Vandervoorts of Sweeney Street, three articles by Jane R. Penvose, transcriptions (Tonawanda News, 1982-05-28).jpg

Vandervoorts of Sweeney Street, three articles by Jane R. Penvose, transcriptions (Tonawanda News, 1982-05-28).jpg

Vandervoorts of Sweeney Street

Miss Sarah Vandervoort, age 75, was more than annoyed that September of 1882. A half-sunken canal boat lay in Tonawanda Creek across from her home on Sweeney Street and had been there for some time.

"The rafts of timber were bad enough. They were permitted to float sometimes for months, collecting and becoming a great deal of debris, 'nuisance material,' making the air very disagreeable, indeed."

Miss Vandervoort complained "loudly and justly" to The Herald which duly reported the above.

Sarah's residence stood on Sweeney Street, just left of the center of the Packet Inn's main structure today. It was a large, brick building which Tonawandans referred to as a "mansion."

Built in 1836 by her brother, William Vandervoort, it was where he lived with his family, including his mother and his sister Sarah, until his death 22 years later in 1858.

Sarah Vandervoort lived in the mansion alone, except for a servant or two, for 30 years following her brother's death.

Old maps show the brick building to have been an imposing place. One-and-a-half story wings projected from each side of the main structure which was two-and-a-half stories high.

A long, brick, one-story extension ran off the back of the east wing at a very slight angle to the left, directly adjacent to a lane which ran from Sweeney to Tremont Street.

The Vandervoorts were a pioneer family of the Tonawandas. The first residents of what was to become the village of North Tonawanda were William Vandervoort, Col. John Sweeney, and the latter's brother-in-law John Vandervoort. Col. John Sweeney, and the latter's brother-in-law John Vandervoort.

George Goundry, the uncle of John's first wife, owned three-fourths of the land within what would become the village limits.

The older sister of William and Sarah Vandervoort was Moiah Sweeney, the wife of James. Both the Sweeney and the Vandervoort families had come from Mahopac Falls in Putnam County, north of New York City.

They came from an area described as "rolling and hilly, with intervening valleys...and several beautiful lakes and ponds." They came to a region of the lake plains, the swampy area of the Tonawandas, where the Ellicott and Tonawanda Creeks flowed into the Niagara River.

In 1836, when Sarah Vandervoort moved into her brother's brick mansion on Sweeney Street, she had an interesting view of the Tonawandas.

A "rude traveling bridge" spanned Tonawanda Creek where the Webster Street Bridge is now. Immediately east of it was a railroad bridge which ran from Main Street (then Military Road) on the south side to Webster Street on the north side.

Then, just east of the bridges, a four-feet high dam crossed the mouth of the creek. It had been erected in 1823 in preparation for the building of the western section of the Erie Canal which was completed in 1825.

A mill built by William Williams, also in 1825, stood on the south side of the creek at one end of the dam, and a Sweeney mill, erected that same year, stood on the north side at the other end of the dam.

Next door to the Vandervoort mansion, at the corner of Sweeney and Webster Streets, stood the first public house or hotel in what was to become North Tonawanda.

Called The Niagara, it had been built in 1827, and it served as headquarters for the first stage coach route operated out of the Tonawandas.

According to one source, the stage left the Niagara once a week for Lockport, Niagara Falls, and Batavia and twice a week for Buffalo.

The Niagara burned in 1844, and it would seem William Vandervoort did not replace it.

He was probably devoting most of his time to the first bank of the Tonawandas which he had established in 1836. Research shows he operated it out of the brick mansion.

Perhaps his bank was in one of the mansion's wings, or, perhaps, it was part of the long, one-story extension in back of the mansion and adjacent to the lane leading to Tremont Street.

Daniel Webster, after whom Webster Street was named and a friend of Stephen White of White's Island (Tonawanda Island), was said to have been a "frequent visitor" at the bank during his wedding tour. So the story goes— all of which may or may not tell us something about the great orator-statesman's priorities.

