January
Governor De Witt Clinton gives his annual State of the State speech,
calls for action on supplying New York City with adequate water.
The New York City Common Council makes a few moves toward establishing
a supply.
Jan 1
Philip Hone is inaugurated as mayor of New York City. ** The New
York House of Refuge for juvenile delinquents opens in the 1806
U. S. Arsenal at Broadway and the old Boston Road.
Jan 3
Troy, New York's Rensselaer School of Theoretical and Practical
Science (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; RPI) opens.
Jan 19
Thomas Kensett takes out a U. S. patent in New York City for a
tin can.
February
New York's Common Council at first opposes a Water-Works Company
charter, then reverses itself. ** A Rochester village census shows
a population of 4,274. Another source sets the number at 5,273,
Feb 5
Hannah Lord Montague of Troy patents the first detachable shirt
collar.
Feb 15
The Allegany County town of Bolivar is formed out of Friendship.
** The Wayne County town of Arcadia is formed from Lyons.
March
The New York State legislature charters the Water-Works Company,
capitalized at $2,000,000. If it does not provide New York City
with a water supply within six years its charter will be revoked.
** Sir John Franklin reaches New York and departs to travel overland
to the Mackenzie River and Great Bear Lake.
Mar 2
Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischutz is performed
in New York, complete with added fireworks.
Mar 14
The Auburn Company, incorporated to provide insurance, is capitalized
at $150,000, in Auburn.
Mar 21
A dinner is given at New York's City Hotel to celebrate South
America's independence from Spain.
Mar 24
The Oswego County town of Albion is created from the Town of Richland.
Apr 5
Orleans County annexes the Genesee County Town of Shelby.
Apr 8
New York City's Atlas Insurance Company is incorporated.
Apr 9
New York State authorizes $2000 annually for the New York House
of Refuge.
Apr 13
Syracuse is incorporated as village in the Onondaga County town
of Salina.
Apr 18
Stock in New York's Water-Works Company goes on sale at the Franklin
Bank, selling $9,000,000 worth in one day.
May
Batavia newspaper owner Oran Follett moves to Buffalo, leaving
his younger brother Frederick as publisher of the Spirit of
the Times. ** Bricklayer William Morgan is made a Royal Arch
Mason, in Le Roy.
May 12
Organization president John Jay addresses New York City's Bible
Society, claims that human knowledge cannot encompass the mysteries
of the spiritual world.
May 25
The steamboat Washington makes its inaugural New York City-to-Stonington,
Connecticut, run, with E. S. Bunker as captain.
June
Engineers Canvass White and Benjamin Wright are hired to manage
the Water-Works Company project. ** Lafayette visits Geneva. Mendon
Revolutionary War veterans headed by Timothy Barnard, who had
known the marquis during the war, are on hand to greet his coach
in Mendon.
Jun 7
Lafayette visits Rochester.
Jul 4
Construction begins on Connecticut's Farmington Canal, from Massachusetts
to Long Island Sound, along the Connecticut River.
Jul 6
Governor De Witt Clinton breaks ground for the Miami and Erie
Canal.
Jul 13
Construction on the Delaware and Hudson Canal begins, at Wurtsboro.
Aug 27
Philanthropist and shipping line owner John Henry Starin is born
to businessman Myndert Starin and his wife in Sammonsville.
Sep 4
Rochester's St. Luke's Episcopal Church holds its first services
today, using the city's first church organ.
Oct 10
Geneva lawyer Charles Butler marries Eliza A. Ogden of Walton.
They will buy water lot 21 this year.
Oct 15
De Witt Clinton's party leaves Albany on the Erie Canal.
Oct 25
Clinton's party arrives in Buffalo. ** The first Erie Canal boats
leave Buffalo - destination New York City.
Oct 26
Clinton officially opens the 83-lock Erie Canal and departs from
Buffalo aboard the Seneca Chief. A series of 32-pounder
cannon from Perry's victory on Lake Erie, spaced along the entire
route fire in relay. The message running from Buffalo to New York,
takes an hour and twenty minutes to arrive and then is repeated
in reverse.
Oct 27
Clinton's party is welcomed in Rochester. Local dignitaries join
the flotilla aboard the canal boat The Young Lion of the West.
The city throws a grand ball this evening.
November
Benjamin Wright, recently elected president of the New York Water-Works
Company, announces water rights have been secured, including those
to Byram and Rye ponds, and that a charter will be applied for
at the next meeting of the legislature. In a few days anonymous
letters begin appearing in the Evening Post, stating that
rights to sources of water are already owned exclusively by the
Manhattan Company and the Sharon Canal Company, and that the proposed
scheme is fraudulent.
Nov 4
The Clinton flotilla reaches New York City. ** Dissatisfied members
of the Academy of Arts found the New York Drawing Association.
Nov 29
Gioacchino Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville opens
at the Park Theater. ** Palmer Cleveland is appointed postmaster
of Tonawanda
December
Some stockholders of the New York Water-Works Company press for
a fast sale of the company and its assets. The directors ask for
a delay until White's study is completed.
Dec 1
Deerfield, Michigan, mill owner Nelson Higbee is born in Broome
County, New York.
City
The House of Refuge is founded as a reformatory for juveniles.
** Bookbinder Christian Brown opens a store at 211 Water Street.
** Mayor Philip Hone buys two of Thomas Cole's Hudson River landscapes
for his collection. Asher Brown Durand and Cole form the beginning
of the Hudson River School of painting. ** State adjutant general
William Paulding, Jr. Is elected mayor for the next year. ** 52
Norwegian Quakers arrive aboard the ship Restoration. ** William
Cullen Bryant drops the practice of law to became coeditor of
the New York Review. ** James Cooper publishes Lionel Lincoln.
It is a commercial failure. He forms a friendship with artist
Samuel F. B. Morse. ** The shipbuilding firm of Smith & Dimon
builds the 44-gun frigate Liberator on contract for the Greek
navy. The Greek government fails to take delivery. ** When former
actor James Hacket is ruined in business he returns to the stage,
as does his singing actress wife Catherine Lee Suggs. ** Lorenzo
Da Ponte becomes the first professor of Italian at Columbia University.
** Broker Jacob Little joins the New York Stock Exchange. ** Johann
Heinrich Astor sells 16 Bowery lots. ** Immigrants now count for
at least a quarter of the residents of the region around the former
Collect Pond. ** The city's population reaches 166,000. Blacks
make up 14% of the Sixth Ward's population. ** Levi Disbrow begins
drilling for water at Bleecker Street and Broadway on Manhattan
Company land. ** The city has twelve banks.
