town gradually took on the appearance of an old and well-cultivated district. The first railroad operated by steam in Western New York, that from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, was opened through Tonawanda in 1836. The Canandaigua & Niagara Falls railroad now, like the one previously named in use as a part of the New York Central, was completed in 1854. The Niagara Falls branch of the New York, Lake Erie & Western, railroad was built in 1870. There were in all about thirteen miles of railroad track in the town. <a name="civil-war"></a>In the war for the Union the young men of Tonawanda took an active part. Colonel Payne's company (D) of the One Hundredth New York Infantry, was raised in this town and the adjoining town of Wheatfield, Niagara county, and a large number of other Tonawandians were scattered through other companies and regiments. Their services are narrated in the chapters devoted to the services of the volunteers in the civil war. <a name="town-formation"></a>At the time of the first settlement of the territory of the town of Tonawanda it was a part of the town of Erie, Genesee county which extended from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, embracing all that part of the present county of Erie west of the “West Transit.” On the organization of Niagara county in 1808 the territory in question became a part of Clarence which covered all the northern part of what is now Erie county. In 1810 it was made a portion of the new town of Buffalo, of which it remained a part for twenty-six years; being transferred with it from Niagara to Erie county in 1821. On the 16th day of April, 1836, the town of Tonawanda was formed from Buffalo by an act of the Legislature; it comprised the present towns of Tonawanda and Grand Island. The new town was not organized until the next year. The following is a nearly complete list of the first officers elected: William Williams, supervisor; T. W. Williams, town clerk; John T. Bush, Daniel Smith, and Mr. Fosdyck, justices of the peace; Jeremiah Phalin, and James Carney, assessors; John Simson and William Best, commissioners of highways. <a name="supervisors"></a>Grand Island was formed into a separate town by the board of supervisors of Erie County, in October, 1852. The following is a list of the supervisors of Tonawanda, with their years of service, from its organization to the present time, so far as they can be ascertained: William Williams, 1837–38; Jedediah H. Lathrop, 1839; Theron W. Woolson, 1840; James Carney, 1846–47; J. H. Phillips, 1848–50; Theron W. Woolson, 1851–54; Warren Moulton, 1855–56; Paul Roberts, 1857–58; Christoph Schwinger, 1859; Emanuel Hensler, 1860–61; David Kohler, 1862–63; Benjamin H. Long, 1864–65; Frederick Knothe, 1866–67; S. G. Johnson, 1868–69; B. H. Long, 1870; Christoph Schwinger, 1871; Frederick Knothe, 1872–73; William Kibler, 1874; J. H. DeGraff, 1875; Philip Wendell, 1876; A. B. Williams, 1877–78; Oscar H. Gorton, 1879–80; James H. DeGraff, 1881–82. At the present time (1883) the supervisor is R. Holway; the town clerk is William Schwinger and the justices of the peace are Simon Bellinger, S. G. Johnson, Theodore Schneider, and C. W. Sickman.<a name="village-of-tonawanda"></a> THE VILLAGE OF TONAWANDA. There was no village, nor even a hamlet, at Tonawanda until 1823. Mr. Joseph Bush, who was there early in that year, says there was nothing but a log tavern on the south side of the creek and another on the north side. The former had recently been kept, and perhaps was then kept, by Peter Taylor; the latter was kept by Garrett Van Slyke. Mr. Van Slyke was the proprietor of a rope ferry across the creek, and his daughters were in the habit of ferrying travelers over the stream. As already stated, in 1823 Judge Wilkeson and Dr. Johnson of Buffalo took contracts for building a dam at the mouth of the Tonawanda and also three-fourths of a mile of the canal in the immediate vicinity. They, of course, employed a large number of men, and a village of shanties at once sprang up near the mouth of the Tonawanda. Wilkeson & Johnson built a toll bridge across the creek and opened a store on the north side of the creek, in Niagara County. During the year, Albert H. Tracy, Charles Townsend, and other Buffalonians formed a company, bought land, and laid out the village of Tonawanda. While the canal was in progress, there was a great deal of business at the new village, but after its completion, in the autumn of 1825, the temporary excitement subsided, and there was but little improvement for many years. In 1827, Mr. Urial Driggs opened what we believe was the first store on the south side of the creek and the first in the town of Tonawanda. Mr. Driggs, after fifty-six years have passed, is still carrying on a grocery store at Tonawanda. Mr. Joseph Bush, after acting as a clerk a few years in Wilkeson & Johnson's store, opened one of his own on the south side of the creek. He was in the grocery business at Tonawanda nearly forty years. Roswell Driggs was an early hotel keeper. Soon after 1823, a post office was established, bearing the name of Tonawanda. Mr. Bush was the postmaster during many years. The village increased but slowly, though now and then a small advance was made in the lumber business. Henry P. Smith was the pioneer lumber dealer. John Simpson had sawmills and a planing mill at Tonawanda as early as 1840. He and others secured the attention of the Cleveland Commercial Company, who made an earnest attempt to develop the resources of Tonawanda, about or before 1850. They purchased five hundred feet of river frontage and erected an elevator with a storage capacity of 250,000 bushels and capable of elevating 2,000 bushels per hour. The company also laid out several new streets, gave a large square to the public, and sold numerous lots to laboring men on long credit. But the circumstances were not propitious, and for several years the elevator stood substantially without business. It was burned about 1857. Several of the members of the Cleveland Commercial Company died, its lots in Tonawanda were divided between its members, and its enterprises were all abandoned. After the war, business began to revive, and about 1870 the lumber trade assumed important proportions. With all other kinds of business, it suffered a serious depression during the financial crisis of 1873 and the succeeding years, but there was all the time a very large quantity of lumber and timber brought from Canada and Michigan, and during the last three or four years, the trade has been more prosperous than ever. <a name="business"></a>J. S. Thompson, Lockman & Woods, Fassett & Bellinger, P. W. Scribner, Peter Misner, and A. B. Williams were the principal dealers in Tonawanda, together with the Export Company, J. H. DeGraff & Co., Gratwick, Smith & Fryer, J. M. Chapman, James Norris, and others, in North Tonawanda, Niagara County. They built miles of dock and have hundreds of acres of ground covered with lumber brought from Michigan and Canada, for distribution by rail to points south and east. The lumber yards have side tracks from the different railroads running in every direction through them, with switch engines, which are kept busily engaged in drawing cars to and fro. The Tonawanda Lumber Association, composed of dealers on both sides of the creek, was formed in 1873. Tonawanda is not a port of entry, though considering the amount of import business transacted there, it would certainly seem as if it ought to be. There is a deputy collector on each side of the creek, the one in Erie County reporting to the collector at Buffalo, and the one in Niagara reporting to the one at Suspension Bridge. A vessel bound hither usually clears for “Tonawanda” and then enters and pays duties on whichever side she breaks bulk. P. S. Humphrey is the collector on the south side, and Frederick Somers on the north side. The shingle business was carried on by J. A. Bliss very extensively for many years. He closed out in the fall of 1882. J. Batt engaged in The same occupation during the late war, and also did a good business. This establishment is now in the hands of J. S. Bliss, who cuts 400,000 shingles daily. J. S. Thompson began the manufacture of shingles in 1881 and turns out 200,000 daily. He was formerly in partnership with R. J. Wilder; he employs forty hands. Leaving the principal business of Tonawanda, we will glance at other professions and occupations. Lawyers.— John T. Bush, who had studied law in Buffalo under Henry K. Smith, began practice in Tonawanda in 1836. He was not, however, a permanent resident, spending a large part of his time in Buffalo. He served two terms in the Assembly and one in the State Senate. He is now a wealthy resident on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. His brother, William T. Bush, began the practice of law in Tonawanda in 1837. He was also elected to the Assembly and was United States Marshal under Fillmore’s administration. He continued in practice until a few years since when he retired. He is still a resident of Tonawanda. W. W. Thayer, ex-Governor of Oregon, located in Tonawanda in 1855 and practiced several years. D. H. Long began practice in 1856 and continued until 1878, when he died. George Wing began practice in 1868, but in a few years removed to Buffalo. Willis J. Benedict came a few years later than Mr. Wing and after a brief practice also removed to Buffalo. Elias Root and F. L. Clark practiced in partnership from July 1877 to May 1882, when the former removed to Dakota and the latter formed a partnership with W. B. Simson, which was dissolved in January 1883. Both gentlemen are now practicing in Tonawanda. Charles W. Sickman, who resides in Tonawanda, has an office in Buffalo. Physicians.— Dr. Jesse F. Locke was the first resident physician of Tonawanda, though Dr. Thomas, who resided in Niagara County, had practiced there previously. Dr. Locke came about 1838 and practiced until his death in 1860. Dr. Frederick F. Hoyer, a native of Herkimer County, came in 1849, and it is noticeable that two other physicians, (Dr. Ware and Dr. Gail,) located at Tonawanda on the same day that he did. They remained, however, but a short period, while Dr. Hoyer has been in active practice in Tonawanda until the present time. Drs. Leonard and Dieffenbach came somewhat later and remained but a short time. Dr. W. D. Murray located in Tonawanda about 1857, and is still in practice there. The later physicians now practicing in the village are: Dr. H. B. Murray, Dr. Simson Cook, and Dr. C. Rollin Cobb. The Press.— The Tonawanda Herald was established before 1853. After changing hands several times it was purchased by S. O. Hayward, in 1854, who changed its name to the Niagara Frontier. Subsequently, he again changed it to the Tonawanda Enterprise. Save during a brief interval, Mr. Hayward has conducted the paper as editor and proprietor from 1854 to the present time. It is an eight-page, sixteen-column sheet, is independent in politics, and has attained a good circulation. The Daily News was established in 1878, by George S. Hobbie. At that time it had but three columns on each of its four pages. Increased circulation brought increased size, and it now has five columns per page. [There is also a paper called, the Tonawanda Herald, published by Chapman & Warner, in North Tonawanda, Niagara County.] The State Bank of Tonawanda was established May 1, 1883, with the following officers: President, James H. DeGraff; Vice-President, Edward Evans; Cashier, Benjamin L. Rand; Directors, J. H. DeGraff, E. Evans, C. Schwinger, W. D. Murray, T. S. Fassett, H. Smith, and B. L. Rand. Capital, $100,000. Merchants, Grocers, Etc.— Urial Driggs has been in the mercantile business in Tonawanda most of the time since 1827. S. G. Johnson established himself in the same business in 1848 and has been engaged in it most of the time since. He has been a justice of the peace several terms, was a justice of sessions in 1860, and was the supervisor of the town in 1868 and 1869. William Kibler was an early merchant in Tonawanda; his store is now owned by Joseph Powell. James A. Pinner established himself in business in 1853 and still carries it on. Christoph Schwinger came not long afterwards and was very successful. Louis F. Green is also one of the grocers of that period. Simon J. Locke established the drug business as a specialty shortly before the late war. His store is now owned by C. H. Scoville, who took possession in 1881. A hardware store was established by Sherman & Campbell, about the time of the late war. It was transferred to O. H. Gorton in 1870 and is still under his management. Lyman G. Stanley opened a drug and stationery store in 1866, but since 1872 has confined himself to the sale of drugs alone. Christian Diedrich opened a store in 1867; he died in 1883, and his widow now carries on the business. Nice & Hinkey built a fine brick block in 1867 and have since carried on a large hardware business. A. H. Crown had a general store for many years after the late war. The establishment was purchased in 1880 by J. Wolf & Sons, who carry it on as a dry goods store only. Christian Miller opened the first furniture store in the village in 1870. William H. Hepworth, A. L. Karner, and L. Silverstone have all been in the dry goods business for several years. J. H. Kohler and J. B. Huff have both engaged in the boot and shoe business during the year 1883. Manufactures.— The Tonawanda Pipe Works were established in 1857 by J. S. Hobbie. He manufactures water and gas pipe, and steam pipe casing; also sawed and cut shingles. The Tonawanda Pump Works were erected in 1870 by William Grieser, who manufactures two hundred pumps annually. The brick yard owned by Edward Hall was established by him in 1871; it produces 3,000,000 bricks annually. William Simson also engaged in the manufacture of brick in 1880. William M. Gilley [Gillie] erected a machine-shop in 1883. The Tonawanda Brewery was built by George Zent just after the close of the late war. It was burned some years afterward, but was rebuilt by Mr. Zent. This property was sold in March, 1883, to the Niagara Brewer's Association, a stock company consisting of eighty members. The officers are: Christian Schwinger, president; J. R. Holway, secretary; Dr. W. D. Murray, J. R. Holway, Martin Riester, L. Smith, Jacob Stockmeyer, and William Kibler, directors. The company brews one hundred and fifty barrels per day. The Tonawanda Vinegar Works were established in May, 1883, by L. P. Rose & Son. They manufacture eight barrels of vinegar per day. The Village Government.—The village of Tonawanda was incorporated on the 7th day of January, 1854. It then included what is now known as North Tonawanda, situated in Niagara County. There were four wards, of which one was north of the creek. The first officers were John R. Wheeler, president; Theron W. Woolson, Jesse F. Locke, and Henry F. Hill, trustees; Franklin T. McCollor, clerk; Hiram Newell, treasurer; William Hay, collector; Elijah Cooley, Gideon Hulbert, and Thomas J. Keith, assessors; Levi Waite, pound-master. In 1857, the residents of that portion of the village situated in Niagara County, having become discontented on account of the superior power wielded by the part lying in Erie County, procured the passage of an act withdrawing them from the jurisdiction of the village. Since then, Tonawanda has been entirely unconnected, legally, with North Tonawanda. The present officers are: Charles W. Sickman, president; M. Scanlon, C. Schwinger, H. G. March, A. A. Bellinger, and Frederick Schwartz, trustees; Fayette A. Ballard, clerk; James B. Huff, treasurer; Thomas McGinnis, collector; Theodore Hardleben, W. W. Parker, and George Fatzer, assessors; David Kohler, street commissioner; George Schrier, pound-master. <a name="education"></a> Even in educational matters, the south side is entirely separate from the north. Union school district No. 3, of Tonawanda, erected a large, three-story brick schoolhouse in 1870, in which a flourishing graded school has since been carried on. There are now about four hundred scholars, under the charge of T. B. Dates, as principal, assisted by a corps of Normal graduates. <a name="post-office"></a>The Post Office of Tonawanda was established between 1825 and 1830. It was kept many years by Joseph Bush. Jacob Kibler was appointed postmaster during the administration of President Fillmore; S. G. Johnson during that of Pierce; Christian Eggert during that of Buchanan; R. W. Driggs under that of Lincoln; S. O. Hayward under that of Lincoln; and Henry Stanley also under that of Lincoln. Mr. Stanley died shortly after his appointment and was succeeded by his widow, who remained postmistress seventeen years. Robert L. Koch, the present...The postmaster was appointed under the administration of President Hayes and re-appointed under that of Arthur. The gross receipts for the fiscal year ending May 4, 1883, were $4,774.96. The office receives an average of about five hundred letters and five hundred papers daily. <a name="churches"></a>The Methodist Episcopal Church of Tonawanda.—John Foster, a local preacher, preached the first Methodist sermon in Tonawanda, at the house of Robert Simson about 1816. Three years after this, Mr. Simson sold a small tract to the school district, on which a school house was built where Mr. Foster preached for a number of years. In 1830 Mr. A. H. Tracy donated a lot on South Canal Street, in the village of Tonawanda, to John Simson (son of Robert), for church purposes. That gentleman circulated a subscription for a Union Church, and after obtaining $400, added $1,600 himself, and built a church worth $2,000. The building was occupied by Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Universalists, all represented by John Simson, Urial Driggs, and Levi Zimmerman, as trustees. In 1842 James Sweeney, John Sweeney, and Mr. Gaundey [Goundry?] donated to John Simson a lot on Tremont Street, twenty-two feet front, for a church and schoolhouse. Mr. Simson added thirteen feet to the lot, upon which he built a church and shed, at a cost of $2,500. Mr. Simson paid $2,000 himself and raised the rest by subscription. The society was incorporated December 17, 1842; Lewis Deming, Jesse F. Locke, and Nathaniel Cummings being elected trustees. In consequence of a defective title, it was reorganized April 17, 1854, when the following trustees were elected: James A. Pinner, Orson Shepard, Orrin Dutton, George Shesler, Hiram Newell, Theron W. Woolson, John Simson, Charles H. Calkins, and Erastus Chamberlain. John Simson deeded the property to the Methodist Episcopal Society, July 4, 1867. The following pastors have served the church: B. F. McNeal, 1859; W. L. Leake, 1860; J. Timmerman and R. C. Foot, 1861; C. P. Clark, 1862 and '63; C. D. Burlingham, 1866; J. McEwen, 1867 and '68; Z. Hurd, 1869 and '70; C. P. Clark, 1871; S. Smith, 1872 and '73; H. Vosburgh, 1874 to '76; G. H. Dyer (during whose last year a new church was commenced) 1877 to '79; L. D. Watson (during whose pastorate the new church was completed) 1880 and '82. The church property is worth $20,000. The Catholic Church of Tonawanda.— This church began its work in the building known as the Sacred Heart, now the old school house, under the auspices of Father Francis Uhlrich, in the year 1850. In 1862 Father Uhlrich and his congregation erected St. Francis’ Church, a commodious stone structure, there being then a membership of about fifty families. Father Aloysius Bachmann took charge as resident pastor, August 9, 1874. The church now contains about two hundred families and has an average attendance of about two hundred and fifty children in the school. A handsome two-story brick schoolhouse was erected during the year 1883. The First Presbyterian Church.— This church was organized on the 29th of May, 1852, by the Rev. A. T. Rankin, D. D. The first officers and members were as follows: elders, Daniel Butts, Thomas J. Collins, and William R. Allen; trustees, Henry P. Smith, Daniel Butts, and Henry Hill; other members, Catharine Collins, Emeline Butts, Mehitable G. Locke, Thankful Taber, Mary Taber Payne, Amanda M. Taber, Margaret Hoyt, Jane T. Atwater, Lereina Goodrich, Amarilla Patterson, Elizabeth Lafflin, John Churchill, and Phebe Cherry. Mr. Collins is still an elder of the church; Mrs. Taber, Mrs. Payne, Elizabeth Lafflin, and Mrs. Cherry are the only other members remaining of the original number. The following is a list of the pastors and regular supplies from the organization of the society down to the 1st of January, 1883: A. T. Rankin, D. D., Arthur Burtis, D. D., William Hancock, E. W. Kellogg, R. R. Sutherland, D. D., A. B. Robinson, A. F. Hale, and W. C. Macbeth. The Rev. William Alfred Gay, for ten years the pastor of the Breckenridge Street Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, has been supplying this congregation since the 1st of January, 1883, during which time two large debts have been paid and many important improvements made. The church edifice, built of pressed brick, has a very large audience-room with stained windows and a fine organ. The following are the officers of the church: Pastor, William Alfred Gay; session, T. J. Collins (stated clerk), Thomas McConkey, and William Baker; trustees, George W. Tong (president), E. W. Betts, F. L. Clark, J. F. Vincent, George Herschel. The Church of Christ of Tonawanda.— This church is undenominational, its members being known only as Disciples of Christ. It was organized March 27, 1853, when Asa Ransom and Samuel Kinsey were appointed overseers; it then numbered forty persons. Their house of worship, a brick edifice, was erected on the corner of Broadway and Seymour Streets in the year 1855. Its dimensions were sixty-two feet by thirty-four with a seating capacity of about four hundred. During the year 1882 it was remodeled and repaired at a cost of about $2,000. The following are the names of the resident preachers: J. J. Moss, J. D. Benedict, J. M. Bartlett, C. L. Streight, H. C. Parsons, J. C. Goodrich, Geo. Lobingier, L. Osborne. The present membership, including fifteen non-residents, is one hundred and fifty-five. The following are the present officials: Asa Ransom, Daniel Bellinger, and Edward Evans, trustees; Asa Ransom, William McLaren, and L. Osborne, overseers; Daniel Bellinger, Giles Schell, and Benjamin L. Rand, deacons. The Free Methodist Church of Tonawanda was organized in 1860. It originated in religious meetings held at the house of Father George Goodenough, and at the first organization there were but fifteen members. The Rev. W. W. Brown is their present pastor. G. W. Goodenough, George Low, Ira W. Rose, M. B. Shearer, D. F. Horton, L. P. Rose, and Daniel Hall are officers of this society. The German Baptist Church of Tonawanda was organized in December, 1872. The first mission was held in Evans’ Hall. In 1875 the present church building was erected, and in December, 1876, the Rev. E. E. Chivers preached the dedication sermon. In October, 1879, the regular organization of this society was recognized by the German Baptist Church. The first officers were: Rev. R. Otto, pastor; A. Bauer, deacon; T. Otto, secretary and treasurer. The present officers are: Rev. R. Otto, pastor; F. Miller, secretary; H. Smith, treasurer. The church has a membership of forty persons. <a name="urial"></a>Urial Driggs, of Tonawanda, was born in the town of Marcellus, on the banks of Nine Mile Creek in Onondaga County, N. Y., November 15, 1802, and when ten years of age, moved with his father, Roswell Driggs, to Ontario, Wayne County. About one year preceding the building of the canal, the father removed to Grand Island; from there soon went to the old Fields farm, and thence to the village of Tonawanda, where he kept the Tonawanda House, and died when fifty-six years of age. Urial Driggs labored under adverse circumstances during the early years of his life. His parents not being greatly supplied with riches, he was partly sent adrift to shift for himself. He worked on a farm for five dollars a month, taking his pay in wheat, which he sold at three shillings a bushel; or cut cordwood for two shillings a cord. During the few years he attended school, he worked his way by assisting at home during his leisure hours and working Saturdays. When eighteen years of age, having acquired a small amount of means, he started a grocery, which is now under the proprietorship of his only son, Roswell W. Driggs. His business prospered finely and assisted him greatly in the care of his father’s family, of which he had nearly the entire charge. As his financial abilities increased, Mr. Driggs purchased large quantities of real estate, of which a large part was village lots and upon which he has erected a number of buildings. At the present time, though over eighty years of age, he is personally superintending the erection of a half-dozen houses. In 1849, he was made Superintendent of thirty miles of the canal, and the annual expenses under his administration were cut down from $64,000 to $34,000, for running the boats and keeping the ditch in repair. After leaving the canal department, he took an interest in a warehouse in Buffalo, together with an interest in a line of fifteen boats, and at the same time dealt very heavily in cordwood and lumber. He also owned a grocery store on the dock, and a dry-goods store which was managed by his partner, while he looked after the other business; and he supplied the steamers with wood. During all this time he had kept business steadily moving in Tonawanda, and besides his grocery, also owned a dry-goods store, and for a time was proprietor of the Tonawanda House. After holding his interest in Buffalo three years, he sold out and, by the advice of his wife, decided to retire from active business life. Ease and retirement, however, were contrary to a nature such as his and brought on sickness, till by the advice of his physician he began active operations again and has from that time to this, been unceasingly employed superintending his varied interests. Mr. Driggs is a member of the Presbyterian church, and financially has not failed to remember the needs of his people. He is a staunch Republican, and during the Rebellion was an active supporter of the war measures. He has been married three times. His first wife Lucy Ann Wait, was married May 23, 1827, and died June 3, 1868, having had four children, of whom Roswell W. and Mrs. Amanda Karner are the only ones living. The two children who died were Urial B. and Aurora Polly Ann. His second wife Mrs. Anna Driggs died September 12, 1882. His third wife Mrs. Harriet S. Bedell, was the daughter of John Laflin, who removed from Connecticut to Vermont in 1820, when his daughter was fourteen years old. She was married in 1830 to Ira Bedell who came to New York and settled first in Tonawanda and subsequently on Grand Island. Mr. and Mrs. Driggs were married on St. Patrick's day, March 17, 1883, which is also her birthday. <a name="john"></a> John Simson came with his father, Robert Simson, to Tonawanda, August 16, 1811. He was the first child and was born in Warren, N. Y., May 19, 1803. His ancestors migrated from Scotland to the north of Ireland in the days of William the Conqueror. Robert Simson was born May 30, 1727, and in 1761, came to America with his three children, Mary, James and John, and settled in New York. John Simson was born August 13, 1753, and March 26, 1778, married Jane Adams, by whom he had eleven children. He served seven years in the Revolutionary war, under Washington. His ancestors were wealthy and he inherited considerable property which was principally loaned to the Government, which returned for pay Continental script that was not redeemed during his lifetime. In 1816, he freed all his slaves. Robert, his only son, was born November 15, 1782. In 1810, he traveled through the western part of New York State in search of his future home, and in 1811, moved his family into the wilderness on a tract of land still retained by his descendants, and which is about a mile above the village of Tonawanda on Ellicott Creek. He was Captain during the War of 1812, and had charge of the guard-house, which was then the refuge for the town in times of trouble. He was a fine singer and was always buoyant and full of life, possessing those enjoyable qualities that make soldiers popular, and General Scott frequently visited him and was a great friend of his family. His wife, Lydia Moffitt, born September 15, 1784, and married April 8, 1802, was of Welsh descent and a strong adherent of the old English Church. In 1813, the British entered the village of Tonawanda and burned the guard-house and all the dwellings except one—the house of Mrs. Francis. She was upstairs, sick in bed and not able to flee with the others to the woods, and three times when her house was fired she crawled out of bed and downstairs and extinguished the flames. The consternation among the people was very great at this time, and Mrs. Simson, after burying her large kettle in the middle of Ellicott Creek, and marking the place, went east to a place then called Big Tree, in Genesee County, N. Y., where they remained until 1816. At the age of eighteen, Mr. John Simson sought a fortune for himself, and notwithstanding the adverse circumstances of the first few years of his life, under which he labored, has been eminently successful. He has always been prominent in business circles, and in church has been an official over sixty years. In April, 1834, he was married to Frances Long, whose married life of forty-seven years was terminated by her death, March 24, 1881. As they toiled through life and were blest, so they forgot not the wants of others, having bequeathed many thousands of dollars to their church, for the upbuilding of colleges and places of worship. Mr. Simson has repeatedly occupied positions of public trust in his town and county, and in the year 1872 he represented the Fourth Assembly district of Erie County in the State Legislature, where he was a prominent member of the Canal committee, and was one of those wise legislators who first advocated the doctrine of making the canals of the State free. Mr. Simson has always been connected with the lumber trade at Tonawanda village, and after some years of toil, succeeded in practically drawing the attention of the Cleveland Transportation company to Tonawanda, and secured for the village the obligation on their part, to build a dock, an elevator and warehouses, all of which they faithfully did. He has himself practically retired from business, but his sons-in-law, A. B. Williams and J. W. DeGraff are extensive lumber dealers. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1883 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/VVN001/id/45/ transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/a6bf21134c55a640de2d840bae5a5148.pdf 1aeaad06efe8ba9fa043a4be675e60dd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Goose Island (Tonawanda) Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/26.jpg" alt="Goose Island as seen from Tonawanda Island, postcard detail, ca 1913" />Goose Island as seen from Tonawanda Island, postcard detail, ca 1913. "Goose Island" was the name of a triangular piece of land in Tonawanda formerly cut off from the mainland by the Erie Canal. The island was first settled by Tonawanda's well-to-do, its shady trees giving "Chestnut Street" its name. It had a cemetery (whose graves were moved to Sweeney Cemetery) and a schoolhouse. As the lumber industry picked up in the 1860s, the character of the island changed dramatically, and it would soon be known all over the country by canawlers and sailors as a "red-light" district. The canal from Tonawanda to Buffalo is filled in around 1927, effectively reconnecting the recalcitrant island to its parent. In 1966 the remaining buildings that housed the old saloons, bordellos and dwellings were razed as part of broader "Urban Renewal" efforts. Today, the only trace of old Goose Island is the old path of Chestnut Street, which is followed by the north edge of Tops parking lot and the southern part of Niagara Shore Drive. 1937 Coppola indictment dismissed. 