January
Governor De Witt Clinton makes his annual message to the legislature
in Albany, claims that New York City is unable to meet its own
water needs, suggests the Bronx and Saw Mill rivers in Westchester
as sources.
Jan 26
New York State's J. W. Taylor proposes a amendment to the Maine
statehood bill, prohibiting slavery in Missouri.
Feb 25
The Clinton County town of Beekmantown is formed from Plattsburgh.
Mar 14
The Genesee County town of Elba is taken off of the town of Batavia.
Mar 24
The Genesee County town of Stafford is formed from parts of Batavia
and Le Roy.
Apr 21
The Lion of the West leaves Rochesterville, the first canal
boat from there to Utica, on the Erie Canal.
May
The section of the Erie Canal between Utica and the Seneca River
is opened for public use.
May 3
Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro plays for the first time
in New York City, in English.
May 22
The Genesee River bridge at Carthage collapses.
May 23
Former New England congressman Daniel Webster addresses a crowd
in Rochester's Reynolds Arcade.
Jul 1
The first toll is collected on the Erie Canal.
August
Martin Van Buren becomes a major investor in the Albany
Argus.
Aug 20
A meeting is held at Canandaigua's Mill's Hotel to discuss the
building of a canal linking Canandaigua Lake with the Erie Canal.
John C. Spencer, James D. Bemis, Asa Stanley, Dudley Marvin, and
William H. Adams are appointed to study a route.
Sep 7
During a Lake Erie storm, two lake vessels are forced to tie up
at the new pier being built by Samuel Wilkeson at Buffalo Creek
(later the Buffalo River). The pier holds.
Sep 20
Rochesterville's Methodist Episcopal Church opens. Abelard Reynolds
is named first trustee.
October
Franklin Cowdery begins publishing the Angelica Republican.
Oct 2
Nathan Reed is the first child born in the town of Allegany.
Nov 13
The Hudson River freezes over at Albany.
December
Fifteen men, mostly Quakers, knowing the Erie Canal will come
through the area, have bought up the site of the future Lockport.
Dec 21
The Canandaigua Lake canal committee recommends a 19 1/2-mile
route that would require 23 locks and cost $68,000. The Ontario
Canal Company is formed.
City
Population: 123,706. ** Diarist, attorney and music lover George
Templeton Strong is born. ** The ship of the line Ohio is
launched at Brooklyn Navy Yard. ** Steamship service to New Orleans
begins. ** The harbor freezes over. ** The Irish electorate begins
taking over the Tammany Hall political machine. ** The New York
Stock and Exchange Board begins holding its meetings in the office
of Samuel J. Beebe at 47 Wall Street. ** Growing numbers of Chinese,
Irish and Italian immigrants begin filling the Five Points area.
** Robert McQueen's Columbian Foundry ironworks has over 80 employees.
** Hydraulic engineer F. Huguet, manager for the Manhattan Company,
becomes incapacitated. ** Physician David Hosack estimates that
1/12 of the city's inhabited land is given over to cesspools and
privies. ** The Common Council denies sparkling water vendor Sophia
Usher permission to erect a store in a city-owned lot near City
Hall. The council also grants Robert Macomb conditional permission
to build and fill a reservoir in Harlem and lay pipes to transport
the water into the city. The conditions, including eventual city
ownership of the system, deters Macomb. ** The Park Theatre is
destroyed by fire. ** The approximate date visiting French artist
Jacques-Gérard Milbert produces a lithograph of Chapel
Street near Columbia College.