State
Gypsum is discovered in Oakfield. ** Two entrepreneurs buy the
remains of Silver Creek's giant tree, take it on a tour via the
Erie Canal. ** Proprietors of the settlement of Dunkirk sell half
their interest to Fredonia entrepreneur Walter Smith ** Syracuse
pioneer Ephraim Webster dies in Tuscarora at the age of 72. **
The Seneca Lock Navigation Company petitions the state legislature
to purchase the canal. The state will do so. ** Black Rock's 6500-foot-long
Bird Island Pier into the Niagara River is completed. Winter storms
severely damage the harbor. ** Lafayette visits Albany. He has
his portrait painted; it will hang in the Executive Chamber of
the State House. ** Rensselaerville's Wands house is built. **
Brockport novelist Mary Jane Holmes is born in Massachusetts.
** Le Roy's Eagle Hotel opens. ** Population: Buffalo - c. 2400;
Batavia - 3,352 ; Lockport - 2500 Mendon - 1,922. ** Mormonism
founder Joseph Smith goes to work for Joseph Stoal in Chenango
County, soon goes to Harmony, Pennsylvania, with him to seek silver.
** A house is built on Perry Avenue in Warsaw. It will be home
to Deacon Seth Gates and his abolitionist son congressman Seth
M. Gates, and will become the headquarters of the Warsaw Historical
Society. ** De Witt Clinton is re-elected governor for a second,
non consecutive, term. ** Seventeen canal surveys, authorized
by the omnibus canal bill, are performed throughout the state.
** Hardware merchant Phineas Prouty, Sr. works on the plans for
Lafayette's visit. ** James Seymour, the first (appointed) sheriff
of Monroe County, is elected to succeed outgoing Sheriff John
T. Patterson. ** Lockport's Courthouse/Jail is built. ** The state's
canals bring in $566,279 in revenue, carrying 218,00 tons of goods.
** This year state ports clear 259,525 tons of domestic goods
and 20,655 tons of foreign goods. ** Jefferson County's first
poorhouse is erected on the Dudley Farm in Le Ray. ** Engineer
James Geddes surveys the route for a Chemung Canal, to connect
the Southern Tier, at Elmira, with the Erie Canal via Seneca Lake.
** Massachusetts radical Daniel Shays dies on a farm in Sparta,
all but forgotten. ** A new Ontario County Court House is built
in Canandaigua. ** Publisher Horatio Gates Spafford brings out
a second edition of his gazetteer of the state, after a lengthy
period spent writing to postmasters and town officials, traveling
across the state and hiring assistants to cover areas he was unable
to. He also publishes The New York Pocket Book, brought out by
William S. Parker of Troy. ** The schooner Mink replaces
Chautauqua Lake's horse-boat passenger scow. ** The American Tract
Society is founded by several evangelical denominations. ** Mormonism
founder Joseph Smith goes to work for Joseph Stoal in Chenango
County, soon moves to Harmony, Pennsylvania, with him, to seek
silver. ** Cadwallader Colden's Memoir, Prepared at the Request
of a Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York and
Presented to the Mayor of the City, at the Celebration of the
Completion of the New York Canals. ** Sing Sing prison's first
warden, Elam Lynds, states his belief in the lash, rather than
in reform or rehabilitation. ** Governor De Witt Clinton proposes
a series of canals linking Long Island's bays. ** A U. S. Post
Office is opened at Bliven's Corners and its name changed to North
Cohocton. ** Cornelius Treat buys land at Cheese Factory and West
Bloomfield roads in Mendon, names it Treat's Corners. ** Physicist
Joseph Henry assists on a survey to build a Great State Road across
the southern tier. The project is never realized. ** Kingston's
Methodist Church is founded, the town's first non-Dutch congregation.
Buffalo
John Scott conducts the city's first freight forwarding business
out of the Old Red Warehouse, on the waterfront. ** Thaddeus Joy
and George B. Webster form the shipping company Joy & Webster,
building a warehouse on the east side of Commercial Slip.
Connewango
Peter Blanchard dies, the fourth adult death in the town. ** Charles
McGlashen arrives, joining his brothers Robert and James here.
Windsor, Vermont, native Henry L. Gardner and Elias Carpenter
of Onondaga County, New York, also settle here.
Erie Canal
John Rutherford's <italic>Facts and observations in relation
to the origin and completion of the Erie canal, is published by
N. B. Holmes in New York City. ** After citizens of Oswego lobby
to have an Oswego River branch built the state authorizes $160,000
to construct the Oswego Canal. ** Painter George Catlin sketches
the Lockport Flight.
Geneva
A Federal-style home is built at 543 South Main Street in Geneva.
** Pultney Park, the town square, is conveyed to the village.
** Hobart and William Smith academy is chartered as a college.
Rochester
The Marquis de Lafayette visits the city and is entertained at
the Mansion House (Christopher's Tavern). ** Construction begins
on a house for hardware merchant Ebenezer Watts. ** Elisha Johnson,
Josiah Bissell and others found the Rochester Canal and Railway
Company. ** William Fitzhugh and Charles Carroll file a quit claim
for Mason (Front) Street, with lawyer John Mastick, to facilitate
the construction of a retaining wall along the Genesee River.
The street is moved to the west. ** Merchant A. V. T. Leavitt
becomes a silent partner in Leavitt & Hill, while his partner
Charles J. Hill takes over the business. ** Shoemaker Jesse Hatch
visits Brown's Custom Mill at Frankfort to have his grist milled,
views the river and the falls. ** Area farmer, judge and Civil
War officer William Henry Benjamin is born.
Jan 2
Promoters of the Sharon Canal Company estimate a cost of $1,200,000
to bring water into Manhattan, also claim exclusive rights to
Rye Pond and Bryam and Saw Mill rivers.
Jan 9
Canvass White releases his report to the Water-Works Company,
estimating a cost of $1,450,000 to bring water into Manhattan.
Water from the Bronx River would have to be diverted much further
north than planned two years ago.
Jan 27
Actress Mrs. James H. Hackett returns to the New York stage, appearing
at the Park Theatre, when her husband, a Utica merchant, fails
in business. ** The Steuben County town of Hornsby is formed from
Painted Post (later Corning).
Feb 5
Buffalo area lawyer Millard Fillmore marries Abigail Powers.
Feb 26
New Yorker Staats-Zeitung publisher Oswald Ottendorfer is born
in Moravia.
Mar 1
James Hackett makes his successful stage debut, at the Park Theatre.
Mar 14
The U. S. agrees, after much controversy, to send two delegates
to a congress of the new Latin American republics, to be held
in Panama, Colombia. One is New York State judge William B. Rochester.