1951 several of the old buildings, slated for demolition anyway by the State Housing Commission as part of their postwar plan, <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%25201951%2520%2520Grayscale%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%25201951%2520%2520Grayscale%2520-%25201604.pdf%23xml%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3Dffffffffffbb5d89%26DocId%3D2065199%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520U%26HitCount%3D19%26hits%3D49%2B4a%2B90%2B91%2B1a8%2B2c7%2B395%2B3cc%2B409%2B422%2B42a%2B458%2B627%2B744%2Bfee%2B1119%2B115a%2B115f%2B1166%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%25201951%2520%2520Grayscale%2FNorth%2520Tonawanda%2520NY%2520Evening%2520News%25201951%2520%2520Grayscale%2520-%25201604.pdf&xml=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3Dffffffffffbb5d89%26DocId%3D2065199%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520U%26HitCount%3D19%26hits%3D49%2B4a%2B90%2B91%2B1a8%2B2c7%2B395%2B3cc%2B409%2B422%2B42a%2B458%2B627%2B744%2Bfee%2B1119%2B115a%2B115f%2B1166%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&openFirstHlPage=false">are set on fire</a> by an arson.  A 1923 article claims an 1886 fire "totally destroyed" Goose Island. First mention 1897 (Frank Alliger's novelty concern) Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sheriff Tyler warns Tonawanda officials to purge Goose Island at once or county will take hand, article and photos, transcribed (Buffalo Courier, 1925-06-11).pdf Description An account of the resource Features photos of "disroderly" houses, and an aged Philip Perew. AI Transcription: **General view of Goose Island, Tonawanda.** Sheriff Tyler yesterday conferred with Mayor Warren and Chief of Police Ellicott of Tonawanda and informed them that reported vice conditions on Goose Island must be cleaned up immediately or he would go over their heads and take a hand himself. Chief Ellicott told the sheriff he would co-operate in the clean up, while Mayor Warren asserted he had no authority over the Tonawanda police department and therefore could do nothing. Tyler declared he found the chief of police non-committal regarding conditions on Goose Island. He said the chief feigned ignorance of widespread operations, which the sheriff characterized as "downright immoral." **Must Close Houses.** "I told Chief Ellicott I would wait a reasonable time for him to shut down the twenty or more houses of ill repute said to be open on Goose Island, but I would continue personal investigation of conditions. If there is no improvement within a few days, I will proceed to raid the district until it is absolutely clean. "Never has there been such flagrant activity as is apparent to everybody who visits the island. Women openly solicit on the streets, deputy sheriffs report. "There is no doubt Tonawanda officials have been lax in permitting such conditions to exist. The sheriff's office has been receiving numerous complaints about the island, and generally persons do not appeal to the sheriff for relief unless they have been turned down by local officials. I intend to investigate thoroughly every angle of the Goose Island district affair." Chief of Police Ellicott said he was not aware conditions on Goose Island were as bad as reported, but he would close down every place he found running in violation of the law. **Women Laugh at Cleanup.** A survey of Goose Island yesterday by a reporter revealed there are two streets in which nearly every house contains two or three women wearing gaudy dresses and having highly painted faces. The women make no secret of their business, and laugh at reports of the impending cleanup. Philip Perew, No. 46 Sweeney Street, North Tonawanda, who said he owned ten houses on the island, declared he rented them to reputable men or women for use as rooming places. He asserted the lodgers were men or women employed at the plants in the locality. Numerous drinkeries on the island are the chief spots of celebration during the week and on Saturday and Sunday nights. The largest crowds of men and women are said to come to the district on Saturday nights. During the past month there have been evenings when more than 500 persons visited the resorts. --- Let me know if you need any further assistance! Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1925-06-11 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/ccd2c8890f66617d4da9b87c41b6d339.pdf 2254f55dde1072bbc88cef4675f6ff3f https://nthistory.com/files/original/7b37930dc4963566ce5b859cebb1b2e9.pdf 446c55a6dd4a1e3e5f709bb6a135a277 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lumber Business of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/48.jpg" alt="Map of the Lumber District of the Tonawandas, 1893" />In the heyday of the Tonawandas' lumber years, practically every available inch of the Niagara riverfront and Tonawanda Island is covered in lumber (shown as lettered, colored portions in the map above). <a href="http://nthistory.com/items/show/1848">1893 Sanborn Insurance map</a>. In the mid-to-late 19th century, vast forests of Midwest timber are cut, dressed and shipped by water to the exploding towns and cities of the east, largely through the Tonawandas. The villages' advantageous location (between the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal) and the natural harbor afforded by Tonawanda Island make it one of the largest lumber ports in the country by 1890. A lock allows small craft to jump between the Niagara River and the Erie Canal via the non-canalized portion of Tonawanda Creek. Scores of lumber comanies spring up here, and their yards vaccum up almost every available inch of real estate along the Niagara River, Tonawanda Creek, and Tonawanda Island. Docks are built over the water, and millions of feet of lumber stored in great blocks are stacked to the sky. They are brought here largely on lake vessels from Lake Erie, where they are moved onto canal boats by lumbershovers and stevedores and hauled by canal boat captains (along with other goods) to points east. The big business means big money, and conflict between the laborers and employers sometimes turns deadly. Articles in this collection describe the lumbershovers strikes of 1892 and 1893, the first of which resulted in the death of a police officer, and both of which required the National Guard to be deployed. A separate collection, "<a href="http://nthistory.com/collections/show/136">Murder at the Docks</a>," digs into the 1895 double murder of canal boat captain Lorenzo Phillips and his son Charles as the captain attempted to haul a load of lumber from P. W. Scribner's Tonawanda dock in defiance of a boatmen's union agreement. As the forests of the midwest were depleted and shipping routes and technology changed, the lumber heyday of the Tonawandas receded into the past. Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Under martial law - The state of affairs in the Tonawandas, article with photos, transcription (Buffalo Morning Express, 1893-06-25) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1893-06-25 Description An account of the resource The dispute between unionizing lumber shovers and lumber men has boiled over. Peacekeepers are billeted at the former Stephen White mansion on Tonawanda Island. They (and the press) take to calling the abandoned old building "Camp Haunted." [Transcriptions by AI] **THE LUMBER WAR** **UNDER MARTIAL LAW.** **The State of Affairs in the Tonawandas.** **SCENES ON THE DOCKS.** Photographic Evidence of the Military Occupation of the Big Lumber Suburb The Haunted Camp - The Labor Situation. Buffalo's great lumber suburb of Tonawanda has had a week of military rule. The difficulties between the union and non-union men employed in unloading lumber became so threatening that on the 17th inst. President Stanley of North Tonawanda issued a proclamation warning all persons against assembling for unlawful purposes or disturbing the peace. The Tonawanda and Niagara Falls militia, which had been called out were relieved on Sunday by the 65th Regiment from Buffalo, who have since been on guard. Up to present writing there has been no outbreak, but the presence of the troops is considered necessary to protect the non-union men from assault and intimidation by the union men. A few pictures in this issue give some idea of the state of affairs early in the week. Some of the yards and docks were idle and deserted. At others, the work of unloading barges was carried on slowly by green hands. Everywhere the blue-coats were on guard. The headquarters of the 65th Regiment was at Smith & Fassett's lumber office on Tonawanda Island, the old White Mansion at the head of the island being turned into barracks for the soldiers. This house is one of the historic landmarks on the Niagara. It was built in 1833 by one Stephen White, at a cost of $15,000. The place was called Beechwater, and commanded a beautiful river view. The woodwork is of solid cherry and black walnut, and the marble mantels were imported from Italy. Mr. White's daughter married Fletcher Webster, son of Daniel Webster, and a grand bridal reception was given them in this house. Daniel Webster and other celebrities were frequent visitors, and N.P. Willis has described the place in his writings. After passing through several hands the property was bought, with the rest of the island, by Smith & Fassett, and has long stood empty among the piles of lumber which cover the once beautiful lawn. In some way the place gained the pleasant reputation of being haunted. That it has not lacked for spirits the past week, one picture bears evidence. Fifteen years ago, when a few struggling mill owners and lumbermen of Tonawanda applied to the Federal Government for an appropriation of $10,000 towards dredging the harbor, they were put to a good deal of inconvenience, delay and trouble to convince the Washington legislators that there was such a place as Tonawanda on the map. And the New-York Sun reviled the lawmakers, charging them with gross ignorance in possessing so little knowledge of their own country as not to know something of "the second largest lumber city in the world." For many years Tonawanda struggled against difficulties of all sorts and it was not until the organization of the Lumbermen's Exchange Association in 1873 that any facilities were afforded the lumbermen. The railroads did not care to handle their lumber and the rates were excessive. There were no such cars as the lumber cars of today. One length of 12-foot lumber filled a car and 8,000 feet was a load. To Paterson, N.J., a great market then, as it is yet, the rate was $70 a car. The present rate is about $25 for a carload of 15,000 or 16,000 feet. Dockage was limited to 100 feet in 1873; now there are six miles of the finest docks on the lakes, with a harbor that is unsurpassed. The Hon. John Simson established a sawmill and planing mill at Tonawanda in 1840 and laid the foundation of the Lumber City. Progress was slow, however, and it was only with the revival of business after the War that the town became a lumber center of importance. Statistics prior to the organization of the Lumber Exchange cannot be obtained. Since 1873, however, the growth of the lumber trade at this point has been enormous. that year the receipts by lake transportation were 104,000,000 feet. These figures steadily increased until 1880 when the lake receipts reached a total of 718,650,000. The railroads also brought in over 35,000,000 feet, making a grand total of 753,672,000 feet of lumber brought into the Lumber City in one season. During the same year Tonawanda lumbermen imported 52,232,300 shingles and the local mills manufactured 100,000,000 more, one mill turning out 62,000,000. The lake receipts included, also, 13,000,000 pieces of lath. The number of vessels reporting was 909. Since 1880, the receipts have fallen off very considerably, and various reasons are alleged by different men as the cause. Some attribute it to a general depression in the trade. the country. Others declare, without any hesitation, that the lumbershovers' strikes have unsettled the lumber business of the city and that the present retrogression will continue until the difficulty is settled upon a basis (Continued on page 8.) -- [Page 13:] **More Fights.** **Tonawanda Lumber-Shovers Out for Blood.** A Party of Buffalo-club Men Figure as Rescuers of One Attacked Gang. **Ran for Their Lives.** One Crowd of Union Men Stoned a Party of Soldiers and Were Arrested at the Point of the Bayonet—A Member of an Attacked Party Who Fired a Revolver Arrested and Sentenced to the Erie-county Penitentiary—The Union Repudiates the Agreement to Settle. The Tonawandas may yet be in a greater state of siege than they have experienced so far. As reported in The Express yesterday, a settlement had been reached, through the mediation of a citizens' committee, and it was supposed the lumber-handling troubles, which have existed all the season, would be at an end and that the men would go to work tomorrow. Yesterday, however, the Lumber-shovers' Union repudiated the agreement, and now the situation threatens to become worse than ever. The lumber-dealers are not likely to listen to any further arguments in behalf of their locked-out employees, who by reason of the desperation of the latter will carry them only the future can tell. If yesterday's events are any indication, very severe measures will be necessary before the lumber business can be safely carried on in the Tonawandas. The talk of removing the yards to Buffalo is again revived. If this should be done, it would be a blow from which the twin villages would not speedily recover. The lumbermen say they will at once secure the necessary forces from Buffalo and Pittsburg to handle their lumber this season and will let the Tonawanda union men sit out in the sun. With the permanent introduction of a large foreign laboring element in the Tonawandas the material for frequent and serious rows between employed and unemployed will be right at hand. Three quite serious fights occurred yesterday, in all of which union men were aggressors. In one of them a party of Buffalo-club men figured as rescuers. All talk of withdrawing the troops already on the scene is abandoned, to the disappointment of the soldiers, who were joyfully anticipating a speedy return to their homes. Sheriff Beck has come to the conclusion that everything is not as quiet and peaceful at the Tonawandas as he had supposed, and he may see the justice of the demand of the lumber-dealers of Tonawanda that they be given the same adequate protection that the dealers of North Tonawanda have been given by the Sheriff of Niagara County, who, a week ago called for military aid. When informed last night of the afternoon's fights and the indications for more trouble, he expressed the intention of swearing in a lot of deputy sheriffs. If he can get men he can rely upon, he will be content with their aid; if not, he may call out the militia. There are now four barges untouched and a half dozen partly unloaded. Six more are expected to arrive tomorrow. -- **Starting the Fight.** Union Men Were the Aggressors—Four of Them Arrested—One of the Assailed Also Fined. Special to The Buffalo Express. North Tonawanda, June 24.—This afternoon, about 5 o'clock, a canal-boat gang, having finished loading a boat, were returning home down North Canal Street. They were set upon by the following union men: Ben Robbins, Ike Chamberlin, Ed. Summers and Billy Goodwin, who grabbed Meader Beardback about the neck and exclaimed: "You're the man we want!" They threw him down and began pounding and kicking him. Beardback is the non-union man who punished union man named Bye last season so severely. Daniel Miller of Adam Street, with his son John, was working in this gang. He used his dinner-pail as a weapon and tried to help Beardback, but was set upon by the union men, who knocked him down and kicked him in the face several times. He called to his son, who had a revolver, but the young man, instead of giving it to his father, fired one shot and then rushed down the street toward Scrifner's yard, where he found Deputy-Sheriff Peters, who came to the relief of the assaulted men. The four attackers were arrested at once and taken before Justice Rogers, who sentenced Ben Robbins to 90 days in the Erie-county Penitentiary and fined Chamberlin, Summers and Goodwin $20 each. The union men began the row by yelling at them and throwing stones, and told Miller if he went to work again they would kill him and burn his house. Robbins told young Miller to "fire away;" he wasn't afraid. Soon after, another fight occurred. This time on the south side of the canal and near the union headquarters. James Halliway, a union moulder from Buffalo, was standing near the entrance to St. Louis Hall and somehow enraged a union man, who at once assaulted him, aided by several others. They kicked him in the face after he was down, and he then got away. Union men had young Miller arrested for firing the revolver while union men were assaulting his father. He was taken before Justice W. J. Rogers at 9.30 o'clock this evening and fined $30 and sentenced to 60 days imprisonment in the Erie-county Penitentiary. The charge against him was carrying concealed weapons. -- **Racing for Life.** Sixty Strikers Pursue 28 Poles Up the Canal—Rescued by a Buffalo-Club Excursion. Special to Buffalo Express. Tonawanda, June 24.—Strikers tonight, maddened by the summary punishment meted out to their men in the afternoon, boldly attacked a body of Poles who had been unloading lumber, wounded two with stones and went so far as to fire revolvers, but without hitting anyone. Deputy sheriffs were at the scene of the attack, but were powerless against the infuriated men. Law and order were openly and boldly defied. A body of 28 Poles had been taken down from Buffalo in the morning by Fassett & Bellinger. All day they worked on the river unloading boats. At 6 o'clock a tug was to take them back to the mainland and they were promised protection to the station, where they expected to catch the 6.20 train back to Buffalo. Six o'clock came, the boats they were at work on was unloaded, but no tug appeared. Deputy-Sheriffs James Willis, William Katzel, William Egenbrod and Samuel Hoffman were with the Poles and telephoned for the tug. Time went on, darkness fell and the Poles began to shake and shiver in their boots. Visions of rocks and bullets crazed their minds and they demanded to be taken to Buffalo. So the deputies started with them to walk, as there was not one seat in the entire party of laborers. Peacefully they went their way for a mile and a half up the towpath towards Buffalo. Not a striker was in sight. The way was as deserted as a Western prairie. Thinking the danger line had been passed and nothing was to be feared, the deputies wished the Poles bon voyage and turned back. But they had gone barely 100 rods. When the strikers came down upon them. Across the canal, along the river road, at least 60 strikers were in hot pursuit of the Poles. On they came on horseback, in buggies, spring-wagons, on bicycles and on foot. The Poles had seen their danger and away they went, running for dear life. After them started the deputies on a run. But the Poles had a long lead and were spurred on by fear. For a mile the wild race was on, the Poles on the towpath with the deputies following, the strikers on the river road. It is only a stone's throw across the canal, and all the time after the strikers came up with the frightened Poles a running fire of stones was kept up. Three pistol shots were fired, but no one was hit. One Pole was hit in the back by a stone and another on the hand. After a mile of this mad race, the deputies reached a lock and hailed a passing tug. Detectives Willis and Katzel boarded her and steamed after the Poles. Two more miles the race was run, and finally, the Poles were cornered. A bridge crosses the canal at this point, and over it poured the strikers. The Poles took to the river and crowded on to a raft of logs, where they were at the mercy of their enemies for nearly 15 minutes. A great deal of shouting and cursing was done, but no actual hostilities had broken out when the tug with the deputies on board reached the scene. For some time a party of 45 Buffalo-club men on the steamer Riverside had been witnesses of the unequal contest. They had been down the river on an excursion and were returning when they saw a motley crew of men plunging along the towpath waving dinner pails and gesticulating frantically. In another minute a cloud of dust appeared and out of it issued men on horseback and on foot in hot pursuit of the first lot. The riders were firing revolvers and the footmen picking up stones and flinging them. It did not take long to see what it all meant. The boat came to a stop just as the Poles took to the raft of logs. The leaders began to wave for the boat to come in, but the water was too shallow and she had to lie off. But just in the nick of time the tug with the deputies came up. It was plain sailing then. The tug steamed to the raft and took off the Poles, who were transferred to the Riverside, the strikers were left to curse and the party of Buffalo-club men and Poles started for Buffalo, the tug returning to Tonawanda. Never did a Buffalo-club man or anyone else see such a badly scared lot of Poles as these. Some were trembling like leaves, others offered up prayers of thanks for their deliverance; and it was a deliverance from what might have been death. At Amherst Street the Poles were landed and, given their street-car fares for their homes in East Buffalo. But before they left they heartily thanked their deliverers. Thirty-eight Poles had started from Tonawanda, but the count on arrival at Buffalo showed only 33. The last seen of the missing men they were running across the bridge when the strikers had crossed and were making for the open country. -- **Stoning the Guard.** Four Union Men Arrested at the Point of the Bayonet and Placed in the Guard-house. Special to The Buffalo Express. Camp Haunted, North Tonawanda, June 24.—In the camp there has been excitement, too. Last night four union men spent the night in the guard-house. They were stoning the guard about a barge that was being unloaded, and were arrested at the point of the bayonet. They showed fight, and one had his clothes ripped open by a bayonet. Corporal Morrison had charge of the squad which made the arrest. --- **No Settlement.** The Union Yesterday Refused to Sign the Agreement—Lumbermen Are Disgusted. Special to The Buffalo Express. North Tonawanda, June 24.—Last night's work undid the settlement between the lumbermen and the union lumber-shovers, which was supposed to be final. Today a settlement was looked for in vain. The lumbermen signed the proposed contract, but the union refused because last evening after certain advice, said to emanate from Matt Scanlon, they decided to stick to the union. The contract read as follows: <blockquote>This agreement, made this 24th day of June, 1883, between the citizens and a committee of men representing the members of the Lumber-shovers' Protective Union of the one part and the Tonawanda Lumbermen's Association of the other part, witnesseth as follows: That in consideration of a proposition made by John W. Robinson (this was given in yesterday's Express), the members of the Tonawanda Lumber-shovers' Protective Union hereby agree to disband immediately their organization and to accept the proposition of the said John W. Robinson, and they will faithfully perform the work that he may have for them; they also agree to form themselves into 12 gangs of 30 men each, and from the 30 men in each gang the said John W. Robinson shall select a foreman for each gang. It is further agreed that the members of each gang shall sign a contract as individuals with John W. Robinson, and it is further agreed that the foreman of each gang shall furnish a satisfactory bond to the said John W. Robinson in the sum of $500. It is further agreed that the contract shall be signed by the executive committee and the officers and board of directors of the Lumber-shovers' Protective Union of the one part and by the president and secretary of the Tonawanda Lumbermen's Association of the other part. The contract to be binding as soon as all the above conditions are complied with. </blockquote> This was signed by the lumbermen, but the union men, who held off all day, announced at 4 p.m. that they had changed their minds. They then held another excited special meeting, closing about 5 o'clock, at which time it was decided they had voted "No." They said they would stick to the union if they never got work. These are the same men who accepted one proposition so willingly yesterday. It is because of such unreliability that the lumbermen dare not trust the union to control their lumber-handling exclusively. The lumbermen say that they pay heavy taxes and know how to run their business better than the lumber-shovers and that these union men have forfeited all right to work on the docks. They say they have made it possible for these laboring men to buy homes and raise their families and that this sentiment about their grinding the union men down and asking them to disband their union out of spite is all misrepresentation. They have tried the union thoroughly and found it wanting and its members irresponsible, therefore they cannot afford to give in to them and thus ruin their business. It is quite probable now that the lumbermen will have no more to do with the union men and will at once engage outside men for the rest of the year. The citizens' committee, after laboring two days to bring about a settlement, came to the conclusion of the lumbermen, that the union could not be depended upon and gave up the work in disgust. Up to this time they had been in sympathy with the union. President William L. Cramer of the Lumber-shovers Union was seen at St. Louis Hall tonight. He stated in answer to the question by The Express reporter that the men were willing to abandon the union as a lumber-shovers' organization but they positively refused to abandon the benevolent feature. "We will go to work at once as individuals," said he, "but we will not give up our insurance. The lumbermen have had the rope way out and now they want to pull it away from us entirely." A. A. Bellinger of the firm of Bellinger & Fassett said tonight: "I do not believe the union men should be asked to give up the benevolent feature of their order. I would be willing to join that part of it tomorrow. They are a lot of good fellows and bright men among the lumber-shovers." beechwater tonawandaisland transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/1d2bf32da762a903ddfce116f94bc98c.jpg 7edc483bf90af89887a00fe7c1dda214 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda, transcription (pp8-9, Burke's Illustrated Guide to Niagara Falls, 1855).jpg Description An account of the resource A sufficiently waggish description of the young village of some 2,000 souls, with mention of Cleveland financiers but not the 1830s Bostonians: **TONAWANDA.** We now approach Tonawanda, which is twelve miles from Buffalo. It is situated at the mouth of the creek of the same name, joining the Niagara, directly opposite the widest part of **GRAND ISLAND.** Here the Erie Canal, taking advantage of this noble creek, leaves the river and follows it to Pendleton, about twelve miles distant. Here, also, the traveller on the American shore, is at the widest part of the Niagara River away from her British Majesty's dominions, with all the accompanying fancies of Thrones, **CROWNS AND SCEPTRES.** Tonawanda lies on both sides of the creek; is a pleasant village, containing some two thousand inhabitants and derives its name from the Indian of *swift running water,* which term is rather mysterious, the Creek being very deep and sluggish. This village in the years '48 and '9, also put up pretensions to cope with Buffalo. The Merchants of Cleveland, jealous of the prosperity of the "Queen City," under pretense of want of sufficient harbor room, came boldly out and published a plan to make Tonawanda the port for the discharge of Western produce intended for the Eastern market. They soon erected elevators, wharves, &c., but without any apparent disadvantage to Buffalo. There is here a dam of eighty-four feet in width which, at the same time that it benefits the Canal, produces a very interesting fall or cascade. It is crossed by a long wooden bridge on which the railroad to Niagara Falls runs. The lowness of Tonawanda, and sluggishness of its creek, will always make it a prosperous place for rheumatism and ague, and most fit for a speculation in **BURIAL GROUNDS.** Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1855 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/ab8ccaa7ba5391151a4eab4ca9a3f3d3.jpg 96842e49bd9c4a125d3ec49b4642ab17 https://nthistory.com/files/original/e04dd2f7fe7df9afddc4373609d29670.jpg f3dea2185dfec71e986fcb8859d3647f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The "White Angel" apparition of 1920 Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" alt="Mr. and Mrs. Voetsch are surprised returning from Buffalo in their motor car by an apparition. (AI)" src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/154.jpg" />Mr. and Mrs. Voetsch are surprised returning from Buffalo in their motor car by an apparition. (Illustration by AI) In 1920 a series of purported ghost sightings captivates the Tonawandas. But are the poltergeists merely political propaganda? Follow the twists and turns exactly as they were reported in local newspapers between March and June of 1920 in these articles. <a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/1920-ghost-sightings/">See our blog post with transcriptions and illustrations by AI ></a> Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Graveyards are giving up their dead, article and transcription (Tonawanda News, 1920-06-12).jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920-06-12 Description An account of the resource **GRAVEYARDS ARE GIVING UP DEAD** Ghosts Seen Last Night in Tonawanda and North Tonawanda. **IS RESURRECTION ON?** Unmistakable Apparitions Reported Seen by Responsible Citizens—Buffalo Spiritualists Are Interested and Come Here to Investigate. Two ghosts made their appearance in North Tonawanda last night and, consequently, the mystery surrounding the presence here of these spirit beings grows deeper. The fact that the apparitions are said to have been seen by leading citizens lends credence to the stories. The ghosts last night were seen on Bryant street in North Tonawanda near the place where a ghost was seen the previous night, and on Main street in Tonawanda near Park avenue. The ghost stories are attracting so much attention that Buffalo spiritualists came here today to investigate. They were headed by Mrs. George Geyer of No. 1032 E. Ferry street. The spiritualists said the ghost seen some nights ago on Delaware street, near Elmlawn, was discovered through a seance to be the spirit of Norman Baker of Buffalo, who was murdered on the Rasminger road in the town of Tonawanda last September. The spiritualists propose to hold a seance to determine the identity of the ghosts seen here. The North Tonawanda ghost last night took on the appearance of an Indian. It had feathers on its head, long flowing hair, an abnormally large ... (Continued on Page Four) --- **GRAVEYARDS ARE GIVING UP DEAD** (Continued from Page One) face, long hands but no feet. The apparition was draped in a white robe thrown over its shoulders, through which could be seen the outline of a skeleton. The Tonawanda ghost had the form of the statue of Liberty. It was a transparent figure and appeared to float off the ground. When pursued, the ghost turned on its would-be captors, and the latter took to their heels. [Editor's note: This next paragraph is mostly illegible]. Spiritualists who came here to investigate the stories, today questioned persons who are said to have seen the ghosts. They said apparitions are according to their belief, projections of thoughts, planted in the mind of the seer, to be stated by those who are led to venture the ghosts. The psychic vibration emanated by the seer who saw the apparition was seized by others who said to be in continuity with their teachings. Those who saw the ghost in North Tonawanda were attracted by a moaning and then, seeing a figure clothed in white, thought some one had fallen from a bedroom window in his bed clothes, being electrocuted by coming in contact with electric light wires in the street. The Tonawanda Power Company last night reported mysterious interferences with its electric light circuits for which it has been unable to account. Searching parties have been organized by the members of the Eldredge Bicycle Club to cooperate with the police departments in solving the mystery. Some persons are of the belief that local graveyards are beginning to give up their dead. --- transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/be206a78ef847ada0c01e12167f8c68e.jpg 3ce8f361fc2edc474f0522ebc9a4651a https://nthistory.com/files/original/fd2679dc50a53a53fba5f3b367878fe2.jpg e0f249e98429fa2ccc33ceec6e55b581 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The "White Angel" apparition of 1920 Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" alt="Mr. and Mrs. Voetsch are surprised returning from Buffalo in their motor car by an apparition. (AI)" src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/154.jpg" />Mr. and Mrs. Voetsch are surprised returning from Buffalo in their motor car by an apparition. (Illustration by AI) In 1920 a series of purported ghost sightings captivates the Tonawandas. But are the poltergeists merely political propaganda? Follow the twists and turns exactly as they were reported in local newspapers between March and June of 1920 in these articles. <a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/1920-ghost-sightings/">See our blog post with transcriptions and illustrations by AI ></a> Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda's ghost, article and transcription, (Utica Globe, 1920-04-10?).jpg Description An account of the resource **TONAWANDA'S GHOST** **Several Persons Have Seen It and It is the Cause of Much Excitement—One Man Offers to Give Away His House.