Feb 13
Rioters protest high food prices in New York City, storm the wheat-and-flour
store of Eli Hart & Company. Several people die and much grain
is destroyed. The prices soon rise again.
Feb 18
Charlatan William Rockefeller marries Eliza Davison, against her
family's wishes, at Richford.
Mar 18
Future Buffalo mayor and U. S. President Stephen Grover Cleveland
is born in Caldwell, New Jersey, to Congregationalist minister
the Reverend Richard Falen Cleveland and Anne Neal Cleveland.
Apr 3
Naturalist John Burroughs is born near Roxbury.
Apr 27
The Seneca Falls Academy is incorporated by the state legislature.
May
The first locomotive for the Rochester & Tonawanda Railroad
Company arrives by boat on the Erie Canal.
May 2
William B. Ogden, brother-in-law of New York investor Charles
Butler, is elected Mayor of Chicago.
May 3
The first regular passenger train on Rochester & Tonawanda
Railroad begins service.
May 10
New York banks suspend specie payment, precipitating a financial
panic in the U. S. and seven years of a depression.
May 11
The first train leaves Rochester for Churchville, Bergen, Byron
and finally Batavia, where its passengers are treated to a dinner
at the Eagle Hotel, before making the return rail trip to Rochester.
** Rochester's Daily Democrat publishes its first story
delivered by carrier pigeon.
Jun 27
New York State makes the first payment on Erie Canal Enlarged
Lock 18 at Cohoes.
July
The reported date U. S. Indian agent James Stryker signs a bond
over to Henry P. Wilcox for $7143, previously used to pay the
Seneca Nation an annuity per the Phelps Gorham land transaction
of 1788. The tribe had not been told of or consented to the transferral
and further payments cease.
August
Former Batavia newspaper editor Frederick Follett returns from
Texas to resume the editorship of the Spirit of the Times.
** William C. Redfield's account of the Mount Marcy climb begins
appearing in the New York Journal of Commerce.
Sep 2
Alfred Vail observes a demonstration of the telegraph by Samuel
F. B. Morse at the University of the City of New York.
Sep 23
Morse and Vail sign a contract - Vail will secure foreign and
domestic patents for the telegraph at his own expense, in return
for a quarter interest in U. S. rights and a half interest in
foreign rights.
Dec 29
The lake steamer Caroline stops in Buffalo to take on volunteers
for McKenzie's rebellion. Canadian militia forces destroy the
Caroline, used to transport arms to Canadian rebels. U.
S. citizen Amos Durfee is killed. One rebel is killed, the ship
set on fire, blown up and sent over the Falls.
City
Population: 300,000. ** The Sandy Hook Bar, stretching from Sandy
Hook, New Jersey, to Rockaway, Long Island, is dredged to a depth
of twenty-three feet. ** Whig alderman Aaron Clark is elected
mayor for the next two one-year terms. ** The city is granted
jurisdiction over underwater land on the North (Hudson) River
as far north as 13th Avenue. ** The U. S. Navy's first steam warship
Fulton is launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. ** Jakob
Uhl of the New Yorker Staats Zeitung newspaper marries
Anna Behr. ** J. M. Church begins publishing The Word.
** The approximate date the Open Board of Brokers is formed.
State
The Le Roy Female Seminary (later Ingham University), the first
woman's college in the U. S., is founded in Le Roy, by sisters
and former Attica schoolteachers Mariette and Emily Bingham. **
Brockport's Baptist Institute closes due to financial problems
of the New York Baptist Convention. ** The Ellenville Glassworks
opens. ** Contracts are let for construction of the Genesee Valley
Canal. ** T. A. Conrad is given the task of compiling a paleontological
survey of the state. ** Work on the Long Island Railroad (LIRR)
line between Mineola and Hempstead is halted for the next four
years by the financial panic. ** Batavia's Holland Land Office
sells its remaining land and ceases operations. ** Troy's Carr
Mansion is built. ** William Henry Bartlett paints a view of the
Hudson River from Hyde Park. ** The Genesee and Wyoming Seminary
opens in a cobblestone building in Alexander. ** Last year's climbing
party succeeds in reaching the top of Mount Marcy, the first recorded
ascent. ** Early Connewango settler-farmer John Fairbanks dies.
** The Chenango Canal goes into operation. ** Former New York
Supreme Court justice and governor Joseph Christopher Yates dies
in Schenectady in his late sixties. ** Farmer Village (Interlaken)
minister Winfield Scott is born in Michigan to James B. and Margaret
Scott. ** A lead mine is opened near Martinsburgh Village in Lewis
County. ** The current East Penfield Baptist Church building is
completed at a cost of $1250. ** The Chemung Canal, connecting
Binghamton and the Erie Canal at Utica, is completed. ** Moses
Hale, MD, first Secretary of the Renssalaer School, dies, in his
late fifties. ** Publication of Livingston County's Livingston
Register is suspended for a brief time.