Apr 10
The village of Rochester adopts its second charter, establishing
a formal annual election and creating the posts of treasurer,
tax collector, and constable (2). Five wards are established,
each having a trustee, an assessor and two fire wardens. The power
of the Board of Trustees is expanded to include the mandate, previously
that of the mayor, to enforce the By-Laws,
Apr 17
New York State grants a charter for its first railroad, the Mohawk
and Hudson Railroad, to run between Albany and Schenectady, to
Stephen Van Rensselaer and others, who have agreed to foot the
bill. It's capitalized at $300,000, with an option to raise $500,000.
** The Genesee County town of Gerrysville (named after former
U. S. vice president Elbridge Gerry, later renamed Alabama) is
formed out of parts of Pembroke and the Orleans county town of
Shelby. ** The village of Saratoga Springs is incorporated. **
Whitesboro's Scientific and Military Academy of Western District
is incorporated by the state legislature.
Apr 25
Rensselaer School student Asa Fitch arrives at Troy by stagecoach.
Apr 26
Commencement exercises are held at Rensselaer. Among the speakers
are professors Ebenezer Emmons, Addison Hulbert, H. H. Eaton and
Bennet F. Root. The school offers "learning through experimental
and demonstrative lectures."
Apr 27
Renssalaer professor Amos Eaton goes to Albany to arrange for
boat for his upcoming student field trip.
Apr 29
Fitch, a member of the field trip group, studies the types of
rock they will be encountering.
Apr 30
The canal boat Lafayette, hired for in Albany for Eaton's expedition,
is towed to Troy. Fitch helps maneuver the craft through the sloop
lock.
May
James Cooper is awarded a silver medal from the Corporation of
the City of New York.
May 1
The canal expedition is delayed for a day due to the large amount
of baggage and bedding to be stowed on board.
May 2
After waiting for the loading of stove, utensils, crockery, the
Eaton expedition gets under way. It gets through the sloop lock
at 11 AM, stopping in Troy to load Hezekiah Hulbert Eaton's chemical
apparatus aboard. Timothy Dwight Eaton joins the party. Dinner
is held at the foot of the nine-lock Waterford flight. Fitch and
others walk as far as Cohoes and wait two hours for the boat to
catch up. At tea Amos Eaton reads out the rules of conduct and
the schedule - waken at sunrise, breakfast at eight, dinner at
2, tea after boat stops for the night. There are 24 members of
expedition. The sleeping is crowded so they create a tent on the
afterdeck to sleep 4. They get to bed after midnight.
May 3
The Eaton expedition crosses the Niskayuna on Alexander's aqueduct.
An unfastened window shutter on the boat is torn off on the side
of the aqueduct. The captain is told he is responsible to the
owner for any expenses due to accidents. They continue on to Schenectady
and stop for dinner and the night. Four or five of the party sleep
in a nearby tavern.
May 4
The Eaton party has a one-day layover. Classes are being given
along the way. Dinner at Auriesville.
May 5
Eatonites stop at Fort Plain and explore the creeks. They arrive
at Little Falls at dark.
May 6
The Eaton party passes Herkimer and German Flats, moors for the
night at Frankfort.
May 7
Sunday. The Eatonites continue on to Utica and go into town, but
arrive too late for morning services. Some go to afternoon services
at the Episcopal church. A black woman named Frances is hired
to cook for the expedition at $16 a day.
May 8
The group tours the American Revolution battlefield at Oriskany.
They stop for the night at Lenox. ** The steam-boat Mexico arrives
in Rochester from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, carrying the news
of the March 22nd murder in Wisconsin of a family by Indians.
May 9
Eaton's party has breakfast at New Boston, then continues on to
Chittenengo, where they tour the polytechnical school run by Mr.
Yates. After dinner with the teachers in the dining hall they
travel to a nearby hill to examine samples of petrified wood.
They spend the night in "Fuddletown" (Manlius).
May 10
The Eatonites arrive at Salina (north Syracuse), formed last year.
Fitch visits the salt works. They continue on to Nine Mile Creek
(Otisco). A bed-making committee is chosen.
May 11
The travelers have breakfast at Jordan. Fitch begins feeling unwell.
Dinner is eaten at Byron. The Lafayette continues on to Montezuma.
Canal mile boards now begin appearing, continue all the way to
Buffalo.
May 12
The group has breakfast at Clyde. Fitch is feeling better. They
stop at Lyons for dinner. Professors Addison Hulbert and Bennet
F. Root leave the party to give lectures on botany and chemistry
to local audiences. The party meets canal commissioner Myron Holley.
Supper is at Newark. They stop at Palmyra for the night.
May 14
Professor Amos Eaton's geological expedition reaches Rochester.
He predicts the town will fail to survive.
May 15
Eaton's group visits the Falls of the Genesee. The professor is
lecturing on the rock strata when he is stricken with a fainting
spell and begins hallucinating. Receiving medical attention, he
recovers.
May 16
The party passes through the towns of Gates, Clarkson, and the
unincorporated Brockport, spends the night at Holleysville (Holley).
Asa Fitch reads the 12th and 13th cantos of Byron's Don Juan.
May 17
Eaton's group passes through Newport (Albion), crosses over the
highway arch, and spends the night at Middleport. They hear of
a two-year-old who had drowned in canal just previously. Fitch
reads cantos 14 and 15 of Don Juan. Fitch describes the countryside
as, fertile and productive, yielding abundant crops, to repay
the labors of the husbandman."
May 18
The group passes evidence of the newly-begun fruit industry. They
examine flammable gas seeping out of the ground and name the local
community Gasport. As they pass through Lockport, they encounter
local entrepreneurs marketing excavated stone from the canal.
May 19
Eaton's expedition arrive at Manchester, encounter 200 U. S. troops
en route from Sacketts Harbor to Green Bay, Michigan. Several
are under guard for desertion and disobedience. A prisoner count
reveals one missing. He's soon spotted and recaptured. The Rensselaer
party presses on to view Niagara Falls. Asa Fitch, his expectations
heightened, is unimpressed. He thought rocks above the falls would
frame the scene better. They descend the steps to the base of
the cataract and tour Goat Island.
May 20
The group walk along Lake Erie shore in the evening. Professor
Eaton recapitulates the expedition in the evening.
May 21
Sunday. After services several of the party walk to an Indian
village. Fitch describes log huts, "much warmer than some
I have seen inhabited by white people...I had a short conversation
with one of the Indians, who could speak English. Only a few could
even though they lived among whites...Most, if not all, however,
know the meaning of the words whiskey, tobacco, etc. Dress of
some very fine."
May 22
The party walks along beach, view five foot high waves.