** By R. S. MULVEY, Buffalo. IN THESE strenuous times of ouija boards and spirit messages any story, true or imaginary, is interesting, but the story of how a ghost in woman’s form has been haunting the people of Tonawanda, N. Y., and vicinity for the past two months, and corroborated by a half dozen people, will prove doubly interesting. Perhaps seeing this "thing," whatever it is, is the result of a shot of home-made "boosh". However, here is the story: George Argus, who conducts a roadhouse near Tonawanda, says: "On the night of March 8, my wife and I were returning from Buffalo in our car. I was driving and as we neared the Mount Olivet Cemetery at Kenmore, I saw something white, in woman’s form, floating along the [road?] about 10 feet in front of the car. I slowed down but did not tell my wife, because she is nervous and I didn’t want to alarm her. However, when we got directly in front of the cemetery, the thing turned and came towards us, but when it got near, it rose in the air and went right over our heads and on into the cemetery. My wife also saw it and became so hysterical that I found it very necessary to take her to a doctor immediately, and she has not yet gotten over her fright. I am not a superstitious man but I am willing to make an affidavit as to the truth of what I say." Another report of the ghost’s appearance is related in the story of Fred Graham, a motorman on the International Railway's Kenmore line. Mr. Graham says: "It was about a week after the ghost was reported seen by Mr. Argus that I saw the same thing. I was running my car on the Kenmore line, and when I drew near the Tonawanda city line I saw a woman apparently waiting to board the car, so I applied the brakes and slowed down. After stopping I waited for the conductor's signal to go ahead, but instead he came to the forward part of the car and asked me why I stopped. I told him that I had seen a woman ready to board the car, but he informed me that no one got on. This woman was also dressed in white and the stop she was at is right near the Mount Olivet Cemetery." The next appearance was in the heart of Tonawanda's residential district, in fact, inside a house. This time it was seen by Anthony Rose in his house at 411 Main street, where he conducted a boarding house. The appearance of the apparation [roused?] him and his seven boarders to leave the house and take up quarters in the Washington Hotel. Mr. Rose says: “I was awakened by a sudden gust of wind that carried the bedding away from me, and as I opened my eyes I saw the form of a woman, dressed in a robe of white and having all the appearance of an angel, floating through the room. I was awe stricken and unable to speak until the ghost vanished through the ceiling of the room.” When Mr. Rose related this story one of his boarders boasted that he was not afraid of the ghost and that he would sleep all night in the house alone and throttle the nocturnal visitor. Accordingly the boarder went to sleep in the house and about 1 o'clock was awakened and saw the same thing that Rose had told about. He hurriedly dressed and ran out of the house to the Washington Hotel, where he is also staying now. The boarder was stricken speechless and was unable to move a muscle until the ghost disappeared. Mr. Rose has offered to give the building to anyone who wants it. The Tonawanda police have searched in vain for a possible joker and the apparition has the city in a great state of excitement. Is it really a ghost? Surely there is something to the story when several people have seen practically the same thing, at the same time, several time in six weeks. And when a man will offer to give a home worth several thousand dollars away on account of it, what can the answer be? Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920-04-10 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/0c1af7cc9bc88b86cd1eb0665e9a555e.jpg 2de82d387f81c7b43c6e01ec9200a84d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The "White Angel" apparition of 1920 Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" alt="Mr. and Mrs. Voetsch are surprised returning from Buffalo in their motor car by an apparition. (AI)" src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/154.jpg" />Mr. and Mrs. Voetsch are surprised returning from Buffalo in their motor car by an apparition. (Illustration by AI) In 1920 a series of purported ghost sightings captivates the Tonawandas. But are the poltergeists merely political propaganda? Follow the twists and turns exactly as they were reported in local newspapers between March and June of 1920 in these articles. <a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/1920-ghost-sightings/">See our blog post with transcriptions and illustrations by AI ></a> Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ghost reports in Tonawandas as propaganda, transcribed article (Buffalo Express, 1920-06-15).jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920-06-15 Description An account of the resource **Ghost reports in Tonawandas as propaganda** **They accept resignations, but the men are still on the job.** *Special to The Buffalo Express* North Tonawanda, June 14. That the recent ghost reports in the Tonawandas were part of the chamber of commerce campaign in behalf of the merger project was admitted tonight by Police Chief John F. Ryan. The ghost idea was evolved by the chamber, he said, and the stories of a ghost were reported by various members of that organization. According to chamber's plan, it is said, the ghost was supposed to end his visits last night, whereupon a newspaper article would appear tomorrow in which it would be stated that if Tonawanda would give up the ghost for North Tonawanda in the merger project, North Tonawanda would give up the ghost for its sister city. Just how this would influence the vote on the merger proposition, which takes place tomorrow, was not explained. Despite a newspaper announcement today that the ghost had given himself up to Chief Ryan last night, which the chief denied, a large number of persons hung around Sweeney cemetery tonight in hopes of seeing the apparition. transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/3d8e0203cf0bf04eda508dcd91d2f86d.jpg 1371ccea3417349c508c9a7b04a4141c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda Village, excerpted from The Falls of Niagara, transcription (Samuel DeVeaux, 1839).jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1839 Description An account of the resource TONAWANDA VILLAGE. This is half way between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, being distant from each of those places 11 miles. It lies by the side of the Niagara river, and the Tonawanda creek and Erie canal passes through it. The navigation of the canal is by a lock connected with the river, and passengers for the Falls, disembark from the boats at this place. The village possesses many advantages for business operations; and some trade with the upper lake is carried on direct by vessels navigating the river and lake. This trade is destined to increase. A ferry-boat plies between Tonawanda and Whitehaven, on Grand Island, the two villages lying opposite each other. A bank, under the New York banking law, has lately been established, which will increase the business facilities of the enterprising inhabitants. transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/54893497be429732374039852c9ddfac.jpg 3bcd72199eb976190f7f1a66d1ac77b7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource DeGraff Memorial Hospital Description An account of the resource <ul> <li>In 1913 business leaders in the Tonawandas including LeGrand S. DeGraff and NT Mayor Dr. John A. Rafter developed a plan to create a badly needed hospital. DeGraff funded the endeavor with a "very substantial contribution."</li> <li>Architect W. O. Johnstone donated his work for the hospital. Ground was broken in April 14; dedication ceremonies took place May 30, 1914.</li> <li>In 1930 an addition for a Nurses Home and Maternity Ward was made possible by a legacy grant from James S. Thompson. Another expansion was started in 1942 and completed in 1944.</li> <li>In 1947, changes from a public institution to a non-profit, membership corporation.</li> <li>March 14, 1953 a new addition and Maternity Wing are opened.</li> <li>"June, 1964, marked the opening of the first phase of the New DeGraff Memorial Hospital." (Centennial article in this collection)</li> <li>"Later in 1965, Phase II of the new hospital building program will be finished bringing its capacity to 190 beds. Then the renovation of the new wings in the old hospital will be started, however, this is but one step in coping with the evolving needs of our community." (Ibid)</li> </ul> Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource DeGraff Memorial Hospital, transcribed article and photos (1865-1965 Centennial).jpg Description An account of the resource IN 1964 DeGraff Memorial Hospital completed its Fiftieth Anniversary Year. Perhaps its most significant year since the hospital was founded half-a-century ago by dedicated citizens whose foresight and devotion to progress are much in our minds and hearts today. The Golden Anniversary, June, 1964, marked the opening of the first phase of the New DeGraff Memorial Hospital. Later in 1965, Phase II of the new hospital building program will be finished bringing its capacity to 190 beds. Then the renovation of the new wings in the old hospital will be started, however, this is but one step in coping with the evolving needs of our community. As time goes on, more demands will be placed on the existing facilities. We must remember that the man who gave DeGraff Memorial Hospital its start, and whose generosity was largely responsible for the present expansion program, is no longer with us. However, LeGrand DeGraff left more than a bequest in money. His bequest of enthusiasm and dedication will grow in importance as the years go by. We are fortunate in the Tona- wandas to have many public spirited citizens who have demonstrated their support of the hospital in the past, and we are sure that all our citizens will pledge to continue the work that Mr. DeGraff carried out during his lifetime. THE story of hospital care in the Tonawandas, as in most communities, traces far back through the years to a time long before a fully operational and professionally staffed hospital actually opened its doors. A small group of businessmen in the community made a start as early as 1880, but support and understanding were lacking and the efforts went on and on. In 1901, a successful Niagara County farmer, Lyman Ballard, decided on his own that the Tonawandas needed a hospital. In his declining years, he announced that he would endow such an institution to be built in North Tonawanda, but before his lawyers could prepare the proper documents, he died. History does not record it, but perhaps he expired for lack of the very care he wished to see provided. For several years hence various organizations held various functions and through their efforts raised funds but still this was not enough. In 1909 the professionals took a hand and organized a fund campaign. The efforts continued for years and ultimately the State Charities Aid Association was asked to make a survey and report the question and estimated that a minimum cost would be $30,000 and the community could not afford to mount a campaign for that much money. But the idea didn't die completely, as a man who held a belief considered startling in his day, the belief that a person enjoying material success owed a debt of gratitude to his community. LeGrand Simson DeGraff was as aware as anyone of the need for hospital facilities in the Tonawandas, and did not believe it was beyond reach, took a hand in the project. In the spring of 1913, DeGraff, together with an Army surgeon, Dr. John A. Rafter and the Mayor, were convinced that it could be done and would be well worth the effort. They rounded up support in the business community of the Tonawandas and DeGraff said that he and his associates were prepared to foot the entire bill for a brand new hospital building, equipped and ready to operate, at a cost not to exceed $40,000. There were two main conditions - that the indigent of the communities were to receive free hospital care, and the two cities were to maintain the hospital property. If they failed to meet these conditions for as long as two months, the property would revert to the donors for disposal with the proceeds to be divided according to the proportion of each donor's original contribution. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 person transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/88548b63659b24733693cc16c67b9eb6.pdf d56e6c8b48b499bcff772bb45e03f948 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda Industries: The growth of second lumber port in the world, transcription and article (Buffalo Courier, 1887-10-07).pdf Description An account of the resource Good general, early description. Earliest settlers seem to only account for south-siders <ul> <li>Lock built for Niagara-Creek access.</li> <li>Cleveland Commercial enterprise draws attention. McGraw opens up lumber business, which starts growing around 1870.</li> <li>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.</li> <li>Other lumber firms described</li> <li>Box factory on Tonawanda Island</li> </ul> ---- *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. <hr /> 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. <hr /> 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.” Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1887-10-07 transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/ee44c03e8b997cde490f8f10bce7f6b8.png 3c7ea7ba34c8a87636ef912760f0f94f https://nthistory.com/files/original/3b3e63095686db92a25b4a9676c7a6c1.pdf 68768451496e9166a5ee5230761fab0d https://nthistory.com/files/original/0e50e3c250baab9413f535d301b62655.jpg b76066b2f54fcdf3e0ade6db963856ea https://nthistory.com/files/original/c660bc1d923dbdbfacedd897a8e8e1e2.jpg 731b2cf18e3a69f7d069bda241a70e8d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda & Wheatfield Electric Co., Tonawanda Power Co., National Grid Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/37.jpg" alt="National Grid transformer station in 2023. Photo by Dennis Reed Jr." /> The Robinson Street "transformer building" is built by the Niagara Falls Power Company in 1895 as part of their unprecedented 23-mile transmission sending current from Nigara Falls to Buffalo. The building is later operated by the Tonawanda Power Company, who distribute the hyrdo-electricity locally. Today the historic building is owned by National Grid. Photo by Dennis Reed Jr., 2023. <h2>Motive power before the grid</h2> In the 1800s, in North Tonawanda and elsewhere, mills are powered primarily by waterwheels, while factories rely on stationary steam engines fueled by coal or wood to drive machinery and reduce human and animal labor. Beginning in the 1870s, electric dynamos appear, typically driven by steam engines, producing electricity mainly for lighting. There is no interconnected electrical grid. Electricity is generated locally, on site, by individual factories, private companies, or municipalities for their own use or a limited number of nearby customers. <h2>Tonawanda & Wheatfield Electric Light Company first located on Tonawanda Island</h2> In 1889, the Tonawanda & Wheatfield Electric Light Company operates a dynamo on the north end of Tonawanda Island. The dynamo is fed by wood shavings from the Doebler Planing Mill. The company supplies electricity to a small number of North Tonawanda subscribers. Arc lights on a few streets are run. Their office is at the northeast corner of Main and Goundry in an old frame building. <a href="http://nthistory.com/items/show/3942">1891 Buffalo Express Pictorial</a>: "The Tonawanda and Wheatfield Electric Co. are now building a $40,000 plant near the north end, to furnish power for an electric street railroad. These facilities, with a telephone service and telegraph office, leave but little to be desired. The docked frontage on the property is now nearly two miles in length. The Tonawanda City Water Works, located on the west side of the island, are fully described elsewhere." The Niagara Falls Power Company builds transmission line and transformer house at Robinson Street Meanwhile, electrical experts at the Niagara Falls Power Company and others have been convening for a few years about how to best harness Niagara Falls's tremendous kinetic energy for the electrical age, and what to do with all that energy, which would be far more than could be used locally. The answer: send it to the much larger city of Buffalo, 23 miles south.  In late 1895, the Niagara Falls Power Company begins building an unprecedented long-distance power line to Buffalo (mostly along the boundary of the old Mile Reserve). "This transmission line will run over a private right of way from the Niagara Falls Power Company's station at Niagara Falls to Tonawanda, and thence down one bank of the Erie Canal to Buffalo. The entire line will be fenced in" (<a href="https://reference.insulators.info/publications/view/?id=205&h0=tonawanda">Electrical Review</a>, August 5, 1896). It is operational by November 1896. (Amazing <a href="https://digital.hagley.org/AVD_1990_265">images of line construction</a> from Hagley Archives). The long distance line uses alternating current (AC) transmitted at high voltages, which could travel long distances with minimal loss. A ‘transformer house’ like the one established on Robinson street would step down (transform) some of the high voltage lines to more manageable and safer levels for local distribution. Other lines passing through this North Tonawanda substation continued at high voltage to Buffalo and Lockport, to be stepped down at other transformer houses before being used locally.  Tonawanda Lighting and Power Company incorporated Landmarks of Niagara County: "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." They will step down power for local distribution in a yard north of the Niagara Falls Power Company's Robinson Street transformer house.  1900: "At Tonawanda, 10 miles from Buffalo and 14 miles from Niagara Falls, the transmission line from the falls to Buffalo is tapped and power from it is transformed, converted and regenerated into the various kinds and voltages of current desired tor traction, arc and incandescent lighting and distribution to motors. There is no electrical generating plant driven by steam power in Tonawanda or North Tonawanda either for street railway or central station loads. The work at Tonawanda is carried on by the Tonawanda Power Company, which is closely allied financially with the other Niagara power interests, such as the Niagara Palls Power Company and the Cataract Power and Conduit Company. The Tonawanda Power Company consists of the consolidation of the Tonawanda Light and Power Company, which formerly operated a steam-driven central station of the usual type in Tonawanda, and the Tonawanda Cataract Power Company, which previous to the consolidation was formed for advancing the Niagara power interests in Tonawanda. The consolidated company has erected a transforming station immediatey beside the right of way of the transmission line at a convenient point in North Tonawanda about a mile east of the business center and just a short distance south of the branch of the Erie running to Lockport, which branch is operated by electric power from this transforming station." Former switching tower Where the new pocket park is now, on the Twin City Highway side, was once a two-story “switching tower” which was wired to the transformer house. Added around 1902, this adjunct tower was actually owned by the Niagara Falls Power company. It helped engineers manage and troubleshoot defects in the multiplying lines. Most of the high voltage lines carrying electricity from the massive turbines at Niagara Falls ran into this tower. In 1920, a horrific explosion kills 13 men early Halloween morning (read our blog post, <a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/tonawanda-power-company-disaster/">The Tonawanda Power Company Disaster</a>). An NT fire chief <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Safety_Maintenance_Production/Njw6AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Superintendent+Albert+S.+Allen+tonawanda&pg=PA221&printsec=frontcover">alleges the work was rushed</a> in Safety News and Comment. The January 1921 Safety Bulletin <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Safety_Bulletin/XwkUAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tonawanda+power+substation+tower&pg=RA24-PA2&printsec=frontcover">provides more context and details</a> (a storm and wind outside) and a photo of the ruined second floor of the switching tower. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/State_of_New_York_Supreme_Court_Appellat/-NBRpQpR-lwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tonawanda+power+substation+tower&pg=RA3-PA17&printsec=frontcover">Rose Derby's suit</a>. Superintendent Frank S. Wahl's (and others!) testimony in <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_York_Court_of_Appeals_Records_and_Br/wU3z2XtqKz8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tonawanda+power+substation+tower&pg=PA178&printsec=frontcover">Yates's survivor's suit provides</a> more tower details, tower role, and what he saw on the scene (where the dead were found). Fault is ultimately found to be with the equipment provider, who left no instruction to remove the wood blocks used in shipping. In 1925 the company become "associated with" Buffalo General Electric, Niagara Falls Power Co. and others. In 1929, they open a new headquarters on Sweeney and Webster, today Buffalo Suzuki Strings. The Robinson street transformer house and environs is now owned and operated by National Grid. This <a href="https://reference.insulators.info/publications/search/?query=tonawanda&submit=Search%20https://reference.insulators.info/publications/view/?id=5168&h0=tonawanda%C2%A0">collection of electric literature</a> has many fine details and photos of the 1896 construction of the line. <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/ja/collections/archival-item/sova-nmah-ac-0949-ref88">Photo archive at the Smithsonian</a>. Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Probable cause of blast found, article, transcription (Tonawanda News, 1920-12-07 2653).pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920-12-07 Description An account of the resource **PROBABLE CAUSE OF BLAST FOUND** Power House Explosion Attributed to Holes Burned in Oil Tanks. **RESULTED FROM AN ARC** Negligence Displayed in Leaving Blocks of Wood in Transformers— Might Have Been Responsible for Short Circuit, Witness Says. Coroner Layman H. Wheeler, Eastport shortly before 9 o'clock this morning closed the inquest into the power house disaster on Robinson street on October 31, in which the explosion cost thirteen lives. The coroner says decision will be the next report on the case connected with the inquiry. There is a large amount of evidence to be given consideration and it is probable that it will be at least a week or more before Dr. Wheeler or others can decide. He will hire the assistance of Charles E. Feldman, a mechanical and electrical engineer, in arriving at a decision as to the conditions which existed at the transformer at the time of the explosion. Witnesses have been giving their evidence daily, and it is the general opinion of those concerned in the examination that the cause of the explosion was due to the presence of blocks of wood in the transformers. "That a short circuit caused the explosion has not been taken for granted judging by various statements by the officials in examining witnesses on the possibility of this causing the power house trouble," Numerous witnesses have been referred to as to what might have caused this short circuit but just where it happened none of the witnesses have been able to state definitely. The general trend of the evidence has tended to show that the trouble arose in the switching towers of the Niagara Falls Power Company and then in the transformer house of the south side of the Tonawanda Power Company's substation. George D. Banks, a winding room employee of the General Electric Company of Schenectady who had tested the new transformers when they started, was present at the time of the explosion. He testified of having noticed that the blocks of wood were similar to those placed in the transformers when they were shipped from the General Electric Company's factory and were meant for packing purposes. He said that the presence of these blocks in the transformers after the current was turned on is a sign the current may have caused those in the switching tower to have started in the lower part of the transformer where the actual short occurred. All these have not been considered ... Continued on Page Five --- **PROBABLE CAUSE OF BLAST FOUND** *Continued from Page One* it negligence on the part of the persons engaged in setting up the apparatus that these blocks were not removed. He said it was customary to send out instructions with transformers but was not certain if any were sent with those installed in the switching tower to take care of the extra load of electricity which the local company was preparing to handle through its station. Arthur J. Jones of Niagara Falls, having charge of the installation of the transformers for the Niagara Falls Power Company, testified that no instructions were received with the machines. He said that no test was made of the generators before they were installed and declared that they were kept where it was dry from the time they were received from the factory until installed, asserting that there was no opportunity for dampness or water to get into the machines. He said a test of the oil, used in cooling the transformers, was made and that it was found to withstand the usual test. No examination of the transformers was made by the witness or anyone else before they were installed, according to Mr. Jones. He testified to finding evidence after the accident of an arc having passed from the coil to the tank, but did not consider it sufficient to throw out the oil. What may prove the most important evidence furnished by any of the witnesses who testified was that given by Mr. Hardie, who was examined by Coroner Wheeler as the last witness at the inquest. Mr. Hardie in compliance with the request of the coroner to relate what discoveries and conclusions he reached as a result of an examination made by him of the switching tower and the apparatus after the accident, told of having found that an inch had burned holes through the bottom of both oil tanks. They were so small, however, that only the most careful observation would disclose them, each being about the size of a led pencil. The inference was drawn that the burning of the holes through the tanks was what caused the explosion and the oil to be thrown about the switch tower, setting fire to the men's clothing. Before Mr. Hardie testified Coroner Wheeler read the ante-mortem statements of Albert S. Allen, Sam Derby and William Ward, all of whom lost their lives. The statements covered little more than a page and a half of typewritten matter, the substance of the statements having been printed in a previous issue of the Gazette. They made no mention of anything except the matters which were contained in the original report in the Gazette. The missing matter is not given in the witness' testimony. Mr. Hardie told the coroner that he had a hunch to examine the transformers on the west side of the tower and soon found that there had been an arc in one of them. He also found that the oil was in the wooden troughs under the transformer but said that it was free from water. He further said that all of the wood in the troughs of this transformer was burnt up and the transformer was full of carbon. This transformer is used to step up the current from 2,300 volts to 22,000 volts, which is the pressure carried by the tower. There are three switches in the tower, Mr. Hardie said. He examined two of these switches and found the wires on one of them burned. The third switch is a disconnecting switch. He said that when he examined it he found that the handle of the switch had melted and also the wire ends. The switch is placed at the lowest part of the tower, the high tension wires entering this switch at the top and passing down to the lower switch. Evidence was given by other witnesses as to the nature of the wounds received by the men who were burned by the oil. In all cases there were slight burns on the upper part of the body, but the greatest damage was done to the legs and arms. There was no evidence that any of the men were knocked out by an explosion. It was further brought out that the Falls company’s electric tower, through which the power enters Tonawanda, had nothing whatever to do with the fire or explosion. There are three lines entering this tower, 22,000 volts, 13,200 volts, and 2,300 volts. The fire or explosion, the evidence has shown, could not possibly have been caused by the 13,200 volts line, as it would only have caused a burn in case the man was on the line where the wire entered. The Tonawanda company's switch board is the highest line, 22,000 volts, entering the tower and this line is only 14 inches from the wall, making it impossible for any person to get in contact with the line, which is well insulated. George S. Wisner, the only employee of the Tonawanda Power Company to survive the accident, was called to the witness stand and told of the manner in which he was injured. His story corroborated the statements of other witnesses. [End of transcription] transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/bceff4229d34eb6495c15b8286dec292.pdf 4117677d5cc74d328b4224e30a0ebfd8 https://nthistory.com/files/original/3d2712256b76550cc4a6b5d16f01f555.pdf 6971cc500d1949f4789d05f8ec146deb https://nthistory.com/files/original/141c2b4beddc9aa29b1ef10f1741d120.pdf eb1c2cab063bf805c4974f9601e0be16 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tonawanda & Wheatfield Electric Co., Tonawanda Power Co., National Grid Description An account of the resource <img class="cover" src="http://www.nthistory.com/custom/cover/37.jpg" alt="National Grid transformer station in 2023. Photo by Dennis Reed Jr." /> The Robinson Street "transformer building" is built by the Niagara Falls Power Company in 1895 as part of their unprecedented 23-mile transmission sending current from Nigara Falls to Buffalo. The building is later operated by the Tonawanda Power Company, who distribute the hyrdo-electricity locally. Today the historic building is owned by National Grid. Photo by Dennis Reed Jr., 2023. <h2>Motive power before the grid</h2> In the 1800s, in North Tonawanda and elsewhere, mills are powered primarily by waterwheels, while factories rely on stationary steam engines fueled by coal or wood to drive machinery and reduce human and animal labor. Beginning in the 1870s, electric dynamos appear, typically driven by steam engines, producing electricity mainly for lighting. There is no interconnected electrical grid. Electricity is generated locally, on site, by individual factories, private companies, or municipalities for their own use or a limited number of nearby customers. <h2>Tonawanda & Wheatfield Electric Light Company first located on Tonawanda Island</h2> In 1889, the Tonawanda & Wheatfield Electric Light Company operates a dynamo on the north end of Tonawanda Island. The dynamo is fed by wood shavings from the Doebler Planing Mill. The company supplies electricity to a small number of North Tonawanda subscribers. Arc lights on a few streets are run. Their office is at the northeast corner of Main and Goundry in an old frame building. <a href="http://nthistory.com/items/show/3942">1891 Buffalo Express Pictorial</a>: "The Tonawanda and Wheatfield Electric Co. are now building a $40,000 plant near the north end, to furnish power for an electric street railroad. These facilities, with a telephone service and telegraph office, leave but little to be desired. The docked frontage on the property is now nearly two miles in length. The Tonawanda City Water Works, located on the west side of the island, are fully described elsewhere." The Niagara Falls Power Company builds transmission line and transformer house at Robinson Street Meanwhile, electrical experts at the Niagara Falls Power Company and others have been convening for a few years about how to best harness Niagara Falls's tremendous kinetic energy for the electrical age, and what to do with all that energy, which would be far more than could be used locally. The answer: send it to the much larger city of Buffalo, 23 miles south.  