Albany
The city ceases using Maezlandt Kill for its water supply.
Erie Canal
3,955 boats arrive in Buffalo harbor this year. 4,755 craft lock
through the canal.
Rochester
Construction begins on a new Erie Canal aqueduct over the Genesee
River. ** The city's first murder occurs. ** A wall is built along
the Genesee River through downtown. ** A public market building
is erected on Market Street (formerly Mason Street), which is
then renamed Front Street. ** Wealthy St. Louis fur trader Henry
Shaw builds a house for his parents. ** Mayor Jonathan Child begins
building a home on South Washington Street. ** Louis Seyle's fire
engine manufacturing company at Brown's Race is destroyed by fire.
** U. S. Senator Daniel Webster speaks in the Court House square.
** Because of a poor national economy, the city opens a municipal
soup-kitchen. ** Revival meetings are held.
Religion
The Old School Party of the Presbyterian Church meets in Philadelphia
and proposes a severance of all local churches not following strict
Presbyterian doctrine. When the whole Assembly of the church takes
place later in the year, the Old School faction, having a small
majority, proceeds to abrogate the Plan of Union between the Presbyterian
and Congregationalist Churches, and to declare that the Synods
of Utica, Geneva, Genesee, and Western Reserve, are not consistent
parts of the Presbyterian church.
January
The packet boat Pennsylvania arrives in New York City,
having made the voyage from Liverpool, England, in fifteen days.
** Rochester's Ever Ready Neptune Bucket Company No. 1, made up
of young men between the ages of 14 and 17 years, is formed and
becomes part of the Firemen's Association.
Jan 4
Rochester's first anti-slavery society is formed.
Apr 17
The Grammar School of Columbia College and the Grammar School
University of City of New York are chartered by the New York Board
of Regents.
Apr 18
The Allegany town of West Grove (the future Granger) is formed
out of Grove. ** Fulton County is taken off of Montgomery County.
Apr 22
The British ship Sirius, the second ship to steam across
the Atlantic, arrives in New York City from Liverpool, England.
Apr 23
The steamship Great Western arrives in New York after a
passage of 12 days and 18 hours.
May 11
W. D. Kent and T. A. Jennings, two teenage members of Rochester's
Ever Ready Neptune Bucket Company No. 1, offer their resignations,
complaining it is too hard to pull the fire apparatus through
the streets. Kent's resignation is accepted; Jennings is expelled.
Jun 15
The steamship Pulaski is wrecked off Cape Hatteras. 100
die, among them New York State judge and former candidate for
governor William B. Rochester.
Jun 26
The first annual parade of Brooklyn Sunday schools is held. It
will become the Brooklyn-Queens (Anniversary, Rally) Day celebration.
Aug 17
Italian-born librettist, professor and dramatic impresario Lorenzo
Da Ponte dies in New York City at the age of 89. He will be buried
in Calvary Cemetery.
Sep 4
Rochester's Ever Ready Neptune Bucket Company passes a resolution
requiring that no member be allowed to resign without sufficient
reason and that no member of the company make remarks derogatory
to the general character of the officers, or of their abilities.
Oct 29
Isaac C. Sheldon begins publishing Cuba, New York's Cuba Advocate.
It's published for several years.
Nov 7
William Henry Seward is elected governor of New York.
Dec 3
Meteorologist-astronomer Cleveland Abbe is born in New York City
to Baptist merchant George Waldo Abbe and Charlotte Colgate Abbe.
City
Lawyers George Griffin and George Washington Strong dissolve their
practice. Strong takes on Marshall S. Bidwell as his new partner.
Strong's son George Templeton Strong also joins the firm as a
clerk. ** Edwin H. Chapin, future pastor of the Universalist Church
here, is ordained in Boston. ** Brunel's steamship Great Western
makes its transatlantic voyage, inaugurating service to New York.
State
The Scottsville and Le Roy Railroad is built at the cost of $40,0000,
using wooden rails. It only reaches from Scottsville to Caledonia.
** Rochester boat tonnage drops to 408 tons. Oswego's reaches
6,582 tons and Buffalo's is 9,615 tons. Flour and bulk wheat receipts
for Buffalo surpass those of the former leader, New Orleans, Louisiana.