May 23
Eaton's group reaches Sturgeon Point, the end of he journey. They
encamp at 18 Mile Creek outside of Buffalo.
May 24
The group is invited to dine with General Peter Porter and wife.
They cross into Canada and tour Fort Erie battlefield.
May 25
Eaton and his students cross the mouth of "Tonnewanta"
(Tonawanda) Creek, spend the night at Lockport.
May 26
Eaton sets a goal for remainder of journey of 30 miles a day.
The reach Gasport to find that their name for the settlement is
already appearing on signboards. Moving on to Middleport they
notice an abundant harvest along the way.
May 27
The expedition spends the night at Newport. Fitch describes the
citizens as "About as sassy, indecent, vulgar and dirty set
of inhabitants as we have yet met with."
May 28
Sunday. Arriving in Rochester the group attends Presbyterian services.
Naturalist Constantine Rafinesque joins the party. Some of the
group spend the evening at the Canal Hotel.
May 29
The party visits the Lower Falls with Professor Rafinesque. They
view a perfect rainbow, note that the river is lower this time.
A number of them collect wild geraniums (rare in eastern part
of the state).
May 30
Eaton passes through Pittsford. Fitch leaves the group briefly
to visit friends. The party collects plants in a marsh at Palmyra.
George Clinton sleepwalks, wakens party in middle of the night.
May 31
Breakfast is eaten at Newark. A mosquito swarm attacks. The students
Build fires on board the boat to drive them off.
June
Simon Bolivar convenes an inter-American congress in Panama. One
U. S. delegate dies en route and the other, William B. Rochester,
arrives after it's ended. ** James Fenimore Cooper and his family
sail for Europe, where he will remain for the next seven years.
June 1
Eaton's party reaches Otisco.
June 2
They reach Salina. Eaton gives public lectures on chemistry and
natural history.
June 3
They reach Manlius. Fitch reports it was once named Fuddletown,
from the first inhabitants, who were a drunken, carousing set
of people. But the present inhabitants are different and very
zealous in obliterating the former name. The group moves on to
Green Lake, where they encounter downpours. Professor Rafinesque
sings French, Scottish and Italian airs,.to entertain the students
June 4
They reach Rome.
June 5
They spend the night in Utica.
June 6
A cold storm strikes out of the east. Most of the students stay
within the cabin. Breakfast is eaten at Frankfort. They reach
German Flats by nightfall.
June 7
They reach Fort Plain. A thunderstorm breaks out.
June 8
This noon they pass the mouth of Schoharie Creek. The boats are
pulled across by cable.
June 9
They arrive at Niskayuna.
June 10
They lock through the Waterford Locks, return to Troy, the end
of the expedition.
July
A gathering of Scots clans is held in Caledonia.
Jul 4
The cornerstone is laid for the first lock of the Oswego Canal.
Jul 10
Maryland Anti-Constitutionalist Luther Martin dies in New York
City at the age of 78.
Aug 19
Joseph Ellicott, former Resident-Agent for western New York's
Holland Land Office, despondent and ill, takes his own life, at
Bellevue Hospital in New York City, at the age of 65.
Sep 10
William Morgan is arrested in Batavia to protect him from a Freemason
mob accusing him of revealing Masonic secrets.
Sep 12
Morgan is taken from jail in Canandaigua, vanishes.
Sep 21
"Cornelius" writes to the New York Evening Post lamenting
the horrible conditions in the city's Five Points neighborhood.
Sep 30
Manuel Garcia's opera company returns to London from a year's
engagement in New York.
October
John McIntyre, David Henderson, Duncan McMartin, his brother Malcolm,
Dyer Thompson, and the black servant Enoch, lead by an Abenaki
Indian named Lewis Elijah Benedict, discover the largest deposit
of iron ore on the known continent, in the Adirondacks, purchase
the land for an iron works.
Oct 14
David Henderson writes to Archibald McIntyre, father of John,
in New York City, from North Elba, New York, describing their
find.
Oct 30
Harvard student James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, is reprimanded for
"illegal dress".
November
Mid-term U. S. elections end with an anti-administration House
majority. ** Banker and land agent David E. Evans is elected to
the House of Representatives from New York's 29th District.
City
The opera company of tenor Manuel del Popolo Vincente Garcia brings
Italian opera to the city, performing at the Park Theater. **
The National Academy of Design opens, with Samuel F. B. Morse
as its first president. ** The U. S. purchases land at Throgg's
Neck, on the eastern tip of the Bronx, from William Bayard, erects
Fort Schuyler at the site. ** Assistant Alderman Philip Hone is
elected mayor for the next year. ** The city is granted control
over underwater lands as far north as Spuyten Duyvil Creek and
the Harlem River as the state legislature charters the New York
Harlaem Spring Water Company. The company, organized by merchant
Anson G. Phelps and engineer James Renwick, capitalized at $500,000
and given a ten-month life span, fails after some prospecting
in the Yorkville area.. ** Author James Cooper formally inserts
Fenimore in his name. He's given a farewell dinner by New York's
Bread and Cheese Club. ** William Cullen Bryant becomes editor
of the New York Evening Post.
State
De Witt Clinton is returned to the governorship, defeating Democrat
candidate William B. Rochester. ** Caledonia's first post office,
bank and apothecary shop is built by Major Gad Blakeslee. It will
later house the public library. ** Rensselaerian School (Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute) professor Amos Eaton leads a geological
expedition through the western part of the state aboard the canal
boat LaFayette. He is accompanied by Governor De Witt Clinton's
son George, future state entomologist Asa Fitch and physicist
Joseph Henry, among others. They name the town of Gasport when
they discover coal gas from a spring. ** Stephen Van Rensselaer
and other investors buy out the Cohoes Manufacturing Company and
form the Cohoes Company. ** E. M. Perkins begins publishing the
Le Roy News-Gazette. ** U. S. Secret Service founder Lafayette
C. Baker is born in Stafford. ** Geneva College (Hobart and William
Smith Colleges) holds its first Commencement exercises, graduating
five. ** The village of Tonawanda has 12 buildings. ** The vote
is extended to all white male citizens aged twenty-one or older.
** Shakers begin a colony, later to be called Alasa Farms, at
Sodus Bay. ** Benjamin Smith, uncle of Albany hardware merchant
Erastus Corning, dies, leaving his nephew a financial bequest.
Corning buys an iron mill on Troy's Wynant Kill, renames it the
Albany Iron Works. ** General James Hutchinson dies. His home
on the West Seneca Turnpike near Onondaga Hill, is handed down
to his son Orrin. ** The approximate date a jail is built in Batavia,
at the south side of Main Streets at Oak Street. ** The family
of seventeen-year-old Philip S. Lott arrives in Lodi from Hunterdon
County, New Jersey. ** Mendon's Daniel Barnard becomes the first
Representative to Congress from Monroe County. ** James S. Wadsworth
of Geneseo enters Harvard.