In late 1895, the Niagara Falls Power Company begins building an unprecedented long-distance power line to Buffalo (mostly along the boundary of the old Mile Reserve). "This transmission line will run over a private right of way from the Niagara Falls Power Company's station at Niagara Falls to Tonawanda, and thence down one bank of the Erie Canal to Buffalo. The entire line will be fenced in" (<a href="https://reference.insulators.info/publications/view/?id=205&h0=tonawanda">Electrical Review</a>, August 5, 1896). It is operational by November 1896. (Amazing <a href="https://digital.hagley.org/AVD_1990_265">images of line construction</a> from Hagley Archives). The long distance line uses alternating current (AC) transmitted at high voltages, which could travel long distances with minimal loss. A ‘transformer house’ like the one established on Robinson street would step down (transform) some of the high voltage lines to more manageable and safer levels for local distribution. Other lines passing through this North Tonawanda substation continued at high voltage to Buffalo and Lockport, to be stepped down at other transformer houses before being used locally.  Tonawanda Lighting and Power Company incorporated Landmarks of Niagara County: "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." They will step down power for local distribution in a yard north of the Niagara Falls Power Company's Robinson Street transformer house.  1900: "At Tonawanda, 10 miles from Buffalo and 14 miles from Niagara Falls, the transmission line from the falls to Buffalo is tapped and power from it is transformed, converted and regenerated into the various kinds and voltages of current desired tor traction, arc and incandescent lighting and distribution to motors. There is no electrical generating plant driven by steam power in Tonawanda or North Tonawanda either for street railway or central station loads. The work at Tonawanda is carried on by the Tonawanda Power Company, which is closely allied financially with the other Niagara power interests, such as the Niagara Palls Power Company and the Cataract Power and Conduit Company. The Tonawanda Power Company consists of the consolidation of the Tonawanda Light and Power Company, which formerly operated a steam-driven central station of the usual type in Tonawanda, and the Tonawanda Cataract Power Company, which previous to the consolidation was formed for advancing the Niagara power interests in Tonawanda. The consolidated company has erected a transforming station immediatey beside the right of way of the transmission line at a convenient point in North Tonawanda about a mile east of the business center and just a short distance south of the branch of the Erie running to Lockport, which branch is operated by electric power from this transforming station." Former switching tower Where the new pocket park is now, on the Twin City Highway side, was once a two-story “switching tower” which was wired to the transformer house. Added around 1902, this adjunct tower was actually owned by the Niagara Falls Power company. It helped engineers manage and troubleshoot defects in the multiplying lines. Most of the high voltage lines carrying electricity from the massive turbines at Niagara Falls ran into this tower. In 1920, a horrific explosion kills 13 men early Halloween morning (read our blog post, <a href="https://www.nthistory.com/articles/tonawanda-power-company-disaster/">The Tonawanda Power Company Disaster</a>). An NT fire chief <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Safety_Maintenance_Production/Njw6AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Superintendent+Albert+S.+Allen+tonawanda&pg=PA221&printsec=frontcover">alleges the work was rushed</a> in Safety News and Comment. The January 1921 Safety Bulletin <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Safety_Bulletin/XwkUAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tonawanda+power+substation+tower&pg=RA24-PA2&printsec=frontcover">provides more context and details</a> (a storm and wind outside) and a photo of the ruined second floor of the switching tower. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/State_of_New_York_Supreme_Court_Appellat/-NBRpQpR-lwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tonawanda+power+substation+tower&pg=RA3-PA17&printsec=frontcover">Rose Derby's suit</a>. Superintendent Frank S. Wahl's (and others!) testimony in <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_York_Court_of_Appeals_Records_and_Br/wU3z2XtqKz8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tonawanda+power+substation+tower&pg=PA178&printsec=frontcover">Yates's survivor's suit provides</a> more tower details, tower role, and what he saw on the scene (where the dead were found). Fault is ultimately found to be with the equipment provider, who left no instruction to remove the wood blocks used in shipping. In 1925 the company become "associated with" Buffalo General Electric, Niagara Falls Power Co. and others. In 1929, they open a new headquarters on Sweeney and Webster, today Buffalo Suzuki Strings. The Robinson street transformer house and environs is now owned and operated by National Grid. This <a href="https://reference.insulators.info/publications/search/?query=tonawanda&submit=Search%20https://reference.insulators.info/publications/view/?id=5168&h0=tonawanda%C2%A0">collection of electric literature</a> has many fine details and photos of the 1896 construction of the line. <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/ja/collections/archival-item/sova-nmah-ac-0949-ref88">Photo archive at the Smithsonian</a>. Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 12 now death toll from blast, article, transcription (Tonawanda News, 1920-11-01).pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920-11-01 Description An account of the resource 12 NOW DEATH TOLL FROM BLAST Another victim of power house disaster succumbs to injuries; only one person in building at time of explosion still alive Terrible Blast, Followed by Fire, Traps Power Company Employees in Flames and Results in Fatal Burns - Four Instantly Killed (Photo of two power transformers, caption: "The disaster at the Tonawanda Power Company's substation on Robinson street early yesterday morning occurred when men were engaged in connecting up these transformers. They are 2500 Kva, General Electric Transformers.") EIGHT OTHERS DIE AFTER REMOVAL TO DEGRAFF MEMORIAL HOSPITAL - Explosion occurs when new transformers are started up - Lives of well-known men snuffed out - The worst disaster known to have taken place in the Tonawandas occurred shortly before 3 o'clock yesterday morning when an explosion and fire in the high tension cable tower of the Niagara Falls Power Co., adjoining the Tonawanda Power Company's transformer station on Robinson street, snuffed out the lives of four men and burned eight others so badly that they have since died. Of the thirteen men who were in the building when the accident occurred, only one was still alive today. He is Samuel S. Derby, of №222 Niagara street, North Tonawanda. The dead are: Albert S. Allen, 47 years old, of 201 Bryant street, superintendent of the Tonawanda Power Company. Ralph H. Allen, 41 years old, of 202 Falconer street, employed as an operator by the Tonawanda Power Company. James Edward Yates, 52 years old, of 340 Payne avenue, employed as an electrician by the Tonawanda Power Company. James H. Robertson, 39 years old, of 335 Robinson street, employed as an electrician by the Tonawanda Power Company. Andy Anderson, 49 years old, of 404 Seventh street, Niagara Falls, N.Y., employed by the Niagara Falls Power Company as a cable splicer. Charles M. Mabill, 48 years old, of 919 Niagara street, Niagara Falls, N.Y., superintendent of the Niagara Falls Power Company's underground cable. William Ward, 48 years old, of 417 Division street, Newark, employed by the Tonawanda Power Company. Walter Carr, 33 years old, of 824 Seventeenth street, Niagara Falls, N.Y., employed as a lineman by the Niagara Falls Power Company. Albert R. Phelps, 43 years old, of 329 Sommer street, employed as assistant foreman by the Tonawanda Power Company. Edwin D. Doel, 30 years old, of 506 Bryant street, employed as a lineman by the Tonawanda Power Company. Edward Shamrock, 50 years old, of 777 Robinson street, employed as a lineman by the Tonawanda Power Company. Charles Doell, 30 years old, of LaSalle, employed as an electrician by the Niagara Falls Power Company." "Short Circuit Suspected. When asked this morning as to the cause of the explosion, B.F. Lee, general superintendent of the Niagara Falls Power company said: "It is very difficult at this time to find the definite cause of the explosion and fire. The room in which the explosion occurred is completely demolished. However, we are making a thorough investigation to ascertain the exact cause. We are certain that there was a short circuit." The general supposition is that an overheated transformer was responsible for the disaster. Derby Has Fighting Chance. The men who were caught in the room and burned to death were Ralph Allen, Mabill, Carr and Ward. The last of the men to die in the hospital was Doel, who succumbed to his burns at 4 o'clock this morning. Derby, although terribly burned, has a fighting chance for his life." "Dr. C.T. Crance, who is attending Derby, said this afternoon that the patient was holding his own. Arrangements were made to have Dr. Harry Trick of Buffalo, an expert on electrical burns, come here this afternoon for a consultation on Derby's condition. The employees of the two power companies had assembled in the tower to look after the turning in of cables that were to be used in the operation of the Tonawanda Power Company's new transformers, just installed in the new building, erected at the rear of the old station, for the purpose of giving the company an output of 10,000 horsepower in addition to the same amount which it has been securing. The power was shut off at the Niagara Falls Power Company's plant at 1 o'clock this morning, and the splicing and connecting of the cables in the tower. Two new measuring transformers had been installed in the tower to be used in metering the power to be converted to the transformers in the newly constructed part of the Tonawanda Power Company's station. The measuring instruments, like a number of the transformers in use in the company's station, were provided with oil coolers. - Shortly before 3 o'clock the Niagara Falls Power Company was directed to turn on the current for the test on the cable connections. All power employees of Niagara Falls Power Company and the Tonawanda Power Company, those of the latter including all the men employed on the night shift at the plant, assembled in the tower, a brick structure about thirty feet in height and twenty-four square, located at the east side of the front of the company's old building and having an opening about ten feet wide and to a height, into the tower, built to witness the important event. The test was in progress seven minutes when a sizzling noise was detected coming from the transformer meter box. Orders were given to shut off the switch. Dewey started forward to throw the switch lever. As he was extending his hand toward the lever there was a terrific explosion followed instantly by the ignition of the oil which was used for cooling the apparatus. The flames from the explosion all of the men excepting Forthy and Tagel, who were blown through windows in the tower. The flames spread through the tower and into the adjoining room of the power station, setting fire to the woodwork in the brick structure. The gas developed from the burning oil rose up and ran away on the floor of the tower, causing a mass of fire and smoke. The stairway of the latter was enveloped in flames and the exit blocked in the west end of the building. Every window in the tower was blown out and the brick walls were bulged by the explosion. - - **Horrible Scene in Building.** Persons who arrived a few seconds within a few minutes after the explosion said that the scene was too terrible for description. Men ran from the building with their hair and little of their clothes in flames. Dewey and several others showed no signs of life. Others staggered about the reserve of the explosion and heat of ignition with the tanks of the Niagara Falls Power house up and several in the tower, extinguished the flames in their clothing by rolling in the grass and dew of the morning. With the idea that the clothing was thus soaked to the skin and that with ointments in the station? They rushed into the flaming doorway with their clothing afire, their shoes and hats burning and hair and beards white with the intense heat. They were helpless on the floor within in agony from the burns. The screams of the men were terrible. It seems a marvel to those who witnessed it that the men were able to stand up and try to put out the flames which all seemed to start at the same time on their bodies and heads. Many of them were bald. The gas? and burning oil covered the surface of the concrete wall. **Aid Helpless Men.** Shannon, who leaped from the building with his clothes in flames and ran to his home fully half a mile from the power station. When the explosion took place, the men who were not blown through the windows or burned to death in the room, were near enough to the opening in the middle. It was remarked by more than one person present that the bursting out of the pipes and over them and some of them fell directly into the threads […] of the concrete floor. It was thought to be a veritable furnace of […]. What might have saved them had not been for several pipes which burst and looked more only about ten inches in diameter at intervals, but no one who saw them would have been able to say about inches separately. The tank which stood near the focal explosion was in turn, the engine equipment and the burning oil caused a series of small explosions which set some wires a sizzle. The last explosion of the series set fire to some wooden supports of the flames. - - The immediacy of Dr. […] and by the surgical condition of the men admitted at once at this hour. […] is the transformer station. He's been seen to work on the men. The burns were such that areas were a part of the underlying muscles and tissues, destroyed by the flames, and had to be cut away. […] was brought from Buffalo to Edward Memorial Hospital where the men are being taken care of and gives skin to apply on the men's burns. With the exception of Yates, the city physicians, assisted by Dr. J. W. Anderson, gave their time to the care of the men at the transformer station immediately after the explosion occurred, before the arrival of the physicians, and much credit is due to them for the efficient and speedy work they performed. The lights were out, with members of the local branch of the Red Cross having been called to the hospital about three in the afternoon and lent their assistance. Nurses were called from Geneva, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls to help out at the hospital and in the care of bodies by the Morgue. Dr. Kincaid was there for the first twelve hours after the explosion. Dr. […] came to assist him during the night. At times it was thought that Singlenberger's effort would survive and recuperate. They had but little hope for the others. **Rosebrock First To Die.** Rosebrock was the first of the men to succumb. He died at the hospital near his home. He died at 7:30 o'clock yesterday morning. Only minutes before Anderson passed away, then Dewey died, and two hours later, Yates was the fourth man to die at the hospital. His death occurred at 5 o'clock. Allen died at 10 in the forenoon. He was followed at noon, an interval later, by that of Shannon. Robertson died at 4 o'clock in the evening. Last of the seven known physicians had hoped last night, died at 8 o'clock the morning. It was two hours before the firemen arrived at the transformer station before the flames were extinguished. Pumps operated on a reserve of water for the time being. At 10 o'clock, the firemen returned from making a search only the flames and cinders. A wire was shut off from the transformer to electricity given over the telephone. This particular cut caught […] of the transformer. As […] current was shut off, the power was […] - - …[quidity] when the firemen arrived. To have turned a stream into the inferno would have tended to endanger more lives; it might have resulted in the entire destruction of the transmission station. When Chief Dovle[?] encountered Superintendent Allen, the latter said that he could not see but cautioned the firemen about their work. The burning oil made it difficult to get the fire under control even after streams were turned onto the building. The oil ran riot, engulfing its human victims, and was inundated with water before the flames were finally subdued. The damage to the tower and contents is estimated at $20,000. The Tonawanda Power Company estimates the damage to its station at over $5,000. In both cases, the damage is covered by insurance. **Lights Are Restored.** The accident was followed by the crippling of the entire electric system in the Tonawanda. Street and residential service was cut, and the supply for industrial purposes suffered likewise. […] own in middle states of […] had to work by candle or kerosene lamp in the absence of electrical current from the Tonawanda Power Company's electrical service. The lights were restored for the operation of motoring power for business purposes at 3 o'clock last night, and connections were made which provided light for residential and business places shortly after 11 o'clock this morning. It had been stated to many during the afternoon, neither the business or residential services were to be restored, announcements having been given on the morning service that the officers would be closed on account of the probability of no lights being available. It was said today that cables had been cut around the tower, connecting with the Tonawanda Power Company's transmission, providing current for industrial purposes. Early this afternoon, the station was producing its normal amount of power. This condition will remain until the management of the Falls Tower Company has rebuilt the tower and equipped it with the necessary machinery for the resumption of the company's operations. - - **Trolley Lines Affected.** When this power went off, leaving the Tonawandas in darkness, the company operating the local streetcar system also had its current interrupted. The cars were by operating from the Niagara Falls power house, and cars from Niagara Falls were able to proceed as far as the Tonawanda city line, a connection was made there with the Niagara Falls Power Company's power line; the cars on this line are illuminated; only an oil lamp is used. - - **Cause of Explosion Still Unknown** The water used to extinguish took with it large quantities like pastel[?]. An official of the Northside stated today that it appeared that the fire caught some manner to have made its way to the interior of the primary boiler and started a gas that caused the explosion. The experts, however, have no definitive theory yet. All efforts to learn the cause of the explosion have been fruitless so far. Officials and employees are in complete darkness as to any possible cause of the accident. The suppression prevented that even the National Guard would be called to patrol the district to prevent any possible looting in the absence of lights that would enable wrongdoers to work in security. The militia, however, was not needed, and everything remained quiet during the night. […] - - Coroner to Investigate. Coroner Thomas Whalen of Tonawanda has issued a proclamation calling for an inquest into the disaster, to begin at 10 o'clock this morning. The jury is composed of men who have been with the designation of the business and professional men in the city. The jury has remained in the station to return tomorrow and begin an investigation of the affair. A Director of the Tonawanda Power Company announced to the rubber workers that no question of a bonus would be gone into until a true human verdict on the destruction of a man in various departments had been reached. The jury will see all the books of the company and other employees of the company who were killed. Survivors of Dead Albert Elb is survived by a very young daughter named Alice. William F. … survived by a wife and a number of children. William Edward Tonawanda was a member of the Maccabee Tent and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and was a brother and had a fine insurance. … Ward is survived by a wife, two sons, Richard and John W. Jr., and a daughter, Miss Esther Ward, all of Tonawanda. Richardson is survived by his wife and six grown-up children. He was the son of Herman Richardson of Perry, New York. He was a brother to George Herman and Alton Richardson and Mrs. Lucy Hogan all of North Tonawanda. Mable is survived by a wife and a young son. H. was a member of the American Legion. Survivors of Norman Tonawanda include … and Mrs. Fred Blaine of Third Avenue. … Stanley survived by a wife and children and by his parents. Shannon was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Shannon, with whom he lived in Tonawanda. … is survived by his wife, Mrs. … also the mother, Mrs. Ann …, a sister, Mrs. Elmer … of Niagara Falls, and two brothers, William and George … of … Falskin is survived by his wife and two adult children, a son and daughter, … Smith and Margaret. Doel leaves a wife and four children. His father, Samuel Doel, and a brother, Robert Doel, live at №641 Broad Street, Tonawanda. Others survived by a wife, three brothers, Harvey Yap of Fairmont, W. Va., and Turner Weiss and B. S. Yates of Charleston, W. Va., and six sisters, Mrs. Henry Sider of North Tonawanda, Mrs. Melvin Van Meter, Mrs. Newton Harris, Mrs. W. D. Redfer of Summit Point, W. Va., and Mrs. Jessie Reffland … - - **CAUGHT BEHIND FLAME CURTAIN** **Eyewitness Says Transformer Station Was A Roaring Furnace** **RUSHED BACK INTO FIRE** Victims of Explosion Appeared to be Deranged by Ordeal Through which They Passed - Thought only of Welfare of Fellow Workers. Albert Boyer, a member of the Board of Health and the firm of Shook and Bayer, proprietors of the Payne Avenue junction waiting room; Leo Goodman of Miller street, employed at the junction as a clerk, and Chester Merz of Payne avenue were first to reach the Tonawanda Power Company's plant following the explosion early Sunday morning. They related today at first hand an account of conditions found on their arrival. The three men left the waiting room after it was closed Sunday morning, following the departure of the last trolley cars, for a spin on Marz's motorcycle, to which is attached a sidecar. One of the party mentioned it would be an ideal night for some real excitement. The motorcycle was speeding down Niagara street after turning off Schenck street, when great tongues of flame were seen mounting above the embankment of the high speed line. All realized there was a fire nearby and Marz speeded his machine to a nearby firebox, where an alarm was sounded. In the stillness of the night, cries of help were heard coming from the transformer station. Samual Derby was met at the door of the transformer station who informed Boyer and Marz of what was taking place. They speeded back to the Payne Avenue junction, where every doctor and ambulance which it was possible to reach was summoned by telephone. Goodman remained with Derby Hall found the room, containing the dead and injured men, a roaring furnace. He said Derby went back into the place to render assistance to fellow… Employees trapped by the flames suffered terrible burns from which some were suffering. Superintendent Albert S. Allen and Ralph Allen, according to Goodman, made their way out of the flame-swept section of the building, but the latter, aging and deranged from the ordeal through which he had passed, returned to warn others, but before he could be prevented, met his death. Goodman said the clothing worn by both Sybil and Ralph Allen were so badly burned that he was able to pull the burning coats from their backs, as well as shirts and underclothing with ease. Looking into the flame-swept room, Goodman was able to see the dead and dying men lying about the floor, unable to provide any assistance, for to enter the place at that time would have resulted in fatal burns. Goodman praised the effort and concern of Albert and Ralph Allen, as well as August Shamrock, who also made his way out of the roaring furnace. They were all trying to get assistance to fellow employees trapped amid the flames. They sacrificed their own safety, caring for themselves only after attending to others' injuries. Shamrock, overwhelmed at the door leading to the burning building, said "For God's sake don't bother about me, but do something to help those poor devils who are in there burning up!" Later, Shamrock was pulled from the building, but by that point, his condition had deteriorated significantly. Around this time, Motorcycle Patrolman Power and Engineer Oliver from the transformer station and the fire department arrived on the scene, making desperate attempts to reach those trapped. The scene was described as horrific. As onlookers drew near, the agonized cries of trapped men, surrounded by flames behind a virtual wall of fire, could be heard. Many were pleading, interspersed with their cries for help. (Note: The transcription may not be entirely accurate due to some sections of the image being blurry or cut off.) - - **GREAT DISPLAY OF FORTITUDE** **Supt. Allen Directs Rescuers Although Fatally Burned** **FIRST THOUGHT OF HIS MEN** With Eyesight Gone and Clothes Burned from His Body, He Declines to Leave Power House until Rescue Work is Carried Well Forward. The story of the presence of mind and courage displayed by Superintendent Albert S. Allen at the power house fire early yesterday morning was graphically described by eyewitnesses, members of the fire department, and others, who arrived on the scene shortly after the alarm was raised. With his sight gone and most of the clothes burned from his body, Mr. Allen directed the work of the rescuers until taken to the hospital. Mr. Allen's first consideration was for his fellow-workers, the men who were in the eastern section of the building where the fire was raging most fiercely, and who were either felled or rendered unconscious by the explosion. Those who were first to arrive on the scene found Mr. Allen outside the building with his clothes on fire. The smoldering garments were immediately torn from his body. Notwithstanding this condition, however, the gallant official would not leave the power station until the work of rescue was carried well forward. Mr. Allen had evidently not been in the direct line of the explosion, for he was not as badly burned as… *Continued on Page Three* - - - - PAGE THREE - - - Here's the transcription of the provided image: - - **BLAST VICTIMS' FUNERALS HERE** *(Continued from Page One)* Sawyer's Creek cemetery. Peniston will be buried at Elmwan. Both men were members of St. Matthew's church. The other double funeral will be that of Albert S. Allen and Ralph H. Allen, brothers, services for whom will be conducted at the home of their mother, Mrs. Ann Allen, at No. [part missing] street at 8 o'clock tomorrow night. The services will be conducted by Rev. Frederick Miller, [part missing] of the First M. E. church, and will be in charge of Sutherland Lodge, [part missing] A. M., of which both were members. The bodies will be taken to Moravia, N. Y., on the following morning for burial. The funeral of James Robertson will be held Wednesday afternoon at 2 o'clock at the late residence. No. [part missing] Robinson street. The services will be conducted by Rev. Hugo Kuepper of the Redeemer Lutheran church. Burial will be at Elmwan. The funeral of William Ward will be held tomorrow afternoon at 3:47 o'clock at his late home, №417 Division street. Rev. Charles Bloom of the Payne Avenue Church of Christ will conduct the service and burial will be in the Sweeney cemetery. The funeral of Edward Shimrock will be held Wednesday morning at 9:30 o'clock at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank J. Shamrock of №777 East Robinson street, and half an hour later at the Ascension church on Robinson street, Rev. J. F. Kelly officiating. Burial will be at Mt. Olivet. The funeral of Charles [part missing] of [part missing] will be held at Oreville, Ohio, [part missing] afternoon. The services will be conducted at the home of his father [part missing] Thurs to [part missing] o'clock. The body will be shipped to [part missing] from Block & [part missing] tomorrow morning. [The rest is cut off and not visible.] --- PAGE FOUR--- (Note: The transcription is incomplete due to the blurry and cut-off sections of the image.)d transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/3345dbeabd4ca5ea86e18ad94d0c7341.pdf 1b5398d36a9d63e9523b5b787c5828a8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Murder on the Docks (October 7, 1895) Description An account of the resource Articles relating to the murder of Captain Lorenzo Philips and his son Charles at the Scribner docks in Tonawanda, and the subsequent trials. "Pleads Guilty," Buffalo Evening News, 4/7/1896. George Hyde has been convicted. Unnerved, Captain Jesse T. Graves reverses and pleads guilty to first degree manslaughter and rioting. Quirk and Collins considered the same. Maximum sentence would be 20 years, just over 12 with good behavior. Perew was determined to stand trial, insisting (through his attorneys) he only came by to see what all the fuss was about, and never had a stake in canal affairs one way or another. He did however help tie up the drifting May and Graff and call for a physician. Justice Woodward, DA Kenefik. William Goddard, the canal broker, will plead guilty only to save money, and time, as he is an old man and in poor health. County of Erie would be saved many thousands of dollars with guilty pleas, the NEWS notes. Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Horrible Work of a Mob, article, partial transcription (Tonawanda News, 1895-10-07).pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1895-10-07 Description An account of the resource Captain Phillips and His Son Charles Brutally Murdered. Mob of Frenzied Men Shed Blood in Tonawanda After the Midnight Hour -Pistols and Stones Freely Used in the Murderous Work - Flora Phillips Had One of the Most Terrible Experiences that Ever Fell to the Lot of a Young Girl. Boats John Graff and May. Other boatmen had tried to convince Phillips to wait his turn, "But entreaties had no effect...He said that his family were in need of the money and that his boats must work to get it for them." Mutterings all day of impending violence. Men assembled between 12:30 and 1. Some called Captain names. Boats cut first? Someone fired a shot. Then more followed, Captain slain, son hit with a rock. Tonawanda police arrive, men scatter. Officers Kumro and Graff (?) sent for medical assistance. Coronor Helwig in Martinsville. The boats discovered "drifted against the docks right at the swing bridge." 