State
De Witt Clinton wins the governorship, but with a Bucktail (Republican)
legislature. ** Theodore S. Fayton hires John Butterfield as a
driver for Utica's J. Parker and Company stage line. ** A Lake
Erie lighthouse is erected on Dunkirk's Point Gratiot. Another
is built on Galloo Island in Lake Ontario's Sackets Harbor. **
Vermont native Sewell Newhouse moves to the New York woods to
become a trapper. ** Joseph Cox begins operating a ferry on the
Genesee River near Rush. ** Dr. T. Romeyn Beck conducts a geological
and agricultural survey of Albany County, the first such survey
in the state. ** Onondaga County area white population is over
fifty people per square mile. Orleans County has a population
of 7,116. The Town of Mendon has a population of 1,435. ** **
The approximate date Geneva's Ludlow House is built, at 388 Pulteney
Street. Federal row houses are also built at 394, 398, 400 and
402 Pulteney this year. ** Carthage landing ships 67,468 bushels
of flour, 5,310 barrels of pearl and pot ash, 26,743 barrels of
beef and pork, and 709 barrels of whiskey, along with other goods,
on 316 vessels. ** Three dry seasons reduce the clearance over
the Genesee River sandbar from twelve to six feet. ** Connewango
pioneer James Blanchard and his wife Eunice open a tavern on the
old Chautauqua road. Carpenter David Davidson builds the first
frame building in town. Stephen Nichols, David Cooper, Culver
Crumb and Vermont farmer Ezra Amadon settle in town. Windsor,
Vermont, Native Thomas Darling arrives from York, New York. Restless,
he will soon move on to Ohio. Brothers Leonard and Aaron Barton
arrive form Massachusetts but soon grow discouraged and return
there.. Elias Wilcox arrives from Livingston County. ** Auburn's
Theological Seminary is incorporated. ** The approximate date
a barn is built in Ontario County that will one day be part of
the Genesee Country Museum. ** Ebenezer Reed of Connecticut settles
near the mouth of Cattaraugus County's Five Mile Creek, the future
site of the town of Allegany. ** 14-year-old Palmyra farm boy
Joseph Smith reports seeing God and Christ while praying in a
maple grove. ** Naturalist Amos Eaton is appointed professor of
natural history at the medical school at Vermont's Castleton College.
Under the patronage of Stephen van Rensselaer he begins a survey
of Albany and Rensselaer counties, continues it on into 1821.
Eaton completes the publication of his geologic profile of the
region between Boston and south-central New York ** The Commissioners
of the land office are authorized to survey and sell lots on the
Onondaga salt spring reservation, as with other unappropriated
lands in the state, the proceeds to go to the Commissioners of
the Canal Fund. $20,000, from the first sales is to be applied
to the improvement of navigation on the Oswego River. ** A Federal
style home is built at Kinderhook for attorney James Vanderpoel.
** The approximate date (or 1821) when Josiah Chadwick builds
a tavern on the Geneseo Road just south of Avon. ** The Delaware
County court house is erected at Delhi. ** A brick courthouse-jail
is built at Pulaski Village and a wood courthouse at Oswego City.Vermont-born
physician Andrew Oliver opens a practice in Penn Yan. ** Publisher
Horatio Gates Spafford moves from Spafford's Settlement , his
failed experimental farm at Venango, Pennsylvania, to Ballston
Spa, New York. ** Methodist Episcopalian minister Austin Cowles
holds the first religious services in the Allegany County Town
of Bolivar. ** Blenheim miller and militia general Freegift Patchin
represents Schoharie County in the state assembly for the next
three years, as he did in 1804 and 1805. ** Esek Brown opens a
tavern on the future site of Lockport. ** Ira Chubb's farm in
the Yates County Town of Barrington is completed. The road by
the farm will be named the Chubb Hollow Road. ** The approximate
date a small Federal-style house is built on Cooperstown's Pioneer
Street for merchant Ellery Cory. ** Civil War chaplain T. Spencer
Harrison (126th NY) is born in Poughkeepsie. ** Cohocton's first
frame schoolhouse is built, in front of Maple View Cemetery.
Buffalo
It's loan protected by personal bonds, the state provides $12,000
for harbor improvements. ** The area now has 32 blacks. ** The
steamboat Walk-in-the Water leaves for Mackinac with $100,000
in trade goods for John Jacob Astor. ** Joseph Clary arrives from
Oneida County to read law.