Connewango
Ontario County settler John Towers moves here. Jared Stevens arrives
from Genesee County. ** Jotham Metcalf starts a Methodist class
in his home.
Erie Canal
418 boats arrive in Buffalo harbor this year 1,100 craft lock
through the canal. ** The locks south of Juncta are doubled.
Rochester
Monroe County's almshouse is built on South Avenue. ** Edwin Scrantom,
along with Whittlesley and Mumford, purchase the Monroe Republican.
** Professor Eaton gives a lecture in Rochester sponsored by the
city's Chemical Class, which was formed to buy books on mechanical
subjects. It will be the basis for the city's Franklin Society.
** Oliver Loud and Everard Peck's Western Almanack replaces the
"Advice to Farmers" pages with a table of interest rates.
** Peck begins selling The Christian Almanack, published by the
American Tract Society. ** The Rochester Daily Advertiser begins
publication. It is the first New York daily newspaper west of
Albany. ** Daniel D. Barnard is elected as the first U. S. Representative
from the new 27th Congressional District (Monroe and Livingston
counties). ** The city's first public library is founded.
Art
The approximate date painter George Catlin paints Seneca chief
Red Jacket.
Jan 18
Mormonism founder Joseph Smith marries Emma Hale in South Bainbridge.
February
Harvard student James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, is threatened with
expulsion, for illegal dress for the second time.
Feb 7
Madame Francisquay Hutin introduces toe dancing during her ballet
debut at New York City's Bowery Theater. Many are shocked at the
amount of calf displayed.
Mar 15
Rochester High School opens, the city's first.
Mar 16
John Russworm and Samuel Cornish publish Freedom's Journal, the
first black newspaper, in New York City.
April
Levi Disbrow begins drilling a series of display artesian wells
in Manhattan. When he strikes water later in the year near the
old Beekman's Swamp, a group of tanners lead by Jacob Lorillard
drill their own well, hit foul-tasting water and open a spa nicknamed
"Jacob's Well" to promote medicinal waters, as approved
by chemist George Chilton. It will be pointed out that the taste
probably comes from lime, tanbark, and old animal skins. ** James
Fenimore Cooper publishes The Prairie in London.
Apr 2
The Otsego County village of Unadilla is incorporated, within
the town of the same name. ** Mary Stafford Anthony, younger sister
of suffragist Susan B. Anthony, is born to Daniel and Lucy Read
Anthony in Battenville.
Apr 4
Owego, the county seat of Tioga County, is incorporated.
Apr 13
The Oneida County town of Kirkland, is formed from Paris, New
York.
May
The New York Stock and Exchange Board moves from 47 Wall Street
to an upper room in the Merchants' Exchange at Wall and William
streets. ** Alvah Plumb builds the Chautauqua, the first steamboat
on the lake of the same name. ** State representative David E.
Evans resigns to become local agent for the Holland Land Company.
May 2
Jacob S. Otto, resident agent of the Holland Land Company, dies.
He will be succeeded by David S. Evans, nephew of Joseph Ellicott
and former accounting clerk at the land office.
May 23
Joanna Bethune and Hannah Murray establish New York City's first
nursery school.
May 30
The Albany Exchange is founded.
Jun 16
Erastus Corning, Jr. is born to Erastus and Harriet Weld Corning
in Albany.
Jun 30
The Chautauqua undergoes trials.
Jul 4
New York State officially abolishes slavery. 10,000 slaves are
freed. ** The Chautauqua goes into service, with John T. Wills
as captain.
Aug 5
Onondaga County pioneer, saltmaker and politician Comfort Tyler
dies at his home in Montezuma.
Aug 26
Six steamboats dock in Albany in an hour, discharge approximately
1600 passengers.
September
Martin Van Buren travels to New York City from Kinderhook to convince
the Tammany Society to back Jackson for president. A minority
are holding out for John Quincy Adams.
Sep 8
The Michigan, with live animals aboard, is sent over Niagara Falls
as a stunt.
Sep 19
James Wadsworth returns to Harvard.
Sep 22
The date that Joseph Smith says he unearthed the Book of Mormon,
at Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra.
October
Jacksonian partisans seize the meeting rooms of New York's Tammany
Hall, preventing the Adams forces from speaking. A few days later
the Adams men keep the Jacksonians out of the Long Room, name
a slate of local candidates. Jacksonians move into the cellar
- the Coal Hole - and nominate a competing ticket.
Oct 1
Riga's schoolhouse opens.
Oct 2
Harvard president John Thornton Kirkland writes to James Wadsworth's
father James advising him that the son is wasting his time at
Harvard and should be removed.
Oct 17
James Wadsworth's father writes to him, urging to either apologize
to Kirkland and reform or return home in disgrace.
Oct 22
The elder Wadsworth once again admonishes his son, in a letter,
to knuckle down.
November
Jacksonian candidates triumph in the New York elections, the first
in which Tammany Hall resorts heavily to fraudulent methods, using
newly-arrived immigrants as repeat voters. ** James Fenimore Cooper's
The Red Rover is published in Paris and London.
Nov 1
The contract on Riga's schoolhouse is paid off - $157.50.
December
New York City lawyer and social arbiter Samuel Ward McAllister
is born in Savannah, Georgia.
City
Gas lights are installed on Broadway, between City Hall and Whitehall
Street. ** Former mayor William Paulding is re-elected, serves
two more one-year terms. ** A company is formed to build a canal
across the northern end of Manhattan, but the plan will be abandoned.
** P. T. Barnum leaves Bethel, Connecticut, to clerk in a Brooklyn
grocery store owned by former Danbury resident Oliver Taylor,
a relative. ** The city's expenses for this year amount to $1,179,634.65;
the receipts to $1,149,631.39; and the debt remains at $1,483,800.
The three city watch (police) districts require 468 men, 6 captains,
and 12 assistants. ** The Sketch Club is founded. ** The Brooklyn
village of Williamsburgh is incorporated within the Town of Bushwick.
It contains close to 1,000 people. ** Washington Square is created,
mostly out of a Potters' Field. ** Initiation fees for membership
at the New York Stock Exchange are raised from $25 to $100. **
Air conditioning pioneer Doctor John Gorrie graduates from the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, returns to South Carolina.