Whatever his priorities, Daniel Webster knew what the brick mansion on Sweeney Street looked like, and we don't. Research has failed to provide a photo of the Vandervoort mansion, even in the background of a canal scene.

If anyone has a relevant photo, or if some very senior citizen remembers seeing it before it was torn down in 1912 or remembers hearing something of interest about it, we would be most interested.

Write me c/o Tonawanda News, 435 River Road, North Tonawanda 14120. Next: More Vandervoorts and Miss Sarah.

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Vandervoorts come, Vandervoorts go

If notice is ever made of a ghost in the Packet Inn, especially in the west side of the main structure, it would have to be that of Miss Sarah Vandervoort.

During the last century, it was she who lived for 50 years in a brick mansion located on that spot. 30 of them alone.

History doesn't show what occupied her time and thoughts, as from her unique vantage point, she witnessed the growth of the Tonawandas from canal hamlet to booming lumber center.

Research only shows facts about Sarah Vandervoort and her family that can be pieced together, inviting the reader's imagination to take over from there.

It appears that in 1836, when William Vandervoort moved his mother and 29-year-old sister Sarah into the new brick mansion, there were two nephews and a niece with them. All Vandervoorts, the children were 17, 14, and 11 years respectively. Unhappily, it was that year also that Moiah Sweeney, wife of William and Sarah Vandervoort, died at age 40.

Moiah was survived by her husband, three sons, and two daughters. The children ranged in age from eight to 15 years. James Sweeney and his children continued to live here.

Sarah Vandervoort, therefore, had numerous Vandervoort and Sweeney nieces and nephews with her and about her home she shared with brother and mother.

In addition to banking business, William Vandervoort seems to have led a busy life. He was supervisor of the Town of Wheatfield in 1839.

In addition to his banking business, which he operated out of his mansion, and the business of his public house next door, he also dealt in the business of real estate.

For example, in 1843, he sold 400 acres of land to a group of Prussians who had come to America seeking religious freedom. On that land, the settlement of Martinsville took shape.

The Niagara, William's public house, burned in 1844. There is no record of the cause or of the family's reaction. Research simply shows William did not rebuild.

From 1848 and for the next decade, Miss Sarah Vandervoort and the brick mansion witnessed a great deal of activity in the comings and goings of various members of the Vandervoort family.

It was in 1848 that death claimed the life of William and Sarah's 80-year-old mother, the former Rebecca Whiting. She was laid to rest in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, next to the grave of her daughter Moiah, whose husband James Sweeney was also to be buried there two years later.

William Vandervoort married Mary Frances Gleason, and for the first time, the mansion heard the "patter of little feet." Mary gave birth to four children during those 10 years. One son, Roswell, died as a baby.

In 1850, Jackson D. Vandervoort, one of the nephews who, as a teenager, had settled in Ransom, married Sarah Betsy Ransom, a daughter of Asa and Betsy Ransom of Grand Island.

"J.D." and his wife lived with the family in the brick mansion for a short time but eventually settled in a large, frame house on the east corner of Sweeney and Main Streets (where the Elks building is now).

In 1850, also, Jackson's brother James, acquired a case of "gold fever" and left the mansion and the Tonawandas for California. At one point, the family had to institute a search in order to discover his whereabouts there. He never returned to the Tonawandas.

The Vandervoort niece married, and she, too, left the mansion that had been her home for many years. As Mrs. Adaline A. Goodrich, she settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

William Vandervoort died unexpectedly. He became ill during a journey to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to visit his father-in-law and passed away there in the fall of 1858.

Soon after, his widow took their young children, two sons and a daughter, to Massachusetts to live. She would return to the Tonawandas occasionally for visits, but none of William's children was ever to settle where their father had been a pioneer.

The silence that descended on the brick mansion on Sweeney Street must have been a shock to Sarah Vandervoort, whether welcome or not.