Canals
The Guard Lock, allowing the Erie to cross Schoharie Creek at
Fort Hunter, is constructed. ** Improvements are completed along
1.72 miles of the Cayuga-Seneca Waterway. Towpaths are no longer
needed on the slackwater portions.
Albany
Population reaches 13,000. ** The Ministry building at the Watervliet
Shaker colony is built.
Rochesterville
Azel Ensworth's tavern becomes the Eagle Hotel, with the addition
of a high attic to serve as ballroom and public hall. ** Court
Street is extended. ** Population reaches 1,502. ** Miller Charles
J. Hill is named a trustee of the village. ** Matthew Brown builds
a sawmill and millrace at the High Falls. ** Several private wells
are dug near the springs on Spring Street. ** Everard Peck begins
publishing the Farmer's Calendar, or Ontario and Genesee Almanac.
Peck also publishes The Life and Adventures of James R. Durand
for the author, probably the first book printed here. ** The first
St. Luke's Episcopal Church, a wooden structure, is built.
January
Fire destroys wooden buildings on New York City's Front, Fulton
and South Streets. ** The Fulton Fish Market is erected to replace
the outdated Fly Market at Maiden Lane. ** The chief engineer
of the Fire Department permits two fire-engine companies to consolidate
as one temporarily, to simplify progress through excessively snow-clogged
streets. ** Anthracite coal is first used in the city.
Jan 1
Actor-manager John Lester Wallack is born to actor-manager James
William Wallack and his wife, in New York City.
Jan 12
The state legislature begins purging Federalists from the state
government.
Jan 17
Governor Clinton accuses Martin Van Buren of bartering states
rights for patronage in Washington.
Jan 21
New York City's North River freezes over.
Jan 25
Temperatures in New York City drop to -14°. Thousands walk
from Jersey City, New Jersey, to Manhattan on the frozen ice on
the Hudson (North) River. They also walk to Brooklyn and Governor's
Island.
Jan 26
New Yorkers walk from Long Island to Staten Island on the ice.
** The Dutchess County towns of Hyde Park and Pleasant Valley
are formed from Clinton.
Feb 2
A Bucktail caucus nominates Van Buren for the U. S. Senate.
Feb 6
The New York legislature elects Van Buren to the Senate. He will
authorize his aides in the Democratic-Republican party to represent
him in his absence.
Feb 9
The Dutchess County town of La Grange is formed from Beekman and
Fishkill, under the name of Freedom.
Feb 12
The Mercantile Library of the City of New York opens.
Feb 23
Monroe and Livingston counties are formed from parts of Ontario
and Genesee counties. Avon lawyer George Hosmer is named as Livingston's
district attorney.
Mar 16
The Cayuga County town of Conquest is formed from Cato township.
Mar 27
The St. Lawrence County town of Morristown, named for proprietor
Gouverneur Morris, is formed from Oswegatchie. It encompassed
Hague, the 9th of the Ten Towns in the St. Lawrence tract.
Mar 29
Cattaraugus County's Town of Farmersville is formed from the Town
of Ischua (later Franklinville).
Mar 31
The state legislature incorporates the Ontario Canal Company.
Apr 2
Erie County is created out of Niagara County.
May
Contracts are let for the Deep Cut portion of the Erie Canal at
Lockport.
May 8
The Rochester Board of Supervisors meets for the first time. **
The first Monroe County Court is held in the loft of Rochester's
Eagle Tavern.
May 9
The Monroe County Medical Society is organized.
May 23
Ontario Canal Company commissioners N. Gorham, Z. Seymour, Asa
Stanley, P. P. Bates, and William H. Adams open the books for
subscriptions, at Coe's Hotel in Canandaigua.
May 30
The Monroe County Bible Society is founded.
Jun 12
Ontario Canal Company subscriptions reach $20,000.
Jul 1
The first dance in the village of Connewango is held at the home
of Russel Pennock.