** The approximate date artist George Catlin paints the Five Points
neighborhood. ** English-born Pine Street dry goods merchant Aaron
Arnold opens a store at Canal and Mercer streets. ** The New-York
Water Works Company is dissolved. The Manhattan Company begins
replacing its wooden water pipes with cast iron ones. ** 20,000
Irish enter the U. S.
State
The slave Isabella Van Wagener is freed by the state's Emancipation
Act. She will take the name Sojourner Truth in 1843. ** A tavern
is built in Caledonia. ** The Angelica Republican is revived as
the Allegany Republican, with Samuel P. Hull as its publisher.
** W. W. Phelps begins publishing the Anti-masonic Canandaigua
Phoenix. R. Royce soon buys it and changes the name to the Freeman.
** Marine and missionary Jonathan Goble is born in Wayne. ** Troy
mayor and businessman Richard Hart has a Federal-style mansion
built (later the Hart-Cluett Mansion, after that the home of the
Rensselaer County Historical Society). ** Jeffersonian homes are
built at 584 and 574 South Main Street in Geneva. ** Leonidas
Lafayette Polk graduates from West Point. ** The Tibbett's Point
Lighthouse is erected at Cape Vincent, at the northeastern corner
of Lake Ontario and the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. **
The steamboat comes to Canandaigua Lake with the launching of
the Lady of the Lake. ** The town of Sennett is taken off of the
Cayuga County town of Brutus. ** Entomologist Asa Fitch graduates
from the Rensselaer School (RPI). ** Naturalist Constantine Rafinesque
travels through Massachusetts and eastern New York, visiting Amos
Eaton at Troy, on his way to Boston. ** Nehemiah Houghton purchases
the American Hotel boarding house at Avon's sulphur springs. **
Governor De Witt Clinton makes his annual address to the legislature,
advocates establishing collections of books and maps for use by
public schools. ** The Ithaca Journal adds Literary Gazette, and
General Advertiser to its title. ** Over the past 30 years 3,879
people have been incarcerated in state prisons. 1,262 have served
their sentences, 3,160 have been pardoned and 25 have escaped.
348 have been moved to other facilities and 765 have died. **
The West Troy Baptist Church is founded. ** The Owego Academy
is founded. ** Horatio Gates Spafford writes to Amos Eaton, describing
his invention, a boat engine using a drive wheel suspended in
water and compressed air. Spafford does not live to see the idea
patented. ** The Baptist Church of Westerlo is organized. ** Mehitable
Kellogg Fairbank of Williamstown, Massachusetts, travels by Erie
Canal to Lyons, and by stage to Sodus, to visit her parents Nathaniel
and Mehitable Kellogg. She decides to stay; her husband Stephen
and daughter Cordelia arrive soon afterwards. ** The legislature
authorizes the New York Well Company to dig for water in northern
Manhattan. ** A house is built at 81 Genesee Street in Skaneateles,
supposedly by lawyer Freeborn Garrison Jewett. ** Geneseo's Temple
Hill Academy opens, Livingston County's first high school.
Albany
While drilling for water for a brewery on Ferry Street, a mineral
spring is discovered. ** The city's last public hanging takes
place.
Batavia
Bissell Humphrey, landlord of the Genesee House, buys the site
and erects a new tavern. ** The approximate date Libbeus Fish
builds a malt house-brewery.
Connewango
Tavernkeeper James Blanchard builds a hotel in Rutledge, the first
frame public-house in the settlement. ** While their parents are
away from their cabin, the children of settler John Towers feed
two "black dogs" through the homestead's fence. The
dogs out to be bear cubs. The cubs and their mother are later
killed by Towers. ** Connecticut-born Genesee County resident
Nathan Snow arrives. He clears timber, cuts logs and builds a
house in a week's time. ** Settler Job Gardner arrives from Coxsackie,
New York. ** Settlers Freeborn Fairbanks and Alden Childs arrive.
Le Roy
Pioneer Charles Wilbor moves to Milan, Ohio.
Rochester
The population nears 10,000. . There are no adult natives. The
oldest person born in the village is 16 years old. ** A platform
is built over the Genesee River to provide space for a farmer's
market. ** The house of hardware merchant Ebenezer Watts is completed.
** Alexander Street and Pennsylvania Street (South Union Street)
are completed between the Erie Canal and East Avenue. ** The city
has eight boat basins on the Erie Canal - Warehouse, Washington,
Fisher's Screw Dock, Fitzhugh's, Ely's, Child's, Hill's (Johnson's)
and Gilbert's. ** An African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church
is built at Ford and Spring streets. ** The village's first directory
is published., the first steamboat on the lake of the same name.
** State representative David E. Evans resigns to become local
agent for the Holland Land Company.
May 2
Jacob S. Otto, resident agent of the Holland Land Company, dies.
He will be succeeded by David S. Evans, nephew of Joseph Ellicott
and former accounting clerk at the land office.
May 23
Joanna Bethune and Hannah Murray establish New York City's first
nursery school.
May 30
The Albany Exchange is founded.
Jun 16
Erastus Corning, Jr. is born to Erastus and Harriet Weld Corning
in Albany.
Jun 30
The Chautauqua undergoes trials.
Jul 4
New York State officially abolishes slavery. 10,000 slaves are
freed. ** The Chautauqua goes into service, with John T. Wills
as captain.
Aug 5
Onondaga County pioneer, saltmaker and politician Comfort Tyler
dies at his home in Montezuma.
Aug 26
Six steamboats dock in Albany in an hour, discharge approximately
1600 passengers.
September
Martin Van Buren travels to New York City from Kinderhook to convince
the Tammany Society to back Jackson for president. A minority
are holding out for John Quincy Adams.
Sep 8
The Michigan, with live animals aboard, is sent over Niagara Falls
as a stunt.
Sep 19
James Wadsworth returns to Harvard.
Sep 22
The date that Joseph Smith says he unearthed the Book of Mormon,
at Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra.
October
Jacksonian partisans seize the meeting rooms of New York's Tammany
Hall, preventing the Adams forces from speaking. A few days later
the Adams men keep the Jacksonians out of the Long Room, name
a slate of local candidates. Jacksonians move into the cellar
- the Coal Hole - and nominate a competing ticket.
Oct 1
Riga's schoolhouse opens.
Oct 2
Harvard president John Thornton Kirkland writes to James Wadsworth's
father James advising him that the son is wasting his time at
Harvard and should be removed.
Oct 17
James Wadsworth's father writes to him, urging to either apologize
to Kirkland and reform or return home in disgrace.
Oct 22
The elder Wadsworth once again admonishes his son, in a letter,
to knuckle down.
November
Jacksonian candidates triumph in the New York elections, the first
in which Tammany Hall resorts heavily to fraudulent methods, using
newly-arrived immigrants as repeat voters. ** James Fenimore Cooper's
The Red Rover is published in Paris and London.