** The steamboat Washington burns off Silver Creek. Twelve
people die. ** A bank is built in Le Roy at the corner of Market
and Main streets. Market will be renamed Bank Street. ** South
Bristol is split off from Bristol. ** The first church (Methodist
Episcopalian) in North Hudson, Essex County is formed. ** The
Monroe County Total Abstinence Society has over 2,000 members.
** A daughter, Lucy, is born to William and Eliza Rockefeller,
in Richford - their first child. ** The state registry of canal
boats is completed.
Erie Canal
The Jordan Level, between Montezuma and Camillus, is straightened,
shortening the stretch by a mile and saving $18,323.72 in cost.
** The state floats a bond issue of $4,000,000 for enlarging the
canal.
Rochester
Clyde Street is renamed St. Paul Street for the local Episcopal
church. River Street becomes South St. Paul.** The public cemetery
is moved from the west side of town to the east bank of the Genesee
River. The street and cemetery are named Mount Hope. ** The three-mile
Carthage horse-car railroad is discontinued, a victim of the Panic
of 1837. ** Henry O'Reilly's Sketches of Rochester. **
George Ellwanger buys the seed store of Reynolds and Bateham,
and joins Patrick Barry in founding nurseries at Mount Hope. **
Abelard Reynolds is named alderman of the first ward. ** Elisha
Johnson is elected the city's fifth mayor. He issues a report
to the common council proving the financial savings to be made
by having a public water system. The report is ignored. ** Students
at Rochester High School form the Rochester Lyceum or Youths Debating
Association. It will remain in existence for the next two years.
** The mayor is granted a salary for the first time, $400 a year,
out of which he is to pay his office rent. ** Export trade worth
between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 passes through the Port of the
Genesee at Charlotte. ** The city provides public employment breaking
stone, in the spring. ** Revival meetings are held. ** Myron Holley
makes a series of speeches in Monroe County advocating abolition
as a political cause.
Jan 1
The Le Roy Bank of Genesee, capitalized at $100,000, is chartered.
Jan 26
Stephen Van Renssalaer, last of the Dutch patroons, dies.
Feb 5
The Seneca Falls Academy is chartered by the state board of Regents.
Feb 16
Albany Medical College is incorporated.
March
Rochester's Ever Ready Neptune Bucket Company No. 1 changes its
name to the Avenger Company.
Mar 6
The Allegany County town of West Grove is renamed Granger.
Apr 1
The Adirondack Railroad is organized. Capitalized at $100,000,
it is designed to connect the Adirondack Iron Works with Clear
Pond. It is never built.
Apr 16
Members of the Avenger Company take umbrage over the way they
are treated by Mr. Judson, foreman of the regular volunteer firemen,
at the conclusion of a fire.
Apr 29
The Oswego and Syracuse Railroad company is formed. The route
will be surveyed in the summer.
May 2
The Rochester Lyceum or Youths Debating Association goes into
committee to find ways of making meetings more interesting and
useful.
May 27
The immigrant ship Bowditch arrives in New York from Liverpool,
England, with 231 passengers aboard.
Jun 4
The Avenger Company, angry over their treatment by the regular
fire brigades and the city of Rochester, disbands, firing off
a parting shot in the daily newspapers.
Jun 12
The claimed date that Abner Doubleday invents modern rules for
baseball, at Cooperstown.
Jun 28
Rochester's Union Grays march to the Court House yard, escorted
by Captain Loud's company of regulars and Williams Light Infantry,
to receive a stand of colors from the Ladies, represented by Graham
H. Chapin, Esq.
Jul 8
Industrialist John D. Rockefeller is born to William and Eliza
Rockefeller, in Richford.
Jul 26
The Rochester Lyceum or Youths Debating Association argues the
question, "Resolved that Henry Clay deserves the office of
President of the United States of America more than Gen. Scott."
Sep 2
Corning residents meet at the home of S. B. Denton to establish
a school system for the village.
Sep 28
Temperance leader Frances Elizabeth Willard is born in Churchville.
October
The Seneca River Towing Path of the New York State Barge Canal
connects Mud Lock on the Oswego Canal to the outlet of Onondaga
Lake.
Oct 1
Herman Melville arrives back in New York City on the Lawrence.
Nov 15
Abolitionists, meet in Warsaw, New York, leading to the formation
of the Liberty Party. They nominate James G. Birney for President
of the United States and Pennsylvania's Francis J. Lemoyne as
Vice-President.
December
Anti-rent protestors in western Albany County disperse quietly
when the governor sends forces to assist the civil authorities.
Dec 18
English-born U. S. physician - scientist John William Draper,
working with inventor Samuel F. B. Morse and the new daguerreotype
method Morse has brought back from France, makes the first U.