4:30 a.m. canal barns raided and suspicious men arrested. By 6:30 a.m. the Tonawanda "coop" (jail) was full, and still arrests were being made. Some pled innocence but most kept their mouths shut and refused to answer questions. Many accounts circulating: Phillips not only loaded out of turn, but undercut price of boatmen's association. Some disputed his claim that he was poor by pointing out "he owns the two boats, the May and John Graff, and also a large farm and other property near Clyde in the central part of the State. The story is contradicted. Men who know Phillips say his property was encumbered, and it was necessary for him to have money to make an immediate payment to save his property from the sheriff. " Co. Helwig to summon jurors and hold an inquest today. "It is said by a boatmen that a good-sized delegation of Buffalo men came here yesterday with the sole purpose of causing an insurrection, and that this desire was inflamed by a free use of intoxicants. Bu t like all the other stories floating about, this is denied by some, it is said that the boatmen did not go to the Scribner yards to do murder, but they went there to quietly talk over the matter with Captain Phillips and get him to join them and live up to the agreements entered into by his fellows. It is also said by some of the boatmen that no trouble would have resulted if a shot had not been fired from the boat at them. This angered them and brought about the conflict." 18 arrests by 9 a.m., "Nicholas Wendell, Edward Dunn, Jame S. Riley, Edward Munger, George Hyde, Joseph Dickerson, Frederick Oderkirk, Ervin Collins, Robert Rhinehart, John Lasher, John Stevens, Michael Cohe, Abraham Wheeler, Edward Leonard, Archibald Dow, Bonnie Warren, Edward Lawrence. To be arraigned on charge for murder. U.S. Marshall Smearing witnessed all from the bow of Phillips's boat when the latter was struck. Phillips and son standing at stern. Previous two nights of bright moonlight now overtaken by heavy gloom in which all were indistinct. Smearing said he heard chains, and then saw a revolver covering him. Estimates 40-60 men, intending ill. Leader of medium build, had them men under control and a plan at work. Boats cut adrift, then a shot in Phillips head and heart. "Following the shots came a volley of stones, clubs and missiles of-every description. The son of the Captain received a crushing blow in the back of the head just as he was turning to reach his dead father and fell to the deck with a deep moan. This morning the deck was covered with the missiles and the woodwork, splintered and dented, showed with what murderous force the volley had been hurled by the mob. The boat was less than five feet from the shore when this occurred. The mob instantly scattered in every direction, evidently satisfied that they had accomplished their purpose. Marshal Smearing is positive that there were only two shots fired." Did not intervene because the odds were against him, and more bloodshed would have resulted. Daughter asleep in cabin of the other boat. Phillips's revolver chambers all full, coroner has the gun. "Lying on a lounge in Martin Wattengel's house on Webster street, with her head bandaged and Mrs. Wattengel soothing her, this morning was Flora Phillip, the daughter of the murdered captain. The girl is but 20 years of age, and she worked aboard her father's boats, doing the cooking and other household duties. She had passed a terrible night, and the poor child shuddered when she thought of her father lying dead in the undertaking rooms, within half a block of her. TH E NEW S asked her if she felt well enough to talk about the terrible affair and she answered in the affirmative. In reply to questions she said: "My home is at Constantia, N. Y. At that place the entire family, father, mother, three brothers and one sister beside myself, live during the winter. In the summer my mother and a sister 15 years of age and two brothers, aged 10 and 5 years respectively stay, while my father, my oldest brother and myself live aboard the boats. Yesterday there was no trouble about the boats. No men came there and tried to induce my father to leave. Early in the evening I went to bed, the men remaining up. I was soon in a sound sleep, from which I was rudely awakened by the falling of stones on top of the cabin. Hardly had I got my eyes open before a big piece of rock struck the cabin windows demolishing them and scattering the glass all about me. I was terrified at that, but when my brother dashed down the stairs a moment later with blood streaming from his head, followed by a large number of pieces of rock, I fled into the inner cabin for safety. The fusilade was kept u p for several minutes and when it stopped I ascertained that we were afloat on the river. No tug came to our assistance and I momentarily expected to be drowned, when I felt the boat come to stop. I looked out of the cabin and thanked God when I saw that the lumber on the boat had caught on the bridge and were saved. Five minutes afterward the police came aboard the boat, and made it fast to the pier; where we remained until nine o'clock this 'morning. Then the boats were towed ...and I was brought here." The girl is completely prostrated and lies in a serious condition. "She did not know that her father was dead, until she was taken to Mr. Wattengel's." Mother coming for her today. - "Officers Kumro and Duffy who alone were at the yards during the excitement had a thrilling experience. They were surrounded by at least 150 frenzied men, all of whom were clamoring for blood." "So they bided their time, carefully looking over the men, and taking their names; the result of this being that it was not a hard matter to locate them when they dispersed and arrest them." Officers soothe crowd who wants to lynch Smearing. - T H E NEWS interviewed James Scribner of the Scribner Lumber Company this morning, who seemed deeply affected by the terrible murder that had taken place at his lumber yard. He said that he had known Captain Phillips for fifteen years past and that he had every reason to respect and honor him as a man. He was originally a farmer and was the owner of a farm in the central part of the state at Constantia where he lived when the canal season was over. He had been taking loads from the Scribner Lumber company during all this period and they considered him an excellent boatman and reliable man. Phillips, Scribner said, had considered the matter of joining the Canal Boatmen's Union, but when he found that 150 boats were tied up here waiting the load-in-turn arrangement he felt that he could not subject himself to the conditions imposed. He had a $300 mortgage on his farm coming due next month and knew that if he simply took his turn he would not get underway until late in the season if at all. Loading at once meant $300 for him and in time to take care of his mortgage. He would not underbid the other boatmen but he would take the load offered him and get out at once." The Marshal had been provided by Scribner, came from Buffalo. (He claims at one point at least six revolvers were pointed at him). - THE NEWS visits the men in jail. When informed the son is dead too, "the face of the spokesman blanched." - Charles dies about 12:45 p.m. next day. Both stored in "the undertaking rooms of Wattengel & Reed in the Real Estate Exchange in North Tonawanda." As of 3 p.m. Flora, who seemed to have rallied when informed he could live, had not been told of his death. The only non-family on the boats were drivers John Murphy and Steve Showers, according to Flora. DA insists Tonawanda prisoners be taken to Buffalo, with the assistance of entire T police force. transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/2838d7ae0158ef3e62cdaf951ad63840.pdf 117da99ac4f23dfbc4aa2dc693cc2db1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Murder on the Docks (October 7, 1895) Description An account of the resource Articles relating to the murder of Captain Lorenzo Philips and his son Charles at the Scribner docks in Tonawanda, and the subsequent trials. "Pleads Guilty," Buffalo Evening News, 4/7/1896. George Hyde has been convicted. Unnerved, Captain Jesse T. Graves reverses and pleads guilty to first degree manslaughter and rioting. Quirk and Collins considered the same. Maximum sentence would be 20 years, just over 12 with good behavior. Perew was determined to stand trial, insisting (through his attorneys) he only came by to see what all the fuss was about, and never had a stake in canal affairs one way or another. He did however help tie up the drifting May and Graff and call for a physician. Justice Woodward, DA Kenefik. William Goddard, the canal broker, will plead guilty only to save money, and time, as he is an old man and in poor health. County of Erie would be saved many thousands of dollars with guilty pleas, the NEWS notes. Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Midnight Secret Session! article, partial transcription (Tonawanda News, 1895-10-09ish).pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1895-10-09 Description An account of the resource (Not sure of the date of this article, day or two after first inquest). Only A Half Hour Before the Murders Are Committed the Boatmen Meet in Secret Session in Their Hall in the Post Office Buildings Beginning to look like a conspiracy. Prominent local businessman and "one of the officials of the Boatmen's Union" William Goddard likely to be arrested. Evidence against "other prominent residents of the Twin Cities" also being mulled. From the article: "The Secret Meeting. The most startling piece of evidence that is yet become thoroughly established was given to the public for the first time in THE NEWS. The canal men and at least one of the officers were in secret session in the Post-office block Sunday night at midnght, only a half hour before the murders were committed. They left the hall at midnight and by twos and threes gathered quietly at the Scribner docks where the boats of Capt. Phillips were lying. The murders that followed can be traced directly to the deliberations of that secret meeting." Goddard spotted leaving the hall. He had maintained he knew nothing about the event until his wife told him the next morning, even though he was in the company of Reech until 1 a.m., and had been told of the attacks. The article also reveals an earlier meeting of the boatmen: "This was not the only meeting that was held, however. It is said that there was a secret meeting held on Thursday night last after Phillips landed in Tonawanda with his boats. The meeting was fully attended by the leading canal boatmen interested in maintaining the association of canal men with its strict rules. This meeting was called for the express purpose of arranging some plan to get Capt. Phillips out of Tonawanda. It was decided, it is said, to bribe him." If that didn't work, threaten him. It was crucial that he not load, as it could "crush their association agreement." DA has proof that on Friday Phillips was offered $200 to cut his lines and walk away. According to this account, the captain listened patiently but firmly refused. The men returned. The captain still refused.  At this point in the article, the inquest testimony is given again, beginning with Deputy Smearing. Different details / format than appears in the <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/3080">Buffalo News article</a>: "Where were you at the time when this started? I was standing on the boats. And what time was this? I think was between 11 and 12 o'clock. Where did you first see the gang of men? I saw some people come up the tow-path. You saw them talking together ? Yes sir. Where were the shots fired at? Towards the boat. Did you see the captain? Yes sir. Was there a pistol pointed at you? Yes sir. Was there a pistol pointed at Mr. Phillips? Yes sir. How far away from him was the man who pointed the pistol at this man Phillips? About three feet. Did you see the man? Yes sir. How was he dressed? He had on ordinary clothes and a slouch hat on his head. After the pistol was put in your face, what did you say ? I did not say anything. Did you hear auy remarks? Yes sir, but I could not tell you the exact words; the only person that I knew was Philip Perew who came up to me and said that I had better look out for this was a determined crowd. What did you do? I told him to keep away or he might get hurt. Wheree did he stand on? On a lumber pile.  What else did you see? And what can you tell us about them? I saw two men talking together but did not understand what they were talking about. How far apart were those two men? About two feet. What happened next? The boats were cut loose and drifted down the river. What did you find? I found Mr. Phillips lying on the boat and dead. How was he lying? He was lying with his face on the boards and back up. Was he dead? So the doctors said. What did you do next? I went into the cabin. What did you find? I found two men, the daughter and the boy. Did you see that the boy's head was battered? Yes sir, he was bleeding. How many men were there that came down onto the dock? I should judge about 50 or more. Do you kuow any by sight? I know one by sight. Have you met him since that time? No sir. Did you recognize any of the other men there? No sir. From the time that you were on the boat did you see any person there? Yes sir. Who was he? I haven't any idea who he was. What did the captain say when he saw the crew coming? He pulled off his coat and said, "My life is my own and I shall protect my property." Murphy and Shover testify much the same (latter extra detail about boy trying to get up and being beaten again). William Goddard's testimony, the NEWS says, shows a "surprising lack of memory." Says he does not think the boatmen's association has any officers, does not know who pays their hall rent. Association in existence for five weeks. No meetings. Contracts made by "Root the lawyer and myself." He does admit to trying to persuade Phillips to load his boats in turn, but clais he thought no violence would come. Was at Rech's saloon Sunday night. Knows Perew: "He was in company with me in the merry-go-round business." Ira M. Rose gave testimony as printed in the previous day's NEWS. Deposition of Flora Phillips "Flora Phillips was not able to be put upon the witness stand, so her starment was read. It was in the main as printed in THE NEWS on Monday. The girl told of her brother coming down into the cabin wounded and bleeding; how she dressed his wounds and cared for him unil she was prostrated and removed from the boat to Mr. Wattengels', and how the cabins of the boat were riddled with stones and pieces of boards. She told how her father had been approached by boatmen and requested to leave Tonawanda without taking a load from Scribner's, and said that neither her brother or her father carried revolvers, and that they had committed no act that called for their murder." "Today's Proceedings The inquest was resumed this morning at 11 o'clock. Officers Duffy and Kumro gave much more sensational testimony than on the first inquest. The following are the examinations in full. Officer Duffy was examined first." Duffy says he was assigned to protect the boats, was there from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. When the gang arrived he was standing on "the boat," and the May was closest to the dock. He tried to talk to the men to slow them down but they paid no mind. Some standing on a pile of lumber called to others on the towpath to come on down and not be "coward." Duffy heard the men say to "Kill the -----". Heard two shots. Saw only the marshal, the captain, the captain's son, and Philip Perew on the boat. Also saw Wheeler and Riley. Then the gang spread in all directions except Perew and Smearing. Duffy went in search of a doctor. When he returns he finds captain on the May; in cabin, Flora nursing Charles. According to Officer Kumro's testimony, he does not arrive until about 12:50 a.m. IDs Wheeler, Perew, Munger and Lowe. Quotes Phillips "My life is my own, and if any man touches these lines he will get shot." Sees Smearing talking with Perew. Tries to shove the men back, but they say "Let's kill the Dutch -----." 12 men jumped abpard. Saw by flash that the man who shot Phillips was about four feet away from him. The men cut all the lines. Kumro follows the boats. At the swingbridge he finds on the boat "Perew, the Marshal, [Doctor] Edmonds, the Captain and the girl. This was when the boat was tied up at the swing bridge." "What else did you see being done to the boy? They had been kicking the boy with their feet." "Could you tell the man that did the shooting? No sir, I could not tell, because it was too dark, while the moon was in the opposite direction of the boat, and a high lumber pile between the two, throwing a shadow on the boat." Cause of son's death at this inquest given as "resulting from the blow of a pistol and some blunt instrument." Why He Joined the Union "Citizens generally have little idea of the methods that have been used to induce or compel some of the boatmen to join the union. As one of them stated to Mr. F. A. McCoy only two weeks ago,"he did not want to join the Union, but he knew that if he did not that his property would be in hourly danger. Either his boats would burned or his horses and mules would be poisoned. If he went into the Union he knew his "turn" would not come the balance of the season, but he did not dare refuse." Is this a civilized community, or is it ruled by an organized mob of cutthroats? If a Mafia is ruling matters with such a high hand it is time for the people of the Twin Cities to arouse at once and crush it out." District Attorney Penney laments the "surprising reluctance" of the citizenry to come forth with evidence. Findings of the inquest, and names of suspect related. A Sad Procession "At 7 o'clock this morning the bodies of Captain Phillips and his son were started for Constantia. Mrs. Phillips, her brother Mr. Reynolds, and her daughter Flora accompanied the remains. Mr. and Mrs. Watteugel and a few other sympathizing friends accompanied the remains as far as Buffalo. Before departing Mrs. Phillips with tears in her eyes thanked Mrs. Wattengel for her kindness to her sick child, and the mother's heart went out in full to the kind Tonawanda mother who let her light and love buoy up a poor stricken child in affliction and distress. Others besides Mrs. Phillips accorded praise to Mrs. Wattengel for her splendid exhibition of motherhood. Newspaper opinions: Times calls policeman of Tonawanda "a weak set" and calls for their prosecution in their failure to protect Phillips. Express calls it more of a lynching, in the barbaric style of the South. transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/e5034d17d8e1dcc9c994f0633ccc853c.pdf 4af1f3bd49fb753a97cf1fe0156c3a6b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Murder on the Docks (October 7, 1895) Description An account of the resource Articles relating to the murder of Captain Lorenzo Philips and his son Charles at the Scribner docks in Tonawanda, and the subsequent trials. "Pleads Guilty," Buffalo Evening News, 4/7/1896. George Hyde has been convicted. Unnerved, Captain Jesse T. Graves reverses and pleads guilty to first degree manslaughter and rioting. Quirk and Collins considered the same. Maximum sentence would be 20 years, just over 12 with good behavior. Perew was determined to stand trial, insisting (through his attorneys) he only came by to see what all the fuss was about, and never had a stake in canal affairs one way or another. He did however help tie up the drifting May and Graff and call for a physician. Justice Woodward, DA Kenefik. William Goddard, the canal broker, will plead guilty only to save money, and time, as he is an old man and in poor health. County of Erie would be saved many thousands of dollars with guilty pleas, the NEWS notes. Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Brutes, article, partial transcription (Buffalo News, 1895-10-08, 5th edition).pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1895-10-08 Description An account of the resource <div style="text-align: left;">Two Policemen and a Deputy Stood by Helpless While the Cowards Ran Riot.</div> Arrested now number 16: Nick Waudle, Ed. Dunn, James Reilly, Ed. Mulligan, George Hyde, Bonnie Warren, Joseph Dixon, Fred Oderkirk, John Lasher, John Stevens, Michael Kohn, Abe Wheeler, James Dixon, Art Lauw, Philip Perew and Ed. Lawrence. Autopsy of Phillips showed a single bullet wound, left breast, 2: to left of nipple. Phillips a slight man of 5'6", 45, 150 pounds. 38 caliber bullet recovered. Deputy Marshal George A. Smearing inquest testimony a "striking confession of helplessness, in fact, absolute uselessness."  Testimony of Deputy Marshal George A. Smearing (Coronor's Inquest) "I arrived here Friday afternoon and staid on the boats that night. I had been told about the association of boat owners in Tonawanda and understood that they did not take freight except under certain conditions and rules. According to stories that came to my ears Phillips came here and got a load ahead of men who had been waiting five or six weeks and they said there was likely to be trouble. I was on the boats all the while except a few hours Sunday, when I went to Buffalo. No one called upon Phillips or made any demands upon him to my knowledge. Last night about 12:30 o'clock about 80 men came down to the boat. I heard the noise and walking up on a pile of lumber saw the men coming down the tow-path in groups of twos, threes and fours. When they were about 150 feet from the boat I left the lumber pile and returned to the boat. The crowd then got up on the lumber pile. Someone yelled: 'Anybody aboard who wishes to go ashore?" "I replied. 'No one.' "This was repeated and they received the same answer. One of the men yelled, Well, let's set her adrift.' Then as a marshal of the United States, I called upon them not to take the law into their own hands. They paid no attention to me and started to come aboard. I warned them again and for a moment they hesitated and talked among themselves. Then they separated and jumped aboard. Capt. Phillips yelled, 'Keep off; my life is my own and I will protect my property.' "He stood beside me on the boat John Graff. He had a piece of wood in his hand. When the mob jumped on the boat Phillips went back to the stern. As the men came over the side I tried to [count] the men, but could not. In the midst of the scramble and without any preliminary violence a shot was fired. Then another and I saw the captain fall. One of the men pointed a gun at me and I did nothing. I did not see the captain strike a blow. After the shots were fired the men jumped ashore and cut the ropes and I followed them to the dock, I hurried for a doctor— Dr. Edmunds. We found the two boats at the bridge." "Did you see the son?" asked Mr. Penney. "Young Phillips had his head half way out of the hatch of the boat May when the men charged. I don't know how he was injured. I did not see him on the John Graff. I had a 31 caliber revolver, but did not use it." "Did not Perew tell you to lay low?" Smearing was asked by Foreman Smith. After some hesitancy he replied, "no." Testimony of Murphy, Phillips's driver, aged 20 (Coronor's Inquest) "I was asleep in the cabin of the Graff when the mob came," he said. "I was awakened by the sound of voices and the tramping of feet. It sounded as if they were un the Graff. It sounded as if all of the orders were given by one man. I heard this unknown give orders to let go the stern line and I heard lumber thrown, and stones clattered on the boat. The windows were smashed in the cabin. After piling lumber against the door to keep me in they paid no more attention to me. They followed the boats after they were cut adrift, throwing stones and lumber, trying to hit the girl, Capt. Phillips' daughter. I crawled out of the window after the boats were sent adrift and reached the cabin of the May. Young Phillips was lying on the floor with a big wound in his head. His sister was bathing his head. The other driver and myself got the boards away from the windows in order to get into the cabin. I looked at the clock. It was 2:30. The mob had been there two hours. After helping the girl with her brother I tried to get a line ashore. I found Capt. Phillips on the deck of the May, about the center of the boat. He way lying face downward, in a position as if he had fallen away from the dock. I felt of his pulse and found he was dead. We turned his body over and put a coat under his head. Meantime young Phillips was madly delirious, and the girl called for us to help hold him. We were holding him when we came to the bridge." Testimony of Stephen Shover, Phillips's driver, age 19 (Coronor's Inquest) "Stephen Shover was the next Witness. He is 19 years old and lives in West Troy. He is also a driver. He testified: "I was called just before the row began; was In the cabin of the May when I heard a lot of fierce yells; looked out and law a lot of men on the boat. One of the men yelled, 'Come on; if there are any good men among you, come on.' Then I saw a man jump on Capt. Phillips. I saw Capt. Phillips raise his stick. Immediately two shots were fired by a man who stood close by the captain. I did not know any of the men. When the men first came aboard I heard Capt, Phillips say, 'Men. I have got to do this to keep myself and children from starving.' Soon after Capt. Phillips was shot I saw a fellow hit his son and knock him down in a corner. Then I ran for the cabin because I was afraid they would kill me. Next thing I saw the son when he staggered into the cabin. The men were then jumping off the boat. 'Father's dead,' he said to his sister. The blood was pouring down his face. Then he fell on the floor, crying and yelling. I am sure the captain fired no shots, I saw no one have a revolver. I heard the marshal say, 'Don't come on here; obey the law.' The mob yelled, 'We'll take State's Prison to kill that man.' " Shover's testimony corroborated that of Murphy. Murphy and Shover identified a revolver found on the deck on the left side of the captain. It... [Policeman] Christ Kumro was a witness. He is one of the two policemen who saw the whole affair. He is a very "husky"man. He said: "I have special instructions on Sunday night to protect Scribner's dock. The mob put in an appearance at 12:40. There were from 50 to 75 men in the party. Some were on the dock and a lot more were on the lumber. 'Come on, men; don't be cowards, get aboard,' yelled some one of the men on the lumber pile to those on the dock. 'Stay oft,' Capt. Phillips cried, 'I am on my own boat; my life is my own. I will, shoot the first man that comes aboard." I ordered the men away. They grabbed me and thrust me aside. 'Kill him; kill the cop,' someone hollered. 'If he lays another hand on you shoot him.' They were too much for me, and I was ready to quit. The two shots came soon afterward. I saw the flash and saw the captain drop. The moon was shining but a lumber pile threw a shadow oh the boat so I could not distinguish the face of the man who fired the shot. He was within four feet of the captain. I did not see the boy. Then I heard the order, 'Let go the line,' and saw the mob jump ashore. They threw lumber and stones at the boat as it floated down stream. I knew some of the men by name. I arrested three of them today, Perew, Mulligan and Wheeler. I am positive they were there. I arrested another man this morning whose name I cannot remember. I know his face well." Policeman Duffy was the next witness: "The mob came from the east as if from the bridge," he said. "When they put in appearance I was talking with the Deputy Marshal. He then got on the boat and stood beside the captain. The mob stopped on the way picking up stones and clubs. I saw Wheeler and another man whom I know and whose name I cannot recall as they jumped on the lumber pile. I also saw Perew there. They called the captain a lot of vile names and ordered him to get off the boat. 'Gentlemen,' said the captain, "I knew what I was going to do when I left Rochester and I am going to do it." They yelled that he was robbing them of their job and urged their companions forward. The captain said he would shoot the first man who boarded the boat. Two shots and a big fight followed. Then the bow lines were cut, the mob jumped off and the boat swung into the stream. I recognized Wandel, Jim Riley and Abe Wheeler. They are locked up. I recognized another man whose name I cannot remember. He Is also under arrest. I then went away with Kumro. His story as told on the stand is substantially correct." Mr. Penney called Abe Wheeler, who is one of the prisoners. He is a square-jawed, brutal-faced fellow over six feet tall and weighs at least 200 pounds. Mr. Penney told him he need not answer any questions which might Incriminate himself, unless so disposed. "I refuse to testify," said Wheeler. Coroner Hill then adjourned the Inquest until 9 o'clock this morning. After the Inquest Is concluded a jury will be empanelled to sit upon the son. Charles L. Phillips. Upon the evidence brought out at the inquest Justice Wallenmeier, Jr., will decide whether to hold the prisoners for the action of the grand Jury, After the Coroner's verdict the case goes into the hands of District Attorney Kenefleck. In the eyes of the law every man in the mob is equally guilty with the man who fired he shot or delivered the fatal blow to young Phillips. Miss Florence Phillips, the captain's daughter, who was nearly prostrated by the terrible affair, was taken to the home of Mrs. Wattengel and is somewhat recovered. Henry Reynolds, accompanied by Mrs. Phillips, arrived at Tonawanda on the 12:09 train last night, When informed of her son's death at the station she nearly broke down. The meeting between Mrs. Phillips and her daughter at the house of Martin Wattengel was almost heartrending. Capt. Charles Lorenzo Phillips was a canal boatman, 48 years old. He lived in Constantantia, N. Y. He had a little home, a plot of land there. His family consisted of his wife, his son Charles, 23 years old; his daughter Flora, 20 years old; another daughter, I5 years old, and two sons, 10 years old and 5 years old respectively. He owned two canal boats, the John Graff and the May, and last fall bought a [18?]-acre farm at Constantia for $5000, making a small payment on It. The boats were paid for in full. " Then interviews with Godard and Rose, who insist they had no union. transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/47a7a6141f564fdcb7dcf68905cab5a8.jpg 692c810afe713262cb5982c810b1dbce https://nthistory.com/files/original/05e1893935e9ea835176853f31a6673a.jpg ad76f20c5010910c31b194a5d65edd76 https://nthistory.com/files/original/46aea48ea5a7203e5a492cd732a2fc93.jpg 9c836b029fb0d1b2fb57fa4eaa0d191a https://nthistory.com/files/original/dc2dc19996f3ea4753d8f81181edeb18.jpg b0198f03e8f41907dd59826f7c61d1c7 https://nthistory.com/files/original/ae41c32c4fd531f16ca4286cecf62b8d.jpg 79abac33b0dbdb1bae2d53a5373c7ca3 https://nthistory.com/files/original/9db45a640395c06495899f4a60b3a6de.jpg a78bfacb39592ed400796580a7871d3f https://nthistory.com/files/original/06d5e7383a0c30dd7d0eb4a0be850241.jpg 0d57a83a9c796fba899eec284d7bce1a https://nthistory.com/files/original/a11216b0cff397b6cc64d3378db3258e.jpg e46487aa0091e7082254fda5895085a6 https://nthistory.com/files/original/1c9db712b3e6d6f895c69066e7f98b7f.jpg 301438e9d7d61099f3dead4c908f56fe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource North Tonawanda pioneer residents, incorporation and village institutions, lumber, iron, brief sketches of Wheatfield residents, illustrations, transcription (excerpt from History of Niagara County, pp 376-381, 1878).jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1878 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://www.nthistory.com/items/show/606">A History of Niagara County, 1821-1878</a> SUPERVISORS OF WHEATFIELD. The following gentlemen have been supervisors of the town: In 1837, Benjamin McNitt; 1838, N. M. Ward; 1839, William Vandervoote; 1840, John Sweeney; 1842, Isaac L. Young; 1843, N. M. Ward; 1844, 1845, Lewis S. Payne; 1846, N. M. Ward; 1847, 1848, L. S. Payne; 1849, Sylvester McNitt; 1850, L. S. Payne; 1851, Seth F. Roberts; 1852, S. McNitt; 1853, 1854, Peter Greiner; 1855, Joseph Hawbecker; 1856, 1857, George W. Sherman; 1858, N. M. Ward; 1859-61, L. S. Payne; 1862, Peneuel Schmeck; 1863-66, George W. Sherman; 1867, H. H. Griffin; 1868, James Carney; 1869, H. H. Griffin; 1870, Edward A. Milliman; 1871-73, Joseph D. Loveland; 1874, 1875, Thomas C. Collins; 1876, L. S. Payne; 1877, 1878, Christian Fritz. <hr /> NORTH TONAWANDA. Previous to the location and construction of the Erie Canal there appears to have been but little progress made in settling that portion of the town now embracing the large and rapidly advancing village of North Tonawanda. As at other localities, the canal was the impetus that moved capitalists to invest at this favorable point. The following original handbill shows the beginning of business enterprises: VILLAGE OF NIAGARA. “This village is located at the confluence of the Niagara and Tonawanda rivers, where the Erie Canal from Buffalo enters the Tonawanda, 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 Tonawanda, 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 in Geneva; and the former will enter into contracts of sale. “The title is indisputable, and good warranty deeds will be executed to purchasers. George Goundry, James Sweeney, John Sweeney, Proprietors. July 5th, 1824.” <hr /> PIONEER RESIDENTS. In 1809 George N. Burger erected a small frame house on the premises occupied by Vincent Koch & Co., in part as a lumber yard. No earlier settler has been found. Mr. Burger was a well-known, prominent pioneer among the earliest settlers in the city of Lockport. Joshua Pettit located in 1810, on the premises now occupied by Mr. Kreid, on the Niagara river, near the Niagara Iron Works, where he opened a log tavern; the stream near by has long been known as Pettit creek. He remained until 1835, when he moved to Allegany county. He died May 2nd, 1857, aged 76. Two of his daughters, Hannah, wife of Whitman Jacobs, aged 71, and Polly, wife of Daniel C. Jacobs, aged 68, as far as is known are the oldest living settlers in the village of North Tonawanda, which has been their home from childhood. Stephen Jacobs located in March, 1817, on the river, two miles below Tonawanda, purchasing of Augustus Porter. 