Nov 1
The contract on Riga's schoolhouse is paid off - $157.50.
December
New York City lawyer and social arbiter Samuel Ward McAllister
is born in Savannah, Georgia.
City
Gas lights are installed on Broadway, between City Hall and Whitehall
Street. ** Former mayor William Paulding is re-elected, serves
two more one-year terms. ** A company is formed to build a canal
across the northern end of Manhattan, but the plan will be abandoned.
** P. T. Barnum leaves Bethel, Connecticut, to clerk in a Brooklyn
grocery store owned by former Danbury resident Oliver Taylor,
a relative. ** The city's expenses for this year amount to $1,179,634.65;
the receipts to $1,149,631.39; and the debt remains at $1,483,800.
The three city watch (police) districts require 468 men, 6 captains,
and 12 assistants. ** The Sketch Club is founded. ** The Brooklyn
village of Williamsburgh is incorporated within the Town of Bushwick.
It contains close to 1,000 people. ** Washington Square is created,
mostly out of a Potters' Field. ** Initiation fees for membership
at the New York Stock Exchange are raised from $25 to $100. **
Air conditioning pioneer Doctor John Gorrie graduates from the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, returns to South Carolina.
** The approximate date artist George Catlin paints the Five Points
neighborhood. ** English-born Pine Street dry goods merchant Aaron
Arnold opens a store at Canal and Mercer streets. ** The New-York
Water Works Company is dissolved. The Manhattan Company begins
replacing its wooden water pipes with cast iron ones. ** 20,000
Irish enter the U. S.
State
The slave Isabella Van Wagener is freed by the state's Emancipation
Act. She will take the name Sojourner Truth in 1843. ** A tavern
is built in Caledonia. ** The Angelica Republican is revived as
the Allegany Republican, with Samuel P. Hull as its publisher.
** W. W. Phelps begins publishing the Anti-masonic Canandaigua
Phoenix. R. Royce soon buys it and changes the name to the Freeman.
** Marine and missionary Jonathan Goble is born in Wayne. ** Troy
mayor and businessman Richard Hart has a Federal-style mansion
built (later the Hart-Cluett Mansion, after that the home of the
Rensselaer County Historical Society). ** Jeffersonian homes are
built at 584 and 574 South Main Street in Geneva. ** Leonidas
Lafayette Polk graduates from West Point. ** The Tibbett's Point
Lighthouse is erected at Cape Vincent, at the northeastern corner
of Lake Ontario and the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. **
The steamboat comes to Canandaigua Lake with the launching of
the Lady of the Lake. ** The town of Sennett is taken off of the
Cayuga County town of Brutus. ** Entomologist Asa Fitch graduates
from the Rensselaer School (RPI). ** Naturalist Constantine Rafinesque
travels through Massachusetts and eastern New York, visiting Amos
Eaton at Troy, on his way to Boston. ** Nehemiah Houghton purchases
the American Hotel boarding house at Avon's sulphur springs. **
Governor De Witt Clinton makes his annual address to the legislature,
advocates establishing collections of books and maps for use by
public schools. ** The Ithaca Journal adds Literary Gazette, and
General Advertiser to its title. ** Over the past 30 years 3,879
people have been incarcerated in state prisons. 1,262 have served
their sentences, 3,160 have been pardoned and 25 have escaped.
348 have been moved to other facilities and 765 have died. **
The West Troy Baptist Church is founded. ** The Owego Academy
is founded. ** Horatio Gates Spafford writes to Amos Eaton, describing
his invention, a boat engine using a drive wheel suspended in
water and compressed air. Spafford does not live to see the idea
patented. ** The Baptist Church of Westerlo is organized. ** Mehitable
Kellogg Fairbank of Williamstown, Massachusetts, travels by Erie
Canal to Lyons, and by stage to Sodus, to visit her parents Nathaniel
and Mehitable Kellogg. She decides to stay; her husband Stephen
and daughter Cordelia arrive soon afterwards. ** The legislature
authorizes the New York Well Company to dig for water in northern
Manhattan. ** A house is built at 81 Genesee Street in Skaneateles,
supposedly by lawyer Freeborn Garrison Jewett. ** Geneseo's Temple
Hill Academy opens, Livingston County's first high school.
Albany
While drilling for water for a brewery on Ferry Street, a mineral
spring is discovered. ** The city's last public hanging takes
place.
Batavia
Bissell Humphrey, landlord of the Genesee House, buys the site
and erects a new tavern. ** The approximate date Libbeus Fish
builds a malt house-brewery.
Connewango
Tavernkeeper James Blanchard builds a hotel in Rutledge, the first
frame public-house in the settlement. ** While their parents are
away from their cabin, the children of settler John Towers feed
two "black dogs" through the homestead's fence. The
dogs out to be bear cubs. The cubs and their mother are later
killed by Towers. ** Connecticut-born Genesee County resident
Nathan Snow arrives. He clears timber, cuts logs and builds a
house in a week's time. ** Settler Job Gardner arrives from Coxsackie,
New York. ** Settlers Freeborn Fairbanks and Alden Childs arrive.
Le Roy
Pioneer Charles Wilbor moves to Milan, Ohio.
Rochester
The population nears 10,000. . There are no adult natives. The
oldest person born in the village is 16 years old. ** A platform
is built over the Genesee River to provide space for a farmer's
market. ** The house of hardware merchant Ebenezer Watts is completed.
** Alexander Street and Pennsylvania Street (South Union Street)
are completed between the Erie Canal and East Avenue. ** The city
has eight boat basins on the Erie Canal - Warehouse, Washington,
Fisher's Screw Dock, Fitzhugh's, Ely's, Child's, Hill's (Johnson's)
and Gilbert's. ** An African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church
is built at Ford and Spring streets. ** The village's first directory
is published.
Jan 8
New York City's annual Tammany Hall dinner, in commemoration of
the battle of New Orleans, is attended by many of the important
men of the Republican (democratic) party, such as Benjamin Bailey.
February
The New York City Common Council buys the "Jacob's Well"
medicinal water business from chemist George Chilton because of
suspected tannery contaminants.
Feb 7
Civil War officer Ely Parker, author of the terms of surrender
at Appomattox, is born on the Tonawanda Reservation in Indian
Falls.
Feb 11
Governor De Witt Clinton, 58, dies of a heart attack, in his Albany
home at North Pearl and Steuben streets; $6,000 in debt.