S. celestial photograph, of the Moon, in New York City.
City
Democratic alderman Isaac I. Varian wins two one-year terms as
mayor, defeating Whig candidate Aaron Clark this year and Whig
J. P. Phoenix in 1840. ** William F. Harnden starts a Boston-to-New
York package service, carrying them in a carpetbag. ** The second
Trinity Church, weakened by heavy snows on the roof, is demolished.
** A group of city businessmen found the non-profit Apollo Association
for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in the United States (later
known as the American Art Union). ** The first public display
here of daguerreotypes is presented.
State
Builder John Canfield is born in Churchville. ** The Genesee Valley
Canal reaches Mount Morris. ** William Henry Seward becomes the
state's first Whig governor, serving two terms - 1839-1843. **
General William Kerley Strong erects a Greek Revival mansion on
Geneva's Rose Hill Farm. ** A railroad connects Corning with the
Pennsylvania coal fields. ** Junius peppermint farmer Peter Hill
moves to Lyons, having bought property at the future site of Erie
Canal Lock E-56. ** A Stafford silkworm operation contains 6,000
mulberry trees and 72,000 worms. ** American Revolution heroine
Sybil Ludington dies in her late seventies. ** The Albany Exchange
Building is erected at Broadway and State Street by a joint stock
company. It will hold the post office, the New York Central Railroad
office and other offices. ** Geneva-born author Caroline Matilda
Stansbury Kirkland publishes A New Home: Who'll Follow,
an account of her life in the Detroit frontier settlements. **
Ulysses S. Grant enters West Point. ** Northern general-tactician
Emory Upton is born in Batavia. ** A foundry in Perry is destroyed
by fire. Townspeople pitch in to rebuild the structure, which
later becomes part of the Robeson cutlery plant. ** H. and W.
Clark's Cobblestone Hotel (the J. P. Hicks Building) in Liverpool
is completed. ** Slave Harriett Powell is liberated while on a
visit to Syracuse. ** Setauket, Long Island, historian and writer
Benjamin Thompson dedicates his A History of Long Island
to writer Silas Wood. He perpetuates Wood's totally incorrect
list of the tribes of the island and their locations, and claims
the tribes sold their lands to the whites in honest transactions.
** The route for the Oswego and Syracuse Railroad company is surveyed.
** Canandaigua leather shop owner William Blossom Hayton is born.
** New York Loyalist Anthony Allaire dies in New Brunswick, Canada,
in his mid-eighties. ** A 650-foot deep salt well is drilled along
the enlarged Erie Canal at Montezuma.
Rochester
Company directors liquidate the Rochester Canal and Railway Company.
** Over a dozen local companies now haul passengers and freight
on the Erie Canal. ** Part of Brighton is annexed by Irondequoit.
** The city's population reaches 20,000. 73% of the population
is under thirty years of age, only 5 % over fifty. Catholics now
compose slightly more than 20 % of the city's population. ** The
city has a permanent twelve man police force. ** The annual city
budget is just over $100,000 and taxes levied amount to $17,500.
The salaries of the city's part-time officers amounts to under
$3,000, most expenditures being for the street paving program
and a limited number of other public services. ** Elder Jacob
Knapp holds a very successful revival meeting. ** Close to one-third
of children in the city receive no education. Of the rest, half
go to private schools, half to public, fee-based, schools.
Jan 1
New York City's Knickerbocker Alleys holds the first recorded
indoor bowling match in the U. S.
Jan 23
Schuylerville Academy is incorporated by the New York State Board
of Regents.
Jan 26
A missionary returned from Syria speaks at Rochester's Brick Church.
February
Writer-poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, visiting New York City,
is forced to return to Boston by way of coach when Long Island
Sound freezes over, preventing the steamboats from operating.
Feb 13
The State legislature provides for the direct election of mayors.
Mar 3
Military officer William Wallace Gilbert is born in Rochester.
Mar 16
Western New York celebrates its semi-centennial.
Apr 1
The abolitionist Liberty Party meets in Albany to nominate James
Gillespie Birney of New York and Thomas Earle of Pennsylvania
for president and vice-president. Rochester's Myron Holley is
one of the party's organizers.
May 6
Congressman and state senator John Raines is born in Canandaigua.
June
Batavia newspaper publisher Frederick Follett sells the Spirit
of the Times to Lucas Seaver, and joins Peter Lawrence in
publishing the new Batavia Times and Farmers and Mechanics
Journal.
Aug 19
Daniel Webster speaks at Saratoga.
Sep 1
The first boat to use the completed section of New York State's
Genesee Valley Canal, traveling from Rochester to Mount Morris,
stops at Cuylerville's National Hotel for a celebration.