August
Contractor William Britton, aided by 30 convicts from Auburn Prison,
begins construction of Rochesterville's Erie Canal Aqueduct over
the Genesee River.
Aug 30
The state constitutional convention begins meeting, in Albany.
Sep 18
Benjamin Smith Corning, son of Erastus and Harriet Weld Corning,
dies in Albany at the age of one year, eight months and 18 days.
Oct 26
Joseph Ellicott, Resident-Agent for Batavia's Holland Land Office,
resigns due to ill health and increasing criticism of his performance.
Nov 1
The Lake Erie Steamboat Company's Great Lakes steamer Walk-in-the-Water
runs aground in Lake Erie off Buffalo. There are no injuries.
Judge Samuel Wilkinson makes a deal with a representative from
the steamboat company. He will see the boat is freed by May first
of the following year or forfeit $150 for each day the deadline
is missed. The company will build a new boat in Buffalo if the
deadline is met.
December
William Brittin dies.
City
The new state constitution provides for the mayor to be appointed
by the city council rather than by the governor. The Council of
Appointments is abolished. Wealthy alderman Stephen Allen becomes
the city's first elected mayor, serving three one-year terms.
** The city is granted jurisdiction over underwater land off the
Battery, to a distance of 600 feet. ** Express riders service
begins to Boston. ** Norwegian religious dissidents Cleng Peerson
and Knud Olson Eide arrive. ** John Randall, Jr. completes his
street map of Manhattan, commissioned in 1809. ** French-trained
lithographers William Armand Burnet and Isaac Doolittle form a
company at 23 Lumber Street (later Trinity Place), the first such
firm in the U. S. ** William A. Brown opens the African Theatre,
in lower Manhattan, producing Shakespeare, musicals and pantomimes;
probably the city's first black theater. ** The New York Stock
Exchange adopts a revised constitution, signed by 39 members.
** Engineer Christopher Colles dies in poverty and is buried in
Trinity Churchyard. ** Hydraulic engineer F. Huguet dies. It's
discovered that he's been mismanaging the water supply and making
money on the side from his position; the Manhattan Company goes
back to using an appointed superintendent; new administrative
safeguards are put into place. John Lozier is named superintendent.
** Moses Taylor, son of a John Jacob Astor agent, goes to work
for the G. G. & S.S. Howlands, a shipping company in the South
American trade. ** The Fulton Fish Market opens.
State
A referendum on a new state constitution gets strong support and
Clinton changes his mind about opposing it. ** The towns of Almond
and Independence are split off from Alfred. ** The Seneca Canal
is completed. ** Monroe and Livingston counties are carved out
of Genesee County. Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, who had lead the
drive for a new county on the Genesee after a 1817 drive failed,
is named clerk of Monroe County; Matthew Brown is named chairman
of the Board of Town Supervisors. Mr. Rochester is also named
the county's first representative in the State Legislature. **
Timothy Dwight's Travels in New England and New York, 1796-1815
is published, posthumously. ** Nathan Burt of Mt. Morris settles
in Connewango. ** The Champlain Canal excavation out of Schuylerville
comes within ten miles of Waterford. ** Auburn's Theological Seminary
opens. ** In Cayuga County Conquest, Ira, and Victory are taken
off the town of Cato. ** The Monroe County Sheriff's Office is
formed. Brockport merchant James Seymour is appointed as the first
sheriff. ** Cooperstown's Otsego Herald and Western Advertiser,
founded in 1795, ceases publication. ** The approximate date James
Percival buys out The Moscow Advertiser and Genesee Farmer,
moves it from Moscow, New York, to Geneseo and renames it The
Livingston Register. ** The courthouse/jail in Watertown is
destroyed by fire. ** Andrew Allen, Isaac Eggleston, Amos and
David Orton, James Strong, and Hiram Wood settle along Five Mile
Creek at Allegany ** Sullivan County gets its first newspaper.
** Presbyterian minister the Reverend Robert Hunter conducts the
first religious service in the Allegany County town of Allen.