196 acres, at $8 per acre, when it lay in the wilderness, and improved it as a farm. The timber for building the first guard-lock where the Erie Canal enters the river was furnished by him. He died at Niagara Falls in January, 1840. He was in the battle of Bunker Hill at the age of seventeen. His children living are Daniel C., Whitman, Dana and Hiram, residents of Tonawanda. Mrs. D. C. Jacobs states that when the alarm reached them of the burning of Lewiston, and descent of the enemy upon the few scattered settlers, in 1813, the consternation could not be described; the terrified men and women, in confusion, were at a loss where to seek a refuge, while children clung to their mothers' garments for protection. Ox teams were used to land them beyond the immediate scene of danger. William Vandervoote located in 1825, occupying a log house, the only one that then existed. He had in view the transaction of mercantile business, and the purchase of staves and oak timber for the Boston market. The first public house, called the Niagara, was completed by him in 1828, and burned in 1844. Mr. Vandervoote subsequently purchased of the Holland Company seventeen hundred acres of land, and sold to the Prussians the tract including the largest part of their possessions, on the Tonawanda creek and its vicinity. He was a partner in a store established by the Boston Company, then floating in the full tide of prosperity, on Grand Island. He established the first bank in the place in 1836. His mother and his sister Sarah located with him, the latter of whom occupied a brick residence erected by her brother, the first of the kind in the place. James Sweeney located first in Buffalo in 1811. As one of the proprietors in the original purchase of the land upon which the village of North Tonawanda has been erected, he located on it in 1828, and built the first frame dwelling. The clearing of the land was commenced for the purpose of furnishing timber for the Buffalo pier, and to prepare the way for the sale of village lots. He pursued a liberal policy in advancing his individual interests, or those of others whom he sought to interest in becoming citizens. The lots for the first Methodist church, built in 1837, and the first school-house, were donated by him. Not alone in these generous public benefits was he conspicuous as a citizen. As the advance of landed property added to his means, his benefactions increased, and he aided worthy objects wherever aid was needed. He worked earnestly to extend the benefits of local schools, manifesting the interest he felt by furnishing books and often clothing to destitute children, placing them in a condition to be benefitted by them. Leaving to posterity the legacy of a respectable name as a valuable citizen and man of integrity, he died January 13th, 1850, aged 57. His son John, who died in the midst of a career of business enterprises, managed the building of the first railroad depot, and was the first, and for several years the station manager at this point. He caused the first dock to be built on the creek, next to the bridge, afterwards extending it 250 feet along the bank of the creek in the direction of the river, employing Elijah V. Day to supply the foundations and planking. He built the first and only grist-mill, which was afterwards destroyed by fire. Colonel John Sweeney built a saw-mill on the dam at the present position of the waste gates, the only one existing in this section of the country. James Carney was a pioneer in the town as early as 1819, locating with his father, Edward Carney, who was one of the earliest settlers in Avon, Livingston county, in 1791 on Tonawanda Island (for many years and now more frequently designated Carney Island). His object in settling was to gain a pre-emption right if the boundary line, when settled, left the island in the territory of the United States. In 1824 the State of New York caused a survey to be made, ordering an assessed valuation of $4.50 per acre. During the following year the island was ordered to be sold at public auction in the city of Albany, requiring one-eighth of the purchase money to be paid down. James Carney, furnishing the required amount, placed it in the hands of Judge Samuel Wilkison to purchase at the sale, but speculation had been stimulated by the purchase that had been made on Grand Island, opposite, by the Jews, to found the "City of Ararat" and concentrate the scattered tribes of Israel; and Samuel Leggett, of the city of New York, became the purchaser at $23 per acre. Mr. Carney set out in the effort to attain, by buying and clearing land, the position of affluence he now enjoys at an age of seventy-eight years. At seventeen he was an ox-teamster in the employ of Porter, Barton & Co., slowly plodding through woods from Lewiston to Schlosser. He was a subject of pioneer life, doing milling, floating a canoe down the river for a harbor in Porter's mill race at the Falls; returning by applying his shoulder to a setting pole in the way he had learned in propelling scow-boats from Schlosser to Black Rock, often loaded with three hundred and fifty barrels of salt. INCORPORATION AND VILLAGE INSTITUTIONS. The village of North Tonawanda was incorporated May 8th, 1865. The first trustees were David Robinson, Jacob Bocker, George W. Sherman, Alexander Kent, Clark Ransom, and J. D. Vandervoote. The board for 1878 consists of F. J. Fellows, H. O. Nightingale, Augustus Brown, Alexander McBean (president) and W. H. Upson (clerk). A well-constructed brick building centrally located accommodates the common council room and clerk's office, fire engine, firemen's implements, and a safe jail, under the same roof. A well-regulated police controls the diversified elements of a mixed population that is brought together to perform the immense amount of labor required to handle daily the arrivals of lumber, in the yards that stretch along the banks of the town for over two miles. The village is a lumber mart of the largest extent, enjoying the best mechanical advantages. Mercantile pursuits are but little engaged in, except provision stores and groceries. The private banking house of Evans, Schwingers & Co., was established May 1st, 1877, with James H. DeGraff president; E. Evans, vice president; William Saverce, cashier; share holders: J. Simpson, E. Evans, J. H. DeGraff, C. Schwinger, A. G. Kent, L. S. Payne, J. A. Bliss, George P. Smith, H. B. Smith, E. H. Rogers, W. M. Laverack and B. L. Hand, representing a capital of a quarter of a million. The North Tonawanda Union School has four departments and four teachers. The last winter term averaged 190 scholars and the summer term 125, J. W. Brown is principal, with Libbie M. Pugsley, Hannah Densmore, and Nellie Becker as assistants. The whole number of scholars of school age is 674. The school-house was erected in 1866. The board of education consists of Benjamin F. Felton, president; H. O. Nightingale, clerk; Dr. C. Backer, Giles Schell and John Chadwick. The school building is a substantial stone edifice, located at one of the most pleasant points in the village. The yards in front and play grounds are kept in good condition. The Tonawanda Herald, established by J. Densmore July 19th, 1875, passed into the proprietorship of George W. Warren and T. M. Chapman October 14th, 1877. It is a well conducted paper, earnestly devoted to the interests of the business community, and enjoys a patronage creditable alike to itself and its patrons. The iron bridge spanning the Tonawanda creek is the successor of three others; one was erected by the United States in 1800 or 1801, for military purposes. It was temporary in construction and was of short duration. After it fell, the crossing was done by a ferry until 1824, when a toll bridge was erected, in pursuance of a charter for twenty-one years; previous to the expiration of the charter, the interests of the stock-holders were purchased by the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad Company, who rebuilt the bridge, with a roadway and side tracks for their road. The period of the charter expiring, the bridge became a county and town charge. Niagara and Erie counties erected the third, which remained until superseded in 1875 by the present wrought iron structure, which was built by the “Wyoming Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio.” Fifty tons of iron were used in its construction. It is three hundred feet in length, with a twenty-six-foot roadway, and sidewalks on both sides seven feet wide. The village has a cemetery, which was organized under the statute, in the year 1868. The incorporators were: Benjamin F. Felton, Garwood L. Judd, Franklin Warren, Hiram Hewell, Selden G. Johnson and John Simpson. Mr. Hewell was the first president, and Mr. Felton the first secretary of the board of organization. At the first meeting of the board of trustees, Mr. Felton presented the corporation with a splendid book for the keeping of the records. Much credit is due to Messrs. Felton, Warren and Judd for the labor and interest they took in organizing the enterprise. Mr. Judd drew up the articles of association; and being an attorney, obtained the requisite order from court, sanctioning the articles of incorporation, which were duly recorded in the office of the county clerk. Many of the citizens have purchased lots in the cemetery and beautified them. Among the number are Hon. Henry J. Smith, Hon. John Simpson, Franklin Warren, Benjamin F. Felton, Hon. Lewis S. Payne, Garwood L. Judd, James Carney, Asa Ransom, Frederick Sommer, James G. Primer and others. The cemetery is situated on the easterly side of Payne avenue. <hr /> THE LUMBER TRADE. The lumber trade is the prevailing feature of business, while other interests are to be included, as in a prosperous condition. At the various lumber yards is seen every necessary arrangement and skillful appliance to transact business with dispatch and economy. The capital employed and energy displayed can not fail of success. To detail the business would exceed our limits, but an account of a few of the leading concerns will not fail to interest the reader. The firm of McGraw & Co. established themselves in the business over eight years since. Their yards and docks cover an area of six and one fourth acres, on Manhattan street. The main dock, facing on the Niagara river, is 400 feet long, with two slips, 600 feet each, making 1,600 feet of docking, with capacity to store 10,000,000 feet of rough lumber, 500,000 feet of dressed ceiling, siding and flooring, and a full stock of shingles and lath. Aside from the water front occupied by this firm, they also have the facilities for shipping on a branch of the Central railroad passing through their premises, loading cars directly from lake barges. Convenient access to the canal also places them in a favorable business position. The members of the firm are: John McGraw, T. H. McGraw, C. B. Curtiss and Ira D. Bennett. The last is the general manager, and A. J. Hathaway foreman on the yard. Extensive as are the other yards and docks, astonishment is still further excited upon the premises of W. H. Gratwick & Co., one and a half miles down the river on the Central railroad. The office for the transaction of their business could not be more conveniently and comfortably arranged for employees and customers. W. H. Gratwick, formerly residing in Albany, is now a resident of Buffalo, acting as the local representative of the firm at that point; the other members associated are Robert S. Fryer, in Albany, under the names of Gratwick, Fryer & Co., and Edward Smith, in Michigan, representing the firm of Smith, Gratwick & Co. The capital they employ in the prosecution of their business is $500,000; in the various localities and departments they employ four hundred and fifty men. They own a tract of 31,000 acres of pine land in the northern part of Michigan, where they have two mills that annually turn out 28,000,000 feet, which is transported in barges to Tonawanda and forwarded by rail and canal to eastern markets; they deal exclusively in their own production. Their docks have a river frontage of 863 feet, with a water slip, doubling the means of storage, and an additional dock in the rear, 600 feet long; in all, 2,200 feet. Tramways have been built for wagon roads, and tracks to receive the cars from the Central and Erie railroads, to be loaded directly from vessels or piles on the docks. The docks, 300 feet out in the river, reach thirteen feet depth of water, sufficient to float the largest craft on the lakes. The cost of land, docks and buildings was $25,000. The stock on hand of planed and dressed lumber averages from 4,000,000 to 8,000,000 feet, with a proportionately large supply of shingles and laths. About four years since, Gratwick & Co. became the pioneers in occupying lots far down the river, an example that others have thought worthy of imitation. IRON WORKING ESTABLISHMENTS. Where the Niagara River Iron Works are situated on the Niagara river, in 1810 a small opening was made in the woods for the erection of a rude log house, by Joshua Pettit. But a little over half a century has passed, and where stood the lowly log house noble structures rise to indicate the progress that has been made from a primitive to a more advanced condition. The Niagara River Iron Company was formed in pursuance of the general manufacturing law, in 1872, with a paid-up capital of $400,000. The first purchase of real estate was of 165 acres from M. Bush. The buildings were erected in 1873, and manufacturing operations commenced the same year. The engine house stands in a prominent position, and by one not knowing its design might be taken for an elegant mansion or villa; the building is 68 by 74 feet, with a proportionate elevation, and finished in tasteful style. The boiler house, judiciously separated, located 45 feet by 70, contains ten ponderous boilers, four feet in diameter and sixty feet long; an octagon chimney eighty feet high rises in front. The blast furnace was constructed to run out fifty tons of pig iron per day, and is 60 by 200 feet and two stories high; a tower rising above the rounded kert contains the machinery for elevating ore and brick by steam power. The oven is 30 by 41 feet, with iron-bound exterior. The buildings named are massive and substantial brick erections, upon stone foundations. The stock house is a frame building, 72 by 500 feet and two stories high. The dock fronting on the river is 500 feet in length, reaching ten feet depth of water. Located upon the dock is an engine for raising freight from the vessels. Two branch tracks of the Central railroad pass over the docks and into the stock house, to deposit and remove material. The buildings cover an area of four acres. The trustees are P. P. Pratt, president; Josiah Jewett, vice-president; S. S. Jewett, H. H. Glenny, George B. Hays, F. L. Danforth and B. F. Felton. During the present general depression in business the works are not operated; but as they are controlled by men of permanent wealth, willing to use it and able to hold their own until the day dawns upon brighter prospects, the advantages of this great concern will yet be felt by the community that has clustered about it in anticipation. The premises and machinery are kept in the most perfect order and neatness under the care of Alexander Reid. The Tonawanda Engine and Machine Company’s extensive machine shops are located in the rear of the Erie railway depot on Olive street, occupying a square of 150 feet. They manufacture steam engines and boilers, and furnish castings for all descriptions of agricultural implements. The firm consists of James Armitage, Allen Herschell, George C. Herschell and George A. Gillis. The Pickard & Simpson Manufacturing Company, in connection with the above mentioned, organized for the manufacture of Pickard’s patented vehicle axles. The following gentlemen are connected with the firm: R. F. Pickard, John Simpson, E. B. Simpson, A. H. Pickard, E. H. Hewit and H. H. Pickard. <hr /> BRIEF SKETCHES OF WHEATFIELD CITIZENS. HON. LEWIS S. PAYNE. Lewis S. Payne was born in the town of Bergen, Genesee county, N. Y., in 1819. His parents being poor he had no advantages of education, except the imperfect common schools which then existed, and the academies of Monroe and Genesee counties. When sixteen years of age, he left his home and found employment at Tonawanda, N. Y., as clerk in a store. At the age of twenty-one he succeeded his employers in the mercantile business, and afterward became engaged in the lumber business, and in 1847 built the first steam saw-mill in Tonawanda. In 1855, Mr. Payne engaged in the forwarding, shipping and commission business, with the extensive elevator and docks at Tonawanda, and in 1858 turned his attention to farming, which is his present occupation. In 1841 he changed his place of residence, from the Erie county to the Niagara county side of the Tonawanda creek, in the village of North Tonawanda, town of Wheatfield, where he still resides. In 1844 he was elected supervisor of his town, and for many years afterward represented the town in that capacity. In 1849 he was appointed collector of canal tolls at Tonawanda, his being the first appointment made at that place; and in 1850 he was re-appointed to the same position. In the fall of 1850 he was elected clerk of Niagara county, and in 1854, at the end of his term, retired with the approbation of the citizens of the county universally, for the courteous manner in which he had discharged the duties of the office. In politics Mr. Payne was formerly a national Whig; but on the dissolution of that party he became a Douglas Democrat, and in 1859 was nominated by that party for the office of State Senator for the 29th district. In the fall of 1861 he raised, at his own expense, a company of volunteers, and formed a part of the one hundredth regiment, which was recruited from western New York at Buffalo. In April, 1862, with his regiment he landed at Newport News, and formed a part of Casey’s division of McClellan’s army in his famous campaign on the Peninsula. With his regiment he was second to cross the Chickahominy and the first to take up position at White Oak Station. Colonel Payne was in the battles of Williamsburg and Seven Pines, and afterward was in the seven days' retreat. He participated in the battles of White Oak Swamp and Malvern Hill; and in August returned to Gloucester Point, after a severe campaign of less than four months, in which he lost forty-two out of his company of one hundred and four men. In the winter following he was in North Carolina, in General Foster’s army corps. Early in the spring of 1863 he was sent to Hilton Head; thence to St. Helena Island, in General Hunter’s department; thence up to Cole’s Island, with his regiment as a corps of observation in the vicinity of Charleston. It was from this point that he was ordered out, and made his many bold and daring expeditions and scouts with his company, and learned the nature and character of the whole country, the positions, situations and strength of the enemy in their various localities and stations. Some of his adventures during these expeditions are related in an article by John S. C. Abbott, entitled “Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men,” published in Harper’s Magazine in April, 1867. On the nights of the 5th and 6th of April, 1863, he led the advance up Folly Island, under General Seymour, to support the attack of Admiral Dupont on Fort Sumter, made with his iron monitors on the 7th of April, 1863. On the 10th of May he led the advance, piloted and conducted up Folly river, and across Light-house Inlet, our forces, 4,500 men, all in small boats, to the point of attack on Morris Island, and was the first to land and first in the engagement. The party carried and took possession, under heavy fire, of the south end of Morris Island; and soon Colonel Payne with his company succeeded in reaching and burning the steamer Mariguita in Charleston harbor, which was engaged in supplying the enemy’s forces at Forts Sumter, Moultrie, Johnson, Battery Wagner and Cummings Point. On the night of the 3rd of August, 1863, while engaged in intercepting communications of the enemy with Fort Sumter and other points, he was attacked by a superior force, and, after a most desperate engagement was wounded and taken prisoner, conveyed to Charleston and confined in the Queen-street Hospital until sufficiently recovered from his wounds to be removed, when he was taken to Columbia, S. C., and there kept in close confinement until the 14th of February, 1865, when with others he was moved north for exchange. On the 5th of March, 1865, he was exchanged at Wilmington, N. C., and reached home on the first of April, after an absence of three years and three months. In the fall following (1865) he was again nominated and elected County Clerk, though in a county giving several hundred Republican majority. He served his term of three years, and in the fall following (1869) was elected member of Assembly from his district, and in the Assembly was made chairman of the committee on claims, and was also a member of the committees on canals and military affairs. In November, 1877, he was again nominated for senator for the 29th district, and was elected over his opponent, the Republican nominee, being the first Democrat ever elected in the 29th senatorial district. William L. Allen, M. D., was born at Ovid, N. Y., February 6th, 1847, and was educated at the New York State Normal School, Ovid Academy and Buffalo Medical College. He came to Tonawanda April 10th, 1876. Heman A. Barnum was born March 27th, 1831, in the town of Wheatfield. Mr. Barnum is a farmer. His post-office address is Sanborn. Theodore Bennett was born in Newstead, Erie county, December 17th, 1845. Residence, North Tonawanda. Business, school-teacher and fire-insurance agent. James C. Betts, son of William C. Betts, was born in Upper Canada, October 19th, 1828, and came to Niagara County in 1835. He was married August 21st, 1867, to Mrs. B. G. Sturges, of Wheatfield. Mr. Betts enlisted in the thirteenth Illinois volunteers in May, 1861, and served three years, after which he re-enlisted, was transferred to the navy and served till the close of the war. James Carney was born March 23rd, 1800, at Black Creek, Upper Canada, and was married to Sally Martin, of the town of Niagara, March 17th, 1825. Mr. Carney, who is now a retired farmer, has been supervisor and justice of the peace in Tonawanda, Erie county, and supervisor of the town of Wheatfield. Wilhelm Dornfeld was born September 11th, 1826, in Prussia, and came to Martinsville, Niagara county, in 1843. Mr. Dornfeld is a farmer and merchant, and one of the firm of Krull Brothers & Dornfeld, proprietors of the lumber yard, planing-mill, and sash and door factory at Martinsville. He was postmaster from 1852 to 1865. Albert Dornfeld was born January 5th, 1831, in Prussia, and came to Niagara county in 1843. Mr. Dornfeld, who is a teacher, has been justice of the peace for eight years, and was formerly proprietor of the dry dock saw-mill at Martinsville. C. F. Goerss, whose post-office is Bergholz, has always lived in Wheatfield, having been born in the town January 2nd, 1850. He is a farmer and school-teacher, and has been a notary public over four years. Charles Hagen, hotel-keeper and town clerk at North Tonawanda, was born in the Kingdom of Hanover, Germany, February 28th, 1839, and came to Niagara county on the 4th day of August, 1861. Mr. Hagen has been clerk of the town of Wheatfield six terms, and has served as clerk of Payne’s Company D., 100th N. Y. regiment, and as clerk of the 3rd brigade, 1st division, 10th army corps, before Richmond, during the late war. Garwood L. Judd was born at Augusta Centre, Oneida county, N. Y., July 4th, 1823. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, after having received a good education. Shortly after his admission, he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States as a proctor and advocate in admiralty. He was married to Maria A. Prynne, eldest daughter of Francis P. Prynne. He practiced at Frankfort, Herkimer county, till 1853, and then removed to North Tonawanda, where his residence has been. He has been a justice of the peace in Wheatfield twenty-four years in succession. Christian George Krull was born January 15th, 1846, at Bergholz. He was married September 17th, 1869, to Ernstine Betz, from Falkenwalde, Prussia. In November he removed to Martinsville, where he now lives, engaged in farming and holding a partnership in the Centennial Planing-mill. He has been nine years a school trustee in the town and was a commissioner of highways in 1872, 1873 and 1874. Edward A. Milliman was born April 16th, 1832, in Wheatfield, and was married November 19th, 1854, to Susan E. Teal, of Lewiston. He removed to the town of Wheatfield September 21st, 1868. He is engaged in farming and in rail contracting and jobbing. Post-office, Tonawanda, N. Y. Mr. Milliman has been extensively engaged in railroad contracting, having constructed portions of many leading railroads throughout the United States, and he has held a number of official positions, among them those of commissioner of highways, deputy collector of customs, and supervisor. Seth F. Roberts was born in Bloomfield, Ontario county, N. Y., December 5th, 1809, and came to Wheatfield in 1822, from Henrietta, Monroe county, N. Y. Mr. Roberts has been variously engaged during a long and busy life, having chopped, logged, taught district school seven winters, and served as supervisor, town clerk, school commissioner and justice of the peace for fifteen or twenty years. He holds the office of justice of the peace at the present time. One of the thrifty farmers of Wheatfield is Herman F. Stieg, residing at St. Johnsburgh. He was born February 23rd, 1839, in Prussia, and came to this county with the German colony in 1843. He has served twelve years as assessor and four years as highway commissioner in his town. George M. Warren was born in the town of Wheatfield, January 24th, 1847, and has been a life-long resident of Tonawanda, where, as a member of the firm of Warren & Clapham, he is engaged in editing and publishing the Tonawanda Herald. Mr. Warren was elected on the Democratic ticket in 1875 one of the school commissioners of Niagara county for a term of three years. Nelson Zimmerman was born November 4th, 1831, at Tonawanda. Mr. Zimmerman, who is a prominent farmer of the town of Wheatfield, held the office of assessor in 1875, 1876 and 1877. Others of the principal inhabitants of the town, with their post-offices, are: C. C. Thompson and B. F. Felton, of Tonawanda; Hon. J. D. Loveland, farmer, Beech Ridge; Harvey Miller, farmer, Shawnee; L. C. Koover, farmer, Sanborn; Daniel Sy, town assessor, farmer, Bergholz; William Clark, town and village assessor, carpenter and joiner, Tonawanda; G. W. Bush, lumber dealer and manufacturer, Tonawanda; Martin Reistetter, farmer and merchant, Tonawanda; H. O. Nightingale, village and school trustee, Tonawanda; Calvin Jacobs, farmer and boat-builder, Tonawanda; John Poinds, farmer, Tonawanda; Wilhelm Krull, farmer and lumber manufacturer, Martinsville; J. S. Tompkins, farmer, La Salle; W. H. Nash, farmer, Sanborn; S. D. Compton, farmer, Shawnee; Sebastian May, farmer, Tonawanda; Lyman Bruce, farmer, Tonawanda; B. C. Shuman, farmer, Tonawanda; J. F. Hoover, Tonawanda; Rev. John W. Weinbach, clergyman, New Bergholz; John Simpson, farmer and lumber dealer, Tonawanda; Dr. C. Backer, proprietor of the Backer Hotel, Tonawanda; Thomas Collins, farmer, La Salle; Daniel Treichler, farmer, Sanborn; F. D. Habecker and Peneuel Schmeck, farmers, Sanborn; A. B. Williams, saw and planing-mill, Tonawanda; Dr. Clinton A. Sage, Pekin; Emil Schmitze, restaurant and hotel keeper, Tonawanda; Jacob Nagel, carriage-maker, Tonawanda. transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/0510cb582acfd9840abd02910fe803aa.jpg 7e1a225c61908565d8e9071d7423d1c6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early sketch of Tonawanda, transcription (Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York, 1849).jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1849 Description An account of the resource Briefly mentions slow start of the area due to flooding problems, and the importance of the state ditches of 1840. Also: exhaustion of local "fine oak," agricultural prospects, and the Cleveland investor. <blockquote>**TONAWANDA.** Previous to the construction of the Canal, there had been, upon the site of Tonawanda village, but a small beginning in the way of farming, and a log tavern which was, in an early day, kept by Garrett Van Slyke, who afterwards moved up the creek. A toll bridge was erected in 1825. In 1823, William Williams, Latham A. Burrows, Samuel Wilkeson, Townsend & Coit, and Albert H. Tracy purchased five or six hundred acres of land, which embraced the site of the village, on the Erie side of the creek. Mr. Williams erected a saw mill upon the dam, in 1825. In 1824, John Sweeny and George Goundry purchased the land which embraces that part of the village which lies on the Niagara side of the creek; Mr. Sweeny erected a saw mill in 1825. The proprietors platted the village soon after their purchases. With many business advantages, connected with lake, river, and canal commerce, the growth of the place was, in early years, seriously affected by the flooding of lands, consequent upon the raising of the water of the Tonawanda and Eleven Mile creeks, to perfect canal navigation. In 1840, the state constructed ditches, the effects of which have been to reclaim drowned lands, improve the health of the place, and give a start to improvements. The agricultural interests of the neighborhood, as in all similar cases, have suffered from the attention of a large portion of the population being diverted to the business of lumbering. That hindrance being gradually obviated, as the fine oak of the region has been exhausted, there are few portions of the Holland Purchase, which, for the last few years, have given more evident signs of improvement and progress, than the neighborhood of Tonawanda. A new impetus has been given to the place within the present year. A company of capitalists from Cleveland, invited by the facilities that exist there for transshipments from lake craft to canal boats, have purchased thirteen or fourteen hundred acres of land on the Erie side of the creek, erected a capacious storehouse and elevator, a storehouse for rolling freight, and have other improvements projected. A new era may be said to have commenced at Tonawanda.