Feb 20
On a visit home to French Creek, New York, school teacher Elizabeth
Barnett, working across the St. Lawrence at Kingston, Ontario,
overhears Canadian rebels planning an attack on Kingston, crosses
the river ice and alerts authorities. Military preparations are
made amid public panic.
Mar 16
Ezra R. Andrews, founder of Rochester's Lawyers Co-operative Publishing
Company, is born.
Mar 25
The Sullivan County town of Cohocton is formed from the Town of
Bethel.
April
With approval by the legislature, pending probate, the trustees
for Captain Robert Richard Randall lease his Manhattan property
and purchase land on Staten Island for his Snug Harbor sailors
home bequest. ** James Samuel Wadsworth reads law under U. S.
Senator Daniel Webster, in Boston.
Apr 1
The Erie Canal opens for the season.
Apr 2
The packet boat Niagara is the first boat of the season
to pass Syracuse, heading west on the Erie Canal.
Apr 9
The Albany Female Seminary is incorporated.
Apr 15
The Franklin County town of Moira, named for the Earl of Moira,
is formed from Dickinson.
Apr 21
The Genesee County village of Gerrysville changes its name to
Alabama. ** The Auburn and Owasco Canal Company is chartered,
with a capitalization of $100,000, to connect the village and
Owasco Lake.
May
P. T. Barnum returns to Bethel, Connecticut, to run a fruit and
confectionery store for his grandfather. ** New York City's Newgate
State Prison is sold. Male prisoners are transferred to Sing Sing
Prison in Ossining.
May 19
William Ladd founds the local chapter of the American Peace Society,
in New York City.
Jun 7
Former New York City mayor Philip Hone comments approvingly in
his diary on the iron water pipes being laid in front of his Broadway
home.
Oct 16
The packet Orange leaves Kingston - the first boat on the
Delaware and Hudson Canal.
Oct 18
The Orange arrives at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, to begin
the transportation of coal from Pennsylvania fields to Eastern
industrial cities.
Nov 7
Sculptor Leonard Wells Volk is born in Wellstown (today's Wells).
December
Samuel Stevens, son of 1790's well digger General Ebenezer Stevens
and chairman of the New York City Council fireman's committee,
suggests hiring the Manhattan Company to keep the public systems
filled. The idea is turned down.
Dec 3
With Martin Van Buren and Duff Green managing his campaign, Andrew
Jackson defeats John Adams for the presidency.
Dec 10
The first shipment of Pennsylvania anthracite from the Delaware
and Hudson Canal reaches New York City.
City
All of existing Broadway is lit by gaslights. ** The New York
Drawing Association is renamed the National Academy of Design.
** Long Island Quaker Elias Hicks forms a conservative faction
separate from the more unorthodox New York City Quakers (closer
to traditional Christianity). His followers become known as Hicksites.
** The city's statutes are revised. ** The city's jurisdiction
over underwater lands is extended. ** Scottish traveler James
Stuart visits the city. ** With no water available to firemen
the Bowery Theatre is destroyed by flames with the loss of two
lives and $600,000 in damages. ** Tammany Hall begins buying votes
for the first time. ** The approximate date lawyer William Frederick
Howe, of the law firm of Howe & Hummell, is born in England.
** Male prisoners in Newgate Prison are transferred to the newly-completed
Sing Sing Prison in Ossining.
State
Future philanthropist Ezra Cornell moves from the Bronx to Ithaca.
** The first printing press in Wyoming County. ** The Rogers brothers
launch their first schooner, the Jeanette, on the lower Genesee
River. ** James D. Bemis sells the Western Repository and Genesee
Advertiser to Morse and Harocy. ** Hamilton College tutor
William Kirkland marries writer Caroline Stansbury and they move
to Geneva to found the Domestic School. ** The Cayuga and Seneca
Canal is completed, linking Seneca and Cayuga lakes to the Erie
Canal. ** Kingston's Rondout district is created by the directors
of the Delaware & Hudson Canal as the eastern terminus of
their canal. ** Jefferson Davis enters West Point Military Academy.
** Great Lakes steamboat operator Josephus Bradner Stuart dies.
** 1000 gallons of whiskey is purchased at 20¢ a gallon for
resale in Le Roy. ** Nathaniel Pitcher, Jr. is elected governor.
** The name of The Cooperstown Federalist is changed to
The Freeman's Journal. ** The approximate date silver is
discovered near the Lewis County town of Lowville. ** Governor
John Thompson Hoffman is born in Ossining to Adrian and Jane Thompson
Hoffman. ** A brick Steuben County court house is built at Bath.
** The Ithaca and Owego Railroad Company is incorporated, capitalized
at $150,000. ** Thomas Flynn's dramatization of Washington Irving's
Rip Van Winkle plays at Albany. ** The legislature calls
for a registry of canal boats. ** David S. Wilberforce replaces
John T. Wills as captain of the Chautauqua. ** Elmira village
is organized with Stephen Tuttle as president; Theodore North,
Charles Orwan, Lyman Covell, William Maxwell as trustees, and
Hiram Gray as clerk. ** John T. Norton, four-year partner of Albany
hardware merchant Erastus Corning, feeling Corning has over-extended
the firm's credit, sells back his shares and leaves the firm.
An average day's receipts are $2000. Corning is elected as an
alderman of Albany. He moves from a rental apartment on Beaver
Street to a rowhouse at 102 State Street, spending $18,000 inherited
from his uncle Benjamin Smith. ** Having outgrown its first structure,
Binghamton's Broome County courthouse moves across the street
into a new brick building. ** "Sally", probably Sarah
Sullivan, "the belle of Boston", comes to Geneseo for
a visit with young James Wadsworth and his family. ** 47,000 more
acres of Seneca Indian reservation land are put on the markets.
** The Oswego Canal opens, connecting that Lake Ontario port with
the village of Syracuse, on the Erie Canal.
Buffalo
Lawyer Millard Fillmore is elected to the state legislature. **
Beals, Mayhew and Company establish the village's first foundry
and machine shop, at Indiana and Ohio Streets. ** The Great Lakes
schooner Guerriere delivers 2500 bushels of wheat from
the west. Not finding a ready market here, they carry it down
to Dunkirk.
Rochester
Merchant Charles J. Hill takes Lewis L. Peet on as a partner;
the new firm becomes Hill & Peet. ** Loud and Peck's Western
Almanack carries its first patent medicine advertisement.
** Abelard Reynolds builds an arcade on East Main Street. ** The
first temperance meeting here is held. ** The Board of Trustees
is given complete control of the maintenance of city streets.
Theater
New York comic actor Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice introduces
his new character Jim Crow in Louisville, Kentucky. He performs
in blackface and calls the entertainment a minstrel show.
© 2004 David Minor / Eagles Byte