** The Tioga County village of Richford is founded. ** The shipbuilding
firm of Townsend, Bronson & Co. is dissolved. ** The state
contracts with Melancthon Wheeler to build a 900-ft long dam,
27 feet high, at Fort Edward, creating a feeder to the Champlain
Canal. ** A lighthouse is built on Lake Ontario at Oswego. **
Residents name their village Lockport. ** William Allen arrives
in Geneseo from Adams. He will become a land agent for the Wadsworths
for the next 45 years. ** William A. Hart drills the first gas
well in the U. S., in Fredonia. ** Samuel Fowler is born to Horace
and Mary Taylor Fowler in Cohocton. ** William Henry Seward graduates
from Schenectady's Union College. ** Archibald McIntyre is removed
from the state comptrollership, due to a disputation over his
handling of state funds.
Albany
The Albany Female Academy is incorporated.
Connewango
The wife of early settler John Farlee dies in the fall - the first
death of an adult in town. She's buried in her garden, in the
midst of a raging snow-storm. No minister is present; a friend
offers a prayer. ** Nathan Burt of Mount Morris and Daniel Newcomb
of Goshen settle in town, as does John Darling of Vermont. Darling
becomes trapped overnight by wolves in his sugar house later in
the year. ** Benjamin Darling and his wife and five children arrive
from Vermont, having traveled for four weeks by ox-team and sled.
** Peter Pennock arrives from Genesee County; Luman Beach arrives
from Caledonia.
Erie Canal
Construction at Rochesterville is completed. The stretch between
Utica and High Falls is also completed. ** Canvass White recommends
running the canal on the northern side of the Mohawk River, in
the Schenectady-to-Albany portion. The canal reaches Albany. **
The state signs construction contracts for the Niagara County
portion of the canal.
Rochesterville
The first jail in the settlement is built on North Fitzhugh Street,
a log cabin with cells along a central corridor. ** The first
court house is built.
Troy
Emma Willard founds the Troy Female Seminary, the first school
to offer scientific and classical studies on a collegiate level
to women. ** A house of industry for paupers is established, on
the Rumford Plan, outside the city.
Pennsylvania
Quaker merchant Benjamin Wood and his family, including son Fernando,
move from Philadelphia to New York City, where Benjamin opens
a tobacco store.
January
New York mayor Stephen Allen chairs another Common Council water
committee, assisted by former street commissioner John McComb,
Harlem dam builder Robert Macomb and engineer Canvass White.
Jan 3
Abolitionist Gerrit Smith marries Ann (Nancy) Carroll Fitzhugh,
daughter of William Fitzhugh, one of Rochester's founders, at
that city's St. Luke's Church.
Jan 22
The Albany Argus publishes all of the correspondence in
the uproar over Federalist Solomon van Rensselaer's appointment
as the Albany postmaster.
February
John Butterfield marries Malinda Harriet Baker, in Utica. ** Geneva
businessmen dissatisfied with the Seneca Lock Navigation Company's
plans, issue a report advocating a Susquehanna and St. Lawrence
Canal. Nothing comes of the plan. ** Rochesterville's third village
census show a population of 2,700, plus 430 laboring on public
works.
Feb 22
Chili township is created out of Riga township.
Feb 27
Rochesterville's Female Charitable Society is founded.
Feb 28
The Albany County Town of Knox is formed from Bern.
Mar 8
Rochesterville civic leader Edwin S. Hayward is born in Charlton,
Massachusetts, to future Brighton pioneer Nathaniel Hayward.
Mar 18
Joseph Yates wins the Republican nomination for governor.
Mar 22
Two Tompkins County towns, Caroline and Danby, are annexed from
Tioga County township. ** A small portion of Franklin County is
annexed to Essex County.
Apr 1
New York's water committee issues a favorable report; the Common
Council appropriates $500 for a study.
Apr 12
The village of Rochesterville is officially renamed Rochester