After years of living there with a household of people of all ages, Sarah, age 50, was alone in the mansion and would continue to be so, except for a servant or two, until her death some 30 years later. Next, Miss Sarah, obliterates the mansion in the end.

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Last of the Vandervoorts

Obituary writers of the last century must have had certain rules by which they wrote, (1) praise the deceased, (2) mourn the deceased, (3) if possible, bring tears to the eyes of the reader, and (4) praise the deceased one more time for good measure.

Miss Sarah Vandervoort died May 11, 1887, and unfortunately, her obituary lacked the above essentials. It was, in other words, conspicuous because of its lack of praise.

According to the Herald, Sarah Vandervoort, "one of our oldest and best-known residents," had been daughter of, sister of, aunt of. Most important, she had resided in the "well-known brick mansion on Sweeney Street."

Whether the obituary was lacking in the customary praise because Sarah had kept to herself, or because she had not, will never be known.

Maybe, the writer of her obituary did not care for the old woman who, in 1882, had complained "loudly and justly" to the Herald about the half-sunken canal boat and about the unpleasant odors of the canal across from her home.

Perhaps, quite simply, the editor was preoccupied with the brick mansion which was part of the late William Vandervoort's estate.

Tonawandans were very aware of the brick mansion. Indeed, within a month of Sarah's death, the Herald reported that people were speculating about who might become of the Vandervoort property "now that the late occupant is no more and the heirs will have full control."

In March of 1888, the Herald happily announced that Mrs. Harvey Booth of Grand Island rented "the brick house on Sweeney Street known as the Vandervoort mansion."

Mrs. Booth, the former Mary Ransom, was the widow of Captain Harvey E. Booth and sister-in-law of Jackson D. Vandervoort, nephew of Miss Sarah.

How long Mrs. Booth rented the mansion is unknown, but that she did live there is verified today by her great-granddaughter, Miss Mattie Litz of Tonawanda.

Eventually, the William Vandervoort property on Sweeney Street, including the mansion, belonged to James Sweeney. He was the son of William and Sarah's late sister, Moiah.

A frame addition was added to the front of the mansion's west wing. It was used as an office for Sweeney Industrial Properties, a real estate business.

At around the turn of the century, Niagara Silk Mills was built next door, just west of the mansion. A long, narrow structure, the plant extended from Sweeney to Tremont Street. It would seem that part of it remained intact as far west as the edge of the Packet Inn.

By 1912, Niagara Silk Mills (later Van Raalte Company) employed over 500 people and planned to expand. A three-story addition was to be built where the Vandervoort mansion and other buildings stood.

The home of the Tonawandas' first bank, was torn down in July of 1912. Its "obituary" was considerably longer than that of Miss Sarah Vandervoort

At the same time, ground was broken for "North Tonawanda's newest office building" which was to be built by the Sweeney estate.

The Sweeney building still stands on the east corner of Sweeney and Webster Streets. It is located where, around 1827, the Sweeneys' uncle, William Vandervoort, built his public house, the Niagara.

At the time the mansion was torn down, only one branch of the family with the Vandervoort surname remained in the Tonawandas.

Miss Sarah's nephew, Jackson D. Vandervoort, resided on the east side of Main Street between Sweeney and Tremont with his daughter Sarah R.

He had three sons, one of whom lived in Jamestown, New York. Each of the other two sons, however, resided on Goundry Street.

Both were successful businessmen; George D. was the Vandervoort half of the Humphrey and Vandervoort Insurance Firm still in existence today. Levant R. was a partner in the lumber firm of Smith, Fassett & Company.

Both brothers died unexpectedly and within two weeks of each other in 1913. George was survived by his wife and two daughters. Levant was survived by his wife.

Jackson D. Vandervoort died the following year at the age of 92. Aside from his daughter Sarah, who died in 1922, he was the last Vandervoort to live in Tonawanda.

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1983-05-28