Sep 10
The locomotive The Young Lion inaugurates New York's Auburn
& Rochester Railroad.
Sep 12
The first train on the Auburn & Rochester Railroad arrives
in Canandaigua.
City
Population: 312,710. ** The Admiral's House is built, on Governor's
Island. ** Henry James marries Mary Walsh. They will be the parents
of William and Henry James. ** Catholic parochial schools begin
getting state aid.
Brooklyn
The Atlantic Dock Company is established. ** The village of Williamsburg
becomes a town, with a population of 5,000. ** Fernando Wood's
grocery and grog shop goes out of business.
State
The town of Irondequoit is carved out of the town of Brighton,
on the outskirts of Rochester. ** Angelica's Allegany Gazette
begins publication. ** The first Orange County Fair is held. **
Population: Albany: 34,000; Rochester: 20,195; Utica: 13,000;
Troy: 15,000. ** Wayne County peppermint farmer Peter Hill begins
dismantling his private grocery building to move it out of the
way of the Erie Canal enlargement. ** William Tecumseh Sherman
graduates from West Point. ** The approximate date Elijah T. Hayden
builds Syracuse's Leavenworth House hotel, at the corner of James
and McBride streets. ** Le Roy storekeeper Lathrop S. Bacon opens
an iron foundry that will begin manufacturing stoves. ** Henry
R. Worthington invents the direct acting steam pump, installs
it on his Erie Canal boat. Pressure from established boatmen forces
the paddlewheeler off the canal after a few seasons. ** The Genesee
Valley Canal is completed to Shakers (Sonyea). ** The wife of
Connewango's first supervisor John Darling dies. ** The eighth
and final edition of Amos Eaton's A Manual of Botany for the
Northern States is published. ** Newspaper editor John Kempshall
discontinues publishing his Livingston Register. ** Hudson
River ferry service across the Tappan Zee is inaugurated, linking
Nyack and Tarrytown. ** Hammondsport native Fletcher M. Hammond
takes up the study of medicine in Bath. ** The approximate date
Levi Hoyt opens a tavern at 200 Main Street in Penn Yan, in a
building that probably had been the Heimup family home. About
this time the newly formed Wesleyan Methodist Church begins meeting
in the tavern's upper rooms. ** Russell Austin is elected village
president of Geneseo, serves this year and next. ** Close to 100
boats steam up and down the Hudson River by this year. ** Albany
businessman Erastus Corning takes his wife on a European tour.
He imports a herd of Herefords, the first in the U. S. ** Legislation
is passed requiring all mayors in the state be elected directly
by the people. ** Troy installs a $100,000 water supply system,
piping it in from Piskawin Creek. ** The Glens Falls feeder to
the Champlain Canal is completed. An 900-foot 1821 dam at Fort
Edward that had served that purpose, is sold to a private company
and its height is reduced from 27 feet to 16 feet. ** The first
timber dry dock in the country is built in Buffalo. ** $1,775,967
in tolls are collected on state canals. ** The approximate date
Tompkins H. Matteson paints the 1690 Schenectady Indian massacre.
Corning
Advance crews of the New York and Erie Railroad arrive for preliminary
studies. ** The village's first school house is built.
Erie Canal
The canal carries 1,400,000 tons of cargo this year. ** Wayne
County peppermint farmer Peter Hill begins dismantling his private
grocery building to move it out of the way of the canal enlargement.
Rochester
Construction begins on East Avenue's Smith-Perkins (Woodside)
and Pitkin-Powers mansions. ** The city annexes Mount Hope Cemetery,
increasing its own size to 7.438 square miles. ** The city contains
22 flour mills, capitalized at almost $1,000,000, turning out
close to 500,000 barrels worth over $2,000,000. ** The Phoenix
Mill is destroyed by fire, rebuilt. ** Approximately 16 area companies
currently build canal line boats. ** As part of the U. S. presidential
campaign the city's Second Ward Tippecanoe Club (the Saucy Second)
erects the first Harrison log cabin in Rochester, at Platt and
State Streets, and throws a dedication ceremony. It includes a
two-mile-long parade and a delegation from Greece (NY) in a wheeled
canoe 60 foot long, drawn by eight horses, which proves to be
too lengthy to march around corners. Over 7,000 participate. The
city will go for Harrison by a small margin. ** 1,389 persons
(6% of the total population) is on relief. Over this past winter
it amounts to $7,191 (slightly more than $5 per person). ** George
Ellwanger founds the Mt. Hope Nursery.
© 2004 David Minor / Eagles Byte