</blockquote> transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/713fd4fe18de771b3e050b9e4d68592a.jpg 7f8e95777e0247f895fce002d4dddfe6 https://nthistory.com/files/original/9aa19cb9be418406d53e41c9e947d7d8.jpg d972c2978196dff43bfac9b392495d42 https://nthistory.com/files/original/5499181db03b8a36fc6b1906d9624c25.jpg 962772e5ac1277e4ccc1dfcaffe44a51 https://nthistory.com/files/original/2361d4c5332b57c929b9c4d6df014c84.jpg 9aed2d7b63391d2a6684f6ddb5801118 https://nthistory.com/files/original/bf835023ab5e744c4dfa09cdc0459b51.jpg b206bc0e16dc2d134074aa35eb8c4038 https://nthistory.com/files/original/a36e8373ac7999463c59cd01f8b8478c.jpg f8d7f94141d56d081bc599648b34972f https://nthistory.com/files/original/211c6c7c6e6d474c985be4b4fb265007.jpg fcf14bbea19e0d0bf604935b079a95b6 https://nthistory.com/files/original/3b6303f7c9968dacde4690b74ce87735.jpg 9cb37794dc212472b7ff19d40184682f https://nthistory.com/files/original/bb592099b6a5d2a0e2310b18ee720435.jpg c9c1eb3798d589eccefab7c2c8049f23 https://nthistory.com/files/original/5bfb55c55c5e681c096340f83a5ac1c7.jpg 253da016a63e88a1791d1fbedab4b789 https://nthistory.com/files/original/afa169452016a2aef3cf0abdc5cbc0c5.jpg 8c3023ded9efb4d4db5a17fa846e136a https://nthistory.com/files/original/4a95a12cabd4370f25e4c9708942f362.jpg ba41ebcd737d703494b8b1a1a05d91c5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Article Text appearing in a newspaper. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Description of Village of Tonawanda, partial transcription (Commerce, Manufactures and Resources of Buffalo and Environs, 1880).jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1880 Description An account of the resource General progress and development to date. Advantages. Earlier failed attempts to prosper. Lumber feet by year. Accounts of Tonawanda Herald and Index, as well as many lumber concerns such as J. A. Bliss, Vincent & Hittel, Cowper & Gregory, P. W. Scribner, J. H. DeGraff, A. G. Kent, Evans & Sons, Smith, Fassett & co., Gratwick, Smith & Fryer, Tonawanda Chair Factory, etc. Tonawanda Our title, which includes Buffalo as well as its environs, demands that a point so contiguous and so important as Tonawanda, should not be forgotten, or passed over in a work which has for its sole object a thorough delineation of the varied material resources of this community. In keeping with this design much information has been carefully gathered with reference to Tonawanda which the reader will find following this general notice; and we are under the impression that never heretofore, has been published so accurate and detailed a disclosure of those enterprises that contribute to make this point one of the largest lumber markets in the world. Situated on the Niagara River, Tonawanda Creek and on the Erie Canal, intersected by the New York Central & Hudson River Railway and the Erie Railway, its position at the foot of Lake Erie seems so entirely admirable for purposes of Commerce that it becomes rather a matter of surprise that only during the past decade has the town sprung into prominence as the center of a traffic in lumber whose proportions it is difficult to realize. The rapid growth to which we refer, however, is of itself an eloquent commentary upon the extraordinary advantages resulting from a site so fortuitous; more especially so, when it is remembered that during the period alluded to occurred a financial disturbance which for five years exerted a constantly repressive influence upon the industries of the entire nation. In defiance of all such obstacles, and quite regardless apparently of conditions which retarded the prosperity of less favored places, Tonawanda in its population, business and resources grew annually at a rate which is partially indicated by statistics, which the reader will observe with interest if not astonishment. In 1848–9 Tonawanda was little more than an obscure hamlet, which, peopled by canal men and their families, straggled along the water-ways with a vain attempt to look permanent, and gave no promise of a more substantial future. At this time however an Association of Cleveland capitalists recognizing the availability of the point for purposes of trans-shipment, formed a joint stock company under the style of the Tonawanda & Cleveland Commercial Company, and in 1849 erected extensive warehouses and a grain elevator of considerable dimensions. For various reasons, not altogether foreign to mismanagement on the part of the Company and lack of steam tugs, this venture proved abortive, otherwise than by attracting attention to its locality, and creating an interest in others that proved ultimately more fruitful. The arrival of the first cargo of grain at Tonawanda was an event in its history, and the Schooner Poland which conveyed it, found no difficulty in navigating the Niagara and effecting safe and convenient harbor. Contemporaneously Captain Anson Sheppard one of the best known seamen upon the lakes, owner of the schooners Cleveland and Windham, and a resident of Tonawanda, in conjunction with his brother Orrin, began the transportation of staves to Tonawanda for Messrs. Butts & Co., who met with such success in this enterprise that in 1850 they constructed docks along the Niagara and upon the Creek, which subsequently passed into the possession of J. A. McDougall & Co. From this small and seemingly unimportant beginning, has developed the enormous industry that now characterizes the place, and it was this venture that formed the nucleus from which expanded the lumber trade of Tonawanda. It was after this period that Hon. H. P. Smith originated the idea of towing or rafting logs across the lake from Canadian and other ports, a scheme that was put to execution with such success, that many others embarked in like operations, and the little town began to exchange its shabby habiliments for the garniture of thrift. In 1856 the general progress of trade was marked by the erection of the first planing mill, which was built by Wm. Emerson, Esq., who having conducted the business for some years, was succeeded by a Mr. Potts; the plant finally coming into possession of Nevin Nugent about 1868. This year is made notable for the organization of several firms, of which perhaps the most prominent was that of Burrows, Lane & Co., in which Messrs. D. B. Burrows, Stillman Cutter, C. G. Lane, J. F. Vincent and J. A. McDougall were interested. Thus associated, these gentlemen began the construction of extensive docks and wharves for the accommodation of lake vessels and barges, exerting in every way a powerful influence in fostering the industries of the place and giving it a value valid title to consideration. From this time dates the commencement of real prosperity in the history of Tonawanda, and the work of development went forward with even strides. Steam tugs and barges were constructed and came into general use, largely superseding sailing craft, and the receipts of lumber at the port began to assume immense proportions. The harbor, which for safety, depth and capacity is one of the finest inland waters in this country, affords almost unlimited facilities for vessels of all classes, a fact so well known that even as far back as the spring of 1853, no less than thirty sail bound for Buffalo, put into this port to escape ice and stress of weather, an event which is still of not infrequent occurrence upon a smaller scale. It is not a difficult task to ascertain by brief examination those causes that have been at work to establish Tonawanda as one of the leading lumber markets in the country, and we shall state them mainly and concisely as follows: First—A situation at the extreme eastward point of navigation, and free access by water to the great lumber lands of the West, Northwest, and Canada. Second—A connection between the harbor and the Erie Canal by means of lockage, affording a direct route for cheap shipment to the seaboard States, twelve miles nearer the eastern terminus than any other available point. Third—Four miles of docks and wharfs, with ample room for still further expansion. Fourth—Railroad facilities by the New York Central and Erie Railways, with sidings to river fronts and all principal yards and mills—together with specially favorable freight rates. Fifth—Immunity from heavy taxation, high rents, labor combinations, and the expenses of harbor dredging. These are in short the salient points of advantage that have contributed to engender and perpetuate a career so remarkable, and in glancing at the whole situation, it may be safely assumed that so long as the West and Northwest produce lumber and the East consumes it, Tonawanda must (unless affected by the Welland Canal), continue to augment its prosperity and resources. In 1875 it was found expedient on the part of those mainly interested in the lumber business to form an association entitled the Tonawanda Lumber Association, for converging the influence and enterprise of the trade upon all objects of mutual advantage. This organization has annually increased in vitality and usefulness, and has done much to promote the general welfare. Its officers are at present as follows: E. Evans—President. Alexander McBean—Vice-President. G. W. Buckmaster—Treasurer. W. R. Gregory—Secretary. DIRECTORS. Theo. S. Fassett. W. H. Cowper. W. H. Gratwick. E. Goodrich. D. R. Burrows. The statistics herewith submitted were compiled from official sources and may be relied upon as correct. <hr /> LUMBER, LATH AND SHINGLES RECEIVED AT THE PORT OF TONAWANDA FROM ALL SOURCES, FOR EIGHT YEARS FROM 1872 TO 1879 INCLUSIVE. [...] In the face of such figures as the foregoing, it requires no remarkable discernment to anticipate for Tonawanda an increase for the current year (1880) over 1879 of from twenty to thirty per cent. on the gross business transacted, and a regular augmentation thereafter so long as contingent circumstances remain unchanged. So far we have confined ourselves mainly to a consideration of the lumber interests, but there are other industries firmly seated here, that while taking secondary positions, must not be overlooked in this connection. That of boat and barge building is one of these, and adds no little to the stability of the town by the employment of numerous artisans and a very considerable capital. After what has already been said, it is obvious that it would be difficult to choose a point having greater facilities for the prosecution of such enterprises, and that this is the case, can be seen by the rapid annual increase of operations in this department. Great attention is also given to the manufacture of house building stuff, and many saw and planing mills are constantly turning out vast quantities of sash, doors, blinds, frames, mouldings, shingles, lath, siding, flooring, sheathing, and especially in preparing material for house and boat building; ingenious machinery is employed that we have not observed. [...] to the manufacturer of furniture seeking a spot for the profitable and convenient prosecution of his business, we have no hesitancy in saying that Tonawanda presents almost unequalled inducements which should not fail to incite at least investigation—a remark which holds equally good with reference to wood-workers in all departments of trade. It could hardly be expected that, springing from insignificance into comparative importance in one decade, Tonawanda should possess an appearance characteristic of age and prominence. Yet even in this respect the visitor will find much to commend in the way of churches, business blocks and private residences, not only suggesting opulence and stability, but indicative of refinement and culture. Located, as before described, twelve miles from Buffalo, this is not surprising; and with a population of nearly seven thousand, all the social advantages of the most favored communities are attainable. Two weekly newspapers are published here, both of which have placed us under obligations for professional courtesies. The Tonawanda Herald, which was established in 1874, by Jay Densmore, is now controlled by Messrs. Warren & Chapman, and is edited with ability and spirit, having Democratic proclivities and exerting an active political influence throughout the country. Its circulation is said to be the largest achieved by any local journal, and is rapidly increasing, while its devotion to the commercial and other interests of the community in which it is published, entitles it to general support. The Tonawanda Index was founded in 1876 by J. A. L. Fisher, who still continues its publication, aided in the editorial work by Geo. S. Hobbie. The Index is a nine column folio, independently Republican in politics, first class typographically, and circulates extensively through Erie, Niagara and adjacent counties. It has acquired a State reputation, and is an excellent medium for reaching the people in range of its circulation. Within a short period a daily miniature paper entitled The News, has been issued by Mr. Hobbie, containing concisely the local current news. Closing this rapid and general review of the industries of Tonawanda, we especially direct the attention of the reader to the series of articles that follow, as containing more detailed and valuable information than can be readily obtained from any other source. These articles are based upon facts collected with much trouble and expense by the publishers, and have been written with a view of disclosing more fully the resources of this place. Care has been taken to adhere closely to the verities, and the reader may safely rely upon all statements made as being strictly within the bounds of truth. We have found the business men of Tonawanda courteous, enterprising and honorable to a remarkable degree, and consider ourselves under obligations to Messrs. Smith, Fassett & Co., Messrs. Evans, Schwinger & Co., and Messrs. J. A. Bliss and Frederick Smith to whom we return thanks for valued aid in our undertaking. TONAWANDA The reader will find in the notices which follow a representation of the best enterprise, progress, and development of Tonawanda. To those who are interested in the Lumber trade in any of its departments these articles will convey more information than can possibly be derived collectively from any other source. The facts embodied are far from being exaggerated, and fail even in doing justice to the industry and perseverance which characterizes this community. We commend these articles to the special attention of those who may be interested in this important branch of trade, and regret that our space does not afford opportunity for further elaboration. <hr /> J. A. BLISS, MANUFACTURER OF SHINGLES, TONAWANDA It not unfrequently occurs that a particular section of country derives its importance, and becomes conspicuously prominent on account of some special department of trade, or leading article of commerce. Tonawanda so far from being an exception to this rule, is a remarkable illustration of it. Mention the name of Tonawanda, and visions of Timber, acres of Lumber and an array of saw-mills, planing-mills, shingle-mills, and all that appertains to or is involved in wood and its products, will rise before the mind. The capital involved is exceedingly large, and the annual productions exceed those of any locality (with two exceptions) in the United States. Among the prominent houses in Tonawanda, and which may properly be termed one of the pioneers in the business, is that of Mr. J. A. Bliss, manufacturer of and dealer in Sawed and Cut Shingles. He has been in this business as far back as 1858. His finances were not of an encouraging character, he having but fifteen cents in his pocket, and no other resources but the possession of an indomitable will, a practical knowledge of his business, energy and industry, which in his case proved the harbinger of success, resulted in the accumulation of capital figuring up the handsome sum of fifty thousand dollars. This business has assumed large proportions, requiring the occupancy of two Mills, the larger covering an area of 125x60 feet, the smaller 40x60 feet. The machinery is complete, embracing all the latest improvements, among which are three Cutting Machines (capacity fifty thousand each daily); two Trevor Machines; one 12-block Rotary Machine (capacity two hundred and fifty thousand); also, one 28-inch-diameter cross-cut Circular Saw—the largest twin-cylinder in the world. Two Steam Engines are required, 120 and 50-horse power respectively; while one hundred and fifty hands are employed in the several departments. His products, which amount to one hundred and fifty thousand daily, finds a ready market in New York, New England, and Pennsylvania. The Shingles produced by this house rank among the best, and have secured the reputation and market; and the personal supervision of Mr. Bliss over his business ensures its superior standard in the public market—one that which, in the past, has built up the future, the true worthiness of his Mills, and which from their merits and the efforts of Mr. J. A. Goodrich, head salesman, have become so widely known throughout the country. Mr. J. A. Bliss is a native of Bradford, Ontario County, N. Y., and was born August 10, 1827, and came to Tonawanda in 1848. His popularity may be inferred from the fact that he has held the office of Postmaster some seven times in twelve years. He has always occupied a prominent place in advancing the growth and general prosperity of this place, and may be justly considered as one of the representative business men of Tonawanda. The facts, to which we have referred, are the best guarantee, that whoever may effect commercial transactions with him, can do so with the confidence that their best interests will be conserved. In this connection we may remark that Mr. J. A. Bliss is the senior member of the firm Bliss & Smith (of this place), dealers in Michigan Pine Lumber, Spars, etc., to which reference has already been made. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> VINCENT & HITTEL, PLANING MILL; WHOLESALE AND COMMISSION LUMBER; LUMBER RECEIVERS, DRESSERS AND SHIPPERS, TONAWANDA. Among the numerous enterprising Lumber Dealers of Tonawanda the firm of Vincent & Hittel holds a prominent place, having had a lengthened experience and become thoroughly conversant with every detail and requirement of their business. Prompt and reliable in their dealings, it is no wonder that they have attained to such popularity, and that success has attended their efforts to so large a degree. During the year 1879 their business increased at a rapid rate, the present year opening out to them increased avenues of trade; but one of those unforeseen misfortunes happened, which for the time being, checked their progress. On the twentieth of February last their mill was entirely destroyed by fire, but they immediately set about rebuilding their present new structure, which covers 65x65 feet and is built in a most substantial manner, is equipped with the best modern machinery, and every convenience to do work rapidly and well. Their grounds cover an area of 135x450 feet, upon which side-tracks are laid, connecting with the New York Central and Erie Railroads, while they have a frontage on Niagara river of 875 feet, which such facilities, added to their practical experience, energy and ability, are the necessary elements to maintain and develop the patronage heretofore liberally bestowed and deservedly secured. Their trade is an extended one, reaching all over the New England States and elsewhere. The members of this firm have been associated in this enterprise since 1873; while Mr. Vincent was one of the pioneers in this region in the Lumber trade. They are practical, judicious and enterprising men, and, judging from their past success and their present facilities, it is not too much to say that for them a prosperous future is sure to result in proving that whoever may effect business transactions with Vincent & Hittel will find them prompt and reliable in all respects. (See advertisement elsewhere.) [selections uploaded to NTHistory.com] COWPER & GREGORY, FORWARDERS AND COMMISSION LUMBER DEALERS, TONAWANDA Another well-known house, engaged as Forwarders and Commission Lumber Dealers, in Tonawanda, is that of Messrs. Cowper & Gregory, which was established in 1875, with an ample capital and unlimited facilities for forwarding consignments of lumber, etc., either by canal or rail, one of their docks having a switch of the New York Central Railroad running upon it. The premises of the firm are situated on Tonawanda Creek and Niagara River. They possess a dock frontage of the greatest length recorded, and are exceptionally well suited for the business, which extends over New York, the Eastern States, Michigan and Canada. The senior partner is a native of New Brunswick, Canada, and was born in 1849, while the junior member is from Ithaca, Tompkins County, N.Y., where he was born in 1848. The satisfaction enjoyed by their patrons for the expeditious and discriminating manner in which they conduct all business intrusted to them, merits the approbation of those with whom they have effected relations, and tends to promote the annual increase of their business. Both members of this firm being in the prime of life, aggressive and energetic in the business they control, it is not too much to say or anticipate, that a prosperous future awaits them, and that they will at least keep pace with contemporaneous concerns engaged as forwarding and commission lumber dealers. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> GOODRICH & ELLINGER, RECEIVERS AND FORWARDERS OF LUMBER, TONAWANDA. The above firm was established in 1878, and entered at once upon the transaction of a business as Receivers and Forwarders of Pine Lumber, Lath, Shingles, etc. The resources of the Firm were amply sufficient for all they contemplated, and in the possession of unusual facilities for shipping both by canal and rail, the business increased to such an extent that in 1879 no less than eighty million feet of Lumber were handled by the concern, which controls a dock frontage on the Niagara river of two thousand eight hundred feet. For promptness and energy in the prosecution of their duties, the firm has already established a favorable and widely extended reputation, and is highly commended to Eastern buyers as a medium through which to obtain their supplies from the West. Mr. F. Goodrich, the senior partner, is originally from New York City, where he was born in 1845, but came from Bay City, Mich., to Tonawanda in 1877. Mr. A. A. Ellinger, the junior member of the firm, was born in Buffalo in 1850, having been a resident of this place, however, since 1859. Both members of the house are thoroughly posted in the transportation and freighting of Lumber, and may be regarded as prompt, reliable and active agents for the successful fulfillment of the responsible duties which they assume. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> P. W. SCRIBNER, SHIPPING AND COMMISSION LUMBER DEALER, INSURANCE AGENT, ETC. The remarkable growth of the Lumber trade and cognate industries in Tonawanda, during the past decades, has placed it in a position and given it a prominence that demands a detailed description at our hands, aside from the fact of a general character, which will be found elsewhere in this work. Of those engaged in mercantile or related operations, whom it becomes our duty to note, we must call attention to the chief enterprise of Mr. P. W. Scribner, who is engaged not only in the lumber trade, as a Shipper and Commission Dealer, but devotes considerable attention to Fire and Marine Underwriting, representing in this capacity many of the most substantial, solvent and trustworthy Insurance Companies operating in this state; a list of which herewith will fully substantiate this statement: Liverpool, London and Globe; Queen’s Insurance Co.; Hamburg, Germany; Hamburg-Magdeburg Insurance Co., Hamburg, Germany; Providence-Washington Insurance Co.; Security Insurance Co., New Haven, Conn.; representing in all cash assets of over thirty-eight million dollars, not including those of the National Loan Insurance Co., of New York, and the New England Underwriters’ Organization, for the assumption of Marine and Inland risks. With such facilities in this branch of his business, Mr. Scribner is enabled to offer perfect security, absolute indemnity and the prompt adjustment of losses. In the further department of his operations the means for the successful prosecution of the trade are hardly less copious, his dockage on the Niagara river extending to twelve hundred feet, affording every convenience for transshipment, being connected directly with the New York Central and Erie Rail Roads, and the Erie Canal. The business transacted annually has a very extensive one, embracing with its range Rochester, Syracuse, Troy, Albany, New York and many other points. A native of Tarrytown, this state, where he was born in 1834, Mr. Scribner came to Tonawanda and commenced operations in 1874. His energy, enterprise and industry have led to a substantial success, a success as richly deserved as it has been honestly achieved. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> E. MORS & CO., WHOLESALE AND RETAIL DEALERS AND COMMISSION MERCHANTS IN ROUND AND SQUARE OAK AND PINE LUMBER, TONAWANDA. Another of those extensive enterprises in the Lumber trade, for which Tonawanda has attained a wide repute, is that of E. Mors & Co., who carry on operations here under the management of F. J. Fellows, to the extent of from five to ten million feet per annum. The headquarters of the firm are at West Troy, New York, but the advantages presented by Tonawanda as a transhipping port, are such as to have led to the establishment of this branch, for greater convenience in the transaction of the business. Wholesale and Retail Dealers, as well as operators on Commission, the attention of the firm is mainly directed to a business in Round and Square Oak and Pine Timber, which is procured mostly in Michigan, of the best quality cheap for the trade, and can be handled and sold more cheaply at this point than at other. Mr. F. J. Fellows, who, as before remarked, is the resident representative of the firm, is also United States Custom House Officer at this point and has secured the general esteem by the prompt, liberal and reliable manner in which he executes all orders devolving upon him. The firm (which was originated by Messrs McDougall), lose no favor with their friends, and are entitled to the consideration of the trade, who find assured advantages by the establishment of relations with the house. The stock carried will average about three million feet of timber, and is sufficiently diversified to meet all demands in the special direction taken by this popular firm. <hr /> ROMER & VIELHAUER, TONAWANDA PLANING MILL. The enormous Lumber trade which is carried on at this point, between the greater timber producing districts of the Lakes and the entire Eastern and Middle States, make it an unusually favorable one for the establishment of any business involving a manufacture having this material as its basis. In this respect, therefore, the house of Messrs. Romer & Vielhauer is possessed of many advantages and conveniences, which enable it to prosecute the Planing Mill business with more than ordinary success. This firm was organized in 1875, and began with a small capital but considerable previous experience, the manufacture of Doors, Blinds, Shutters, Window Frames, Flooring, Siding, Mouldings, and in short all kinds of material entering into the construction of houses. The plant is an excellently located lot of shipping purposes, possessing a frontage of eight hundred feet upon the Tonawanda creek, and containing a milling area of 400x600 feet, and other buildings covering a surface of three thousand square feet. Fifteen employees are engaged by the firm in its operations, and a 20-horse power steam engine, with surplus capacity, is required to operate the machinery in use, all of which is of the most modern design for the wood-working purposes. From the time of its establishment until the present the business has been marked by a constant and steady increase, the capital has been considerably enlarged, and by the energy and industry of the proprietors a trade has been established which embraces many of the principal points in the state. The senior partner of the firm, Mr. T. J. Romer, is a native of New York City, born there in 1828, and, until recently, a resident of Buffalo for half a century. Mr. Vielhauer comes from Germany, where he was born in the same year as his partner. He has resided in Tonawanda and Buffalo for a number of years, and it is not too much to say that both possess an unusual aptitude for the business, over which they exercise the closest supervision. Dealers and others at a distance will find their account in corresponding with this firm, as many advantages in price and otherwise are certain to accrue to them from such a connection. As an evidence of the estimation in which this firm and their work is held, we may cite the fact that they have now draughts and plans for furnishing a large new church in Brooklyn, N. Y.; the architect being L. B. Volk, 229 Broadway, New York. (See advertisement elsewhere.) J. H. DeGRAFF, DEALER IN LUMBER, TONAWANDA. It is a noticeable fact that, from the eligible situation of the place, the trade of Tonawanda has turned to lumber (the most staple article of commerce), and has more capital invested in it between the pine lands of Michigan and the port of debarkation than any other commercial commodity. Several houses of high commercial standing are largely interested in it, and turn over during the course of a season many millions of feet. Among other houses extensively engaged in the business will be found that of Mr. J. H. DeGraff, who was born in Onondaga County in this state, and came to Tonawanda in 1854. He commenced dealing in Lumber, Logs and Long Timber in 1862, and his business has since been extended until it has become one of the largest in the place. He owns Pine lands in Michigan, from whence he obtains his supply. This he transports to his yards at Tonawanda, where the demand for this article is at all times brisk and lively. Mr. DeGraff's office is located at the store of B. H. Neff, on Main street, and here facilities are at all times offered to purchasers for the transaction of business connected in any way with the trade, to which he has for many years devoted his energies and attention. He always carries a large stock on hand, which at the present time amounts to three million feet; this combines all the different sorts, lengths and sizes necessary or suitable for trade requirements. The capital invested in the business is necessarily very large, and the trade done is correspondingly so, the sales during last season in Timber and Lumber amounting to eighty-three thousand dollars. With a lengthened experience, a command of capital sufficient for all his requirements, and possessing both Michigan and Tonawanda every facility necessary for doing an important amount of business, Mr. DeGraff will doubtless long retain that high commercial standing and business prosperity which becomes his, due by energetic action and probity in his dealings. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> FREDERICK SMITH, MANUFACTURER AND DEALER IN OAK AND PINE BRIDGE AND BUILDING TIMBER, TONAWANDA. The enterprise displayed by those engaged in the Lumber business at Tonawanda has been, and is of such an active and aggressive character as to center at this point an enormous trade, and give every assurance of rapid increase and development. Many operators in this direction are now transacting a business that involves a large amount of capital, and results in a product, the dimensions of which are almost colossal. Among such, Mr. Frederick Smith has accorded a conspicuous and prominent position as one of Tonawanda’s pioneers in this important industry. The business conducted by Mr. Smith was originated by him in 1859, with an investment of capital and resources, and facilities exceedingly limited. The admirable industry of the trader, however, and the native talent and tact of its founder, soon caused the business to flourish, and especially within the last ten years a success has attended the enterprise almost as spontaneous. The plant of Mr. Smith is located on the Tonawanda Creek, adjacent to the New York Central and Erie Railroads, with which it has connecting tracks that run immediately to the premises, and also convenient to the Erie Canal, by which shipments are also made. His factory, located at Lumber by Lake, the site possesses unequalled facilities. This plant covers an area of about three acres and contains a saw mill of superior quality, 75x75 feet, fully equipped with the very best modern machinery, amongst which are two circular saws, one steam engine, 140-horse power, and a rotary saw of the best pattern, together with additional machinery besides Stearns’ new improved stock for straightening timber (this being the only one of its kind in the state), an operation which it performs with confidence and rapidity. Indeed, so far, has Mr. Smith gone in securing every advantageous appliance as to have spent twelve thousand dollars in new machinery the last year. The mill and property consolidated does not lay completely at rest in Tonawanda, its value being estimated at about fifty thousand dollars. There is an expense for the factory, of about four hundred dollars per week. Four pair of Horses, wagons, sleds, etc., being also in constant requisition. Ten million feet of Lumber of all kinds are handled here annually, and a trade is transacted over the States of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and other localities in the Eastern and Middle States. The business embraces Lumber and Timbers of all kinds, special attention being paid to the manufacture of Oak and Pine Bridge and Building; also, furnishings for Boats and Vessels, Timber, Lath, Pickets and all kinds of Timber and rough Lumber, and Bills sawed to order and cut to desired shapes and dimensions. The clerical department is under the charge of Mr. C. T. Rosow, Book-keeper, who for ten years has occupied his present position with credit to himself, and advantage to his employer. Mr. Frederick Smith is of Prussian origin, and was born in 1835; having accompanied his parents to this country in 1842, he settled in Tonawanda in 1851, and commenced, as before stated, his present business in 1859, in which he has ever since been engaged. Mr. Smith is also a member of the firm of Bliss & Smith, who are also identified with the same industry (and of whom we speak elsewhere), and is widely known in the Lumber trade as one who has done no little to establish up to the present state of progress; he, in all respects Mr. Smith is entitled to the credit that he may properly be regarded as a public man and one whose business relations with his house can fully verify our statements and confirm the reputation which it enjoys. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> A. G. KENT, LUMBER, TONAWANDA. One of the oldest and most esteemed men in the Lumber trade in Tonawanda is Mr. A. G. Kent, who has been engaged in the business for many years. He is a dealer in Oak and Pine Logs and Timber, of all kinds, saws Timber to order, and gives special attention to Pile driving and Dock building. In this part of the business he has the most great experience, and his working appliances are of the most modern kind. His contracts can be obtained for the purpose. His place of business is at the corner of Webster and Front streets, and here he has every convenience for doing an unlimited amount of trade. Mr. Kent, who is a native of this state, having been born at Rome in 1822, came to Tonawanda in 1855, and began business as above so long ago as 1854, with sufficient capital for his wants, which, combined with commendable energy, indomitable perseverance and a thorough knowledge of his business, was the basis of his present prosperity and has led to the prominent standing he now occupies among dealers in Lumber. From fifteen to forty hands are employed on the various departments of his extensive business, which varies with the seasons and the consequent fluctuations of trade. When navigation is closed in winter, the Lumber market is comparatively speaking, stagnant, and only sufficient hands are retained to attend to the limited local orders. Mr. Kent’s operations are very large locally, and likewise extend to Lockport, Rochester, Troy, Buffalo, Canada, and all along the Erie canal to the various ports, in all of which places his business associates regard him as the most satisfactory aid, and his responsibility and capacity bear the highest character. <hr /> HOWES & EVANS, PLANING MILL, NEAR RAILROAD DEPOT, TONAWANDA. Carefully exploring the industrial resources and advantages of Tonawanda, we cannot omit some comment upon the enterprise shown by Messrs. Howes & Evans, who are engaged in the Planing Mill business with a success that entitles them to recognition in this work. Succeeding the house of Skidd & Evans more than a year ago, the above firm began operations with a limited capital, but a thorough knowledge of the business, as shown by the fact that it has already increased to a very considerable extent. The premises occupied by the firm are located near the junction of the Lockport and the Erie Railroads; the grounds being 150x200 feet in dimensions. The Mill occupies a superficial area of 40x50 feet. This Mill is well supplied with machinery, all of which is of the very best design, and is operated by one new engine of 35-horse power, the products being Rough and Dressed Lumber of all kinds for building purposes. The individual members of the firm are Messrs. L. D. Howes and J. P. Evans; the former being a native of Owego, N. Y., born November, 1848; the latter coming here from Fort Ann, Washington Co., N. Y., and was born in Tompkins County, 1832. Thoroughly familiar with the business in which it is engaged, and taking an active part in all its practical details, the firm is prepared to compete with any in offering substantial advantages to the trade, and is highly esteemed as being prompt, reliable and liberal in all its operations. Everything in their line can be furnished on short notice. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> E. EVANS & SONS, DEALERS IN MASTS, CANADA AND MICHIGAN ROUND TIMBER; TUGS FOR RAFT TOWING, TONAWANDA. One of the oldest houses in Tonawanda engaged in the timber trade, having been established in 1861, by Evans, Kimbarker & Co., that of E. Evans & Sons is entitled to more than brief mention in these pages. Having conducted business under the first firm title from 1861 to November, 1877, the style was then stated to Evans, Yocum & Co., who were finally succeeded, January 1st, 1880, by the present concern. Few houses in this place enjoy better facilities for the transaction of an extensive business in Canada and Michigan Round Timber and Masts of every description than E. Evans & Sons, nor offer more favorable inducements in the matter of Towing and Rafting, by tugs constructed especially for this purpose. The plant of the firm is most availably situated for the business, and possesses a frontage on Tonawanda Creek of fifteen hundred feet, being, also, contiguous to lake, railways and canal. Here numerous employees find occupation in handling and caring for a stock that averages between two and three million feet, and in aiding the prosecution of the business, which last year amounted to over eighty thousand dollars. One large vessel and numerous small crafts, tugs, etc., are owned and controlled by the firm, in transporting timber for itself as well as others, a considerable part of the trade being in this direction. The individual members of the house are E. Evans, H. J., and J. E. Evans (the former being of the firm of Evans, Schwinger & Co., bankers), all of whom possess a thorough, practical knowledge of the work in which they are engaged. The relations of the firm extend over a wide territory, embracing Albany, Troy, New York City, Boston, Rochester, etc., where a large amount of the sales are thereupon located. The influence exercised by this house in the promotion of the lumber trade at Tonawanda, has been of the most substantial and useful character, and has led, in no small degree, to the promotion of an industry which seems destined to become one of the most important in the State. Dealers establishing a connection with this house may depend upon receiving prompt and liberal treatment, and such marked advantages as can, with difficulty, be duplicated elsewhere. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> P. S. HUMPHREY, GENERAL INSURANCE AGENT, CORNER MAIN AND SOUTH CANAL STREETS, TONAWANDA, N. Y. In submitting to our readers a detailed description of the industries of Tonawanda, it must not be forgotten, that the lumber business, the controlling trade of the place, is but one of her necessary enterprises, which demand our attention. Of such, that of the underwriting and soliciting of security against the disasters of fire and conflagration is of the highest importance, and engaged in this distinctive department of the business, we find Mr. P. S. Humphrey, who transacts a three-fourths of the insurance done at this port. For many years a resident of Tonawanda and thoroughly posted in all matters touching the familiar trade of the water, Mr. Humphrey has become the agent and representative of a number of the most prominent and responsible Fire and Marine Companies of the world, as will appear from the following: Home Insurance Company, of New York; incorporated 1853; capital, $3,000,000; assets, $6,140,988; losses paid since establishment, $29,900,884. North British & Mercantile Insurance Company, of London, England; incorporated by Royal Chapter, 1809; capital, United States, $1,844,598. This Company paid for losses in the Chicago and Boston great fires $2,400,000, besides contributing to the relief of sufferers. Fire Association of Philadelphia; organized 1817; assets, $6,715,417; one of the oldest and most reliable companies in this country. The Buffalo German Insurance Company; organized 1864; assets, $871,062.46; net surplus over all liabilities, $421,022.46. Hanover Insurance Company, New York; incorporated 1852; assets, $1,650,709. Lancashire Insurance Company of Manchester, England; organized 1872; commenced business in the United States in 1872, and has accumulated assets in this country to the amount of $879,899. German American Insurance Company, of New York; capital, $2,000,000; gross assets, $2,169,309; a very strong and reliable company, of which Mr. Humphrey has recently assumed the agency. The Peoples’ Insurance Company, of Newark, N. J.; incorporated 1866; cash assets, $581,455. United Firemen, of Philadelphia; organized 1860; assets, $672,771. St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, of St. Paul, Minnesota; cash assets, $857,681. And Lamar Insurance Company, of New York, with assets $375,913; the last two named issuing joint policies on canal cargoes. These companies represent an aggregate available accumulation of over $20,000,000, and we are compelled to admit, that few underwriters, even in the most complete cities, represent so vast a capital in the prosecution of their business. In addition to the foregoing, Mr. Humphrey is agent for the only strictly Life and Accident Insurance Company in the United States, viz: The Travelers’ Life and Accident Company, of Hartford, an organization whose usefulness is daily increasing at this point. With such almost unparalleled advantages, it is not surprising that Mr. Humphrey is enabled to transact a business in every way satisfactory to his clients as well as to himself and that the honest interests he has cultivated are vested in his hands. In addition to his other duties, Mr. Humphrey is at present Collector of Customs at this port, and is in every capacity a man of enterprise, action, and ability. A native of Tonawanda, where he was born in 1851, his career has been eminently successful, and his efforts have proved of general benefit to the community. <hr /> TONAWANDA PIPE WORKS, MANUFACTURERS OF THE WYCKOFF PATENT WATER AND GAS PIPE, TONAWANDA. In examining into the interests and resources of Tonawanda it becomes our duty to note one industry which, entirely unique in its way, stands alone, there being but one other contemporaneous concern of the kind in this country. We allude by this reference to the Tonawanda Pipe Works, where the manufacture of the Wyckoff Patent Water and Gas Pipe is carried on by this concern upon a successful and extended scale. The particularly advantageous position of Tonawanda, upon which we have detailed elsewhere, makes it of all points one most favorable for the prosecution of any enterprise involving the use of Timber. Availing himself of these advantages, Mr. I. S. Hobbie in 1857 established the concern in question, which after one or two changes still remains under his management, the above title being adopted. The plant covers an area of about four acres, and has been judiciously located with a view to convenience in the receipt of Lumber by lake, and the shipment of products by lake, railroads and canal. The building where the manufacture is carried on alone occupies a surface area of more than one acre, the same being admirably supplied with wood-working machinery, patented and expressly invented for the manufacture of this pipe. A 60-horse-power steam engine, with large surplus boiler capacity, is required to operate this mechanism, while thirty-five hands find employment in the works. The product consists of Wooden Piping of all dimensions adapted expressly for Water, Gas, and extremely useful as casing for Steam pipes. This tubing is manufactured in the most ingenious manner, the method of construction being so exact and admirable as to [...] The Circulars Issued by the Concern The circulars issued by the concern contain hundreds of testimonials with regard to the lasting efficacy and usefulness of this material for Water and Gas conveyance. It is shown conclusively, and is proved by the highest authorities in engineering and practical mechanics, that the Wyckoff Pipe is not only capable of standing any reasonable pressure such as required in the Holly Water system, but also possesses that durability which gives it a vast superiority over metal, making on this account the cheapest piping extant. Certain other claims have been made for it, which are also equally well established in the line of purity, as a conductor, anti-freezing qualities, elasticity, convenience in tapping and laying, besides other advantages of a like character. Our space does not permit us to enter into the various patented processes for the manufacture of the product, but it becomes obvious upon a careful examination that its desirability and usefulness is based upon naturally philosophic principles that cannot be gainsaid. The introduction of this article has been attended with signal success, and an extensive trade has been established over all the New England and a large number of the Western and Middle States. Mr. Hobbie, the originator of the business in Tonawanda, was born in Duchess County (this State) 1820, and though, as before stated, he established the plant here in 1857, he did not make this place his permanent residence until two years ago. We dislike the employment of superlatives from a natural apprehension of seeming to exaggerate, but in this case, after a thorough examination of its claims, we are obliged to confess that the Wyckoff Patent Piping is the best in all respects for the purposes to which it is applied than any with which we are acquainted. Farmers, Tanners, Engineers for Water and Gas Works, and others interested, will find it greatly to their advantage to investigate the truth of the foregoing statements, all facts being readily obtainable by addressing the Tonawanda Pipe Works, Tonawanda, Erie Co., N. Y. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> Alexander McBean, Manufacturer and General Dealer in Timber and Lumber, Tonawanda. While our attention is directed to the Lumber business of Tonawanda, of which a copious editorial account will be found elsewhere, we do not feel at liberty to evade a cordial recognition of the enterprise of Mr. Alexander McBean, who established himself here in 1872, and commenced operations as a general dealer in Timber and Lumber. Beginning upon a comparatively small scale, the business during the last eight years has grown to very extensive proportions, involving the manufacture of Bridge, Building and Ship Timber, Spars, Oak and Pine, Backing for Frames, Shingles, Laths, Siding, Ceiling, Flooring, and all sorts of Kiln-dried and Boat-building material. Some idea may be gained of the dimensions of the business from the fact that two million feet of Timber are in stock at the present time, while the capacity averages about six million feet annually. The plant, which is situated on the Tonawanda Creek and Erie Canal, occupies about five acres, the Mill alone having a superficial area of 60x120 feet, where from fifteen to thirty operatives find constant employment, and a 55-horse-power steam engine, with boiler of requisite capacity, is required to drive the machinery. The business is divided into two departments, viz: that which pertains to Boat Building and that connected with the Mill. With reference to the latter it may be stated that the machinery with which it is equipped embraces all the latest modern improvements for securing perfection and rapidity, no expense having been spared to make this Mill as complete as possible. Assisted by Mr. C. W. Watkins, agent and salesman, Mr. McBean has established a trade of wide extent, ranging all over the States, chiefly through the East, and largely in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Originally from Canada, Mr. McBean acquired a large experience in the Lumber business before coming here from Michigan in 1871, and is one of a family, all of whom are prominent in the Lumber trade. Besides conducting the operations in Tonawanda, to which we have alluded, a large business is carried on at Bradford, Pa., where a branch yard was established in 1876. In addition to the large interests already alluded to, Mr. McBean has a well equipped Saw-mill in Tawas City, Lake Michigan, having a capacity of thirteen million feet annually with docking facilities connected therewith for four million feet. All the long Timber for his Tonawanda and Bradford business is manufactured from his own Pine Lands, while the short Logs are cut at the Tawas Mills in Stock Lumber, and are sold in all parts of the United States. Mr. McBean has also under erection a Salt Works in connection with the Tawas Mills, the capacity of which will be one hundred and fifty barrels daily, and from the foregoing some slight conception may be had of the large interests owned by Mr. McBean. To the advancement of these his well-known business tact and energy are directed. His success and facilities, as well as the honorable character of his dealings, have placed him on a par with any of his contemporaries, and enable him to offer advantages to the trade not readily secured elsewhere. BLISS & SMITH, DEALERS IN MICHIGAN PINE LUMBER, SPARS, ETC., TONAWANDA. "A threefold cord is not easily broken." This adage, or figure of speech, is frequently used when we desire to convey the idea of strength, central power, combinations whether in the political, social, or commercial avenues of life, are alike indicative of strength and influence, either for good, or its opposite, according to the principles by which they are governed, or the foundations upon which they are laid. The above remarks are pertinent in their application to the firm of Bliss & Smith, not only as viewed in their firm construction, but from the fact that each one separately adds to this joint enterprise—J. A. Bliss having an extensive Shingle Mills and Frederick Smith equally large and extensive Saw Mills, also Dealers in Lumber and Bill Stuff, Oak, Pine, Lath, etc. Their triple cord is a strong one; bound together by capital, experience, facilities and energy, it is proof against the severest strain, and equal to all emergencies. The firm of Bliss & Smith, Timber Dealers, was organized in 1877 to import Timber from Deal Shore, Michigan to Tonawanda. In 1878 they brought to this place two million feet, in 1879 seven million feet, in 1880 expect to reach ten million feet, and from such figures, the magnitude of their business may be inferred. During the winter they employ some hundred and fifty hands, lessening their force during Summer. This enterprise finds a ready market in Michigan and New York State. Mr. S. C. Hosmer has charge of the clerical sales department for Bliss & Smith, and is specially qualified for the responsible position he holds. As stated in other notices in this work, Mr. J. A. Bliss is a native of Ontario County, N. Y., while Mr. Frederick Smith is a native of Germany; both, however, are old residents of Tonawanda and have done much to advance the best interests of the place. (See advertisement elsewhere.) <hr /> TONAWANDA ENGINE AND MACHINE CO., GENERAL MACHINISTS AND IRON FOUNDERS, TONAWANDA. A description of the industries of Tonawanda would be far from complete without some mention, at least, of the Tonawanda Engine and Machine Co., which was established here in 1873 by James Armitage, Allen, and George Herschell, has sprung into considerable prominence, and is promising to no small degree of the general welfare of this community. Commencing with a capital entirely inadequate to the essential requirements of their operations, the Company has succeeded in augmenting their original resources by degrees, but so successful, however, have they been in this, that at present, they maintain a position as one of the best of the kind in Tonawanda, having a productive capacity more in keeping with the demands made upon the resources of the Company. The plant is located near Oliver Street, near the railway depot, and occupies three-quarters of an acre, containing several buildings; one 30x60 feet in extent, with a wing twenty-five by twenty feet, and a Foundry having an area forty-two by sixty feet, besides other structures. The premises contain in all a series of buildings completely suited to their employment, which are fitted up with all the requisite machinery, including Foundry Apparatus, Trip Hammers, Planers, Punches, Boring Lathes, Steam Punches and all the mechanisms necessary for the manufacture of Agricultural, Mill Gearing and Saw-Mill Machinery, Hoisting Machinery, Churches, Chimneys, Cupola Bells, Hand-Winches, Agricultural Machinery, such as Harrows and Reapers, and other Iron Castings. With a 30-horse power Steam Engine which exhibits boiler capacity... transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/429804ab390bc7d5510b954d3d8cdd72.jpg 7546f0d75ec8c93225c8524d2dac98dd https://nthistory.com/files/original/cc14515ca2b48aa616508086c6e9c5fa.pdf 2c64db363f13681cc1a3e0ce91dab07f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Accounts of the Tonawandas Description An account of the resource These book excerpts and articles describe the earliest days of the white settlers in the Tonawandas, as well as the nearby villages of Martinsville, Sawyer's Station, Gratwick and Ironton (incorporated into the city of North Tonawanda in 1897). Book An extensive textual resource. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Paul's Dictionary of Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Tonawanda and Vicinity, transcribed excerpts (1896).pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1896 Description An account of the resource From pp. 163-164: <blockquote>Tonawanda, the second-greatest lumber market in the world, lies midway between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, and it has a happy conceit that it will one day annex Buffalo. Be this as it may, it is a remarkable little city, and either way the annexation results, it will add to the extent of Greater Buffalo. From the city line of Buffalo to the city line of Tonawanda is but a space of three miles, so it is plain to be seen that with such a small barrier between two progressive, rapidly growing cities, the time is close at hand when both will virtually be one, even though they maintain distinct municipal governments. Tonawanda, as it is known to outsiders, comprises Tonawanda and North Tonawanda, but between the residents of the two places, there is a friendly rivalry. North Tonawanda considers itself the most prosperous city in the State of New York and sets forth several reasons of high statistical qualities to that end. Glancing at a comparison in the different periods from 1880 to 1893 inclusive, we find an increase in population of over 720 percent. In 1880 the population was 1,400; in 1892, over 8,000, and in 1893, over 11,000. For the past three years, those who claim to know give the opinion that the increase has been fully as great, if not greater. Besides the increase in population, Tonawanda has added many thousands of dollars in improvements that make a city, and with each new improvement came an increase in population and added industries. Tonawanda has a great harbor and immense dock facilities, or it could not take care of lumber to 422,623,000 feet, as was the case in 1894. But this is not the limit of her capacity. She can handle and store greater amounts than that and ship to the various points expeditiously, and at the same rail or water rate as Buffalo. The harbor can float anything that passes over the lakes, and that, no doubt, has been the principal reason for making it so great a lumber city. Tonawanda has many fine brick and stone buildings. She has churches, schools, banks, and office buildings, all built on the modern plan. She has an electric light plant and four electric car lines. One leads to the Falls and the others connect with Buffalo. It will take but a few years to come to a time when, if a man should get lost in the suburbs of either Buffalo or Tonawanda, and not knowing his landmarks, he would find it impossible to tell which city he is in. Tonawanda has one of the greatest iron industries in this part of the State—a furnace for the production of the best pig iron to be found in the United States. This furnace has a capacity of 200 gross tons per day. The product, which is a high grade of strong foundry iron, is shipped all over the world. This industry has a capital of $500,000. Here is located an extensive plant for the manufacture of a machine familiar to thousands of children and called a merry-go-round. At these works are manufactured canal boat supplies, a patent steering wheel, agricultural implements, feed cutters, and iron rollers. Another branch of this industry is a syphon condensing engine for the saving of fuel. A wonderful machine, which will doubtless increase the fame of Tonawanda, is a refrigerating and calorific apparatus for attachment to freight cars. This machine produces cold or heat at the will of the operator and is the result of forty years' study and experiment.</blockquote> transcription https://nthistory.com/files/original/0045343d15f54c76743fef84e309f015.png 035311b9eac3c2f7e331d846092b884a Photo A photographic depiction of a person or place. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource First Presbyterian Church of Tonawanda Celebrates 120 Years, Locke, article, transcription (Tonawanda News, 1972-06-03).png Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-06-03 Description An account of the resource This article from the Tonawanda News (June 3, 1972) celebrates the 120th anniversary of the First Presbyterian Church of Tonawanda. It recounts the church's origins in 1830, the early rivalry with Methodist congregations, and its official formation in 1852 under Rev. Alexander Rankin. It details the difficulties in securing a meeting place, the generosity of early members, and the eventual organization of the congregation and construction of a church building. -- First Presbyterian Church of Tonawanda celebrates 120 In 1830, Albert H. Tracy, one of the men who helped to lay out Tonawanda, donated a lot on North Canal Street (now North Niagara) for a church building. Because of the religious indifference in the young community, the lot remained vacant for 11 years. In 1841, John Simson led a movement to build a church on the lot. This church, when completed, was known as the Union Free Church and was used on alternate Sundays by the Baptists, Methodists and Universalists. The few Presbyterians who lived in Tonawanda worshipped with one of these denominations. Most chose the Methodists services. However, as time went on, the differences in belief along with the “coldness” of the Presbyterian attitude as compared with the “emotionalism” of the Methodists led to friction between the two groups of worshippers. A separation was inevitable. In 1864, the Methodists left the Union Church, building completed their own church building that had been started a few years earlier on a lot donated to them by Col. John Sweeney. It was at this time that the Rev. Alexander H. Rankin, a Presbyterian minister living at Napoleon chance to stop over in Tonawanda on his way from Buffalo. In the course of a conversation, a Mr. Patterson said, “Mr. Rankin, why can’t you come and preach for us? We can’t find a place.” “Why I can if you make me a place.” The matter was reported to Lewis Payne and Dr. Jessie Locke, both Presbyterians. They at once met the matter and requested of the Methodists the use of their church on the Sunday afternoon at 4 o’clock. The request was granted. Mr. Rankin promised to preach and Mr. Patterson circulated the notice inviting everybody to attend. At the appointed hour the minister was in hand and a crowd had gathered. When they found the Methodist Church, but the door was locked and no one could be found who had a key. Soon one of the officers of the Methodist Church, learning of the situation and filled with indignation at the slight, climbed in at one of the windows and opened the door. This was the first Presbyterian “service” ever held in the Tonawandas. Mr. Rankin continued to come and preached several Sunday afternoons in the Methodist Church. There was little group of Presbyterians meeting every Sunday. By this time the Methodist Church withdrew its consent and they formally organized as the First Presbyterian Church. First Presbyterian Church of Tonawanda This new life of the young church was to acquire a permanent place of worship. It first was compelled to rent a hall in the Miller building, being delay repeatedly in building. Negotiations were opened by the Rev. James Parsons and Dr. John Simson and purchase of a lot was made on Main Street. This they did at a cost of $2,300 of which Mr. Smith paid one half. The time passed on and the Rev. Edgar Dorr, later was unable to because Mr. Locke was unable. The people, many of them by Mr. Rankin, showed a warm interest. On to their buildings and the Presbyterians turned with fervor to house of the Lord and its use. After a thorough remodeling, they returned to the hall they had purchased, and for several years worship was held in it. New pews were laid and a new bell purchased for the church. The church library began with a small group of 100 books. The first minister for the newly organized First Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Frederick C. Williams, began his duties in May 12, 1852 — the same year the first parson was united with the church after its organization was Margaret Dean, Jan. 23. Brought here from the Collegiate Church of New York City. On the same day, Mrs. Sarah A. Austin and Henry Tinker joined in profession of faith. Mrs. Tinker was the sister of Mrs. Sarah A. Austin, who was the daughter of John Austin who was born January 20, 1794. Also joined in the same day was a Miss Eldridge and a Miss Sunderland of Tonawanda. Following, Goodrich, Kendell, and a ministered to the early members: Franklin Goodell, William C. Partington, and Cornelius Hunt all served. During the ministry of the Rev. Edgar Dorr, the Sunday School was organized. He ministered here from 1853 to Jan. 1, 1855. One record shows that 12 members joined during his ministry. Many of them were former Presbyterians who had been members in other communities and brought home to other people the need for the support of the ministry and regular services and the payment of pew rents, when it was a dismissed idea with the weakened and those whose affections and love was needed. The Rev. E.W. Kellogg served from January 1855 until again in 1870 when the total annual subscription was $880. Mr. Rankin again served for a time. He is listed in one record as having married seven couples, four of them in 1854 and one in 1856. He appears to have served many times. He was held in high regard and was always welcome in the homes. His daily walk was a blessing and an example of life for the young men of the church who were brought in for “thorough effort.” He was a man of vigor, strength, and friendliness so amply rewarded. On May 5, 1871, the Rev. Dr. Rankin sat as annual salary of $800 per year. In his later life he chose to reside in Tonawanda. He continued his faithful labors and had charge of the church and was called upon in emergency and his counsel was most sought. The church was his home and work. Plans were laid for a new church to be built of wood, 40 x 80 ft. A subscription to raise money for the church produced $5,600. The offer was accepted and on June 7, 1875 the new church was dedicated. The cost of the church was $8,000 of which the church owed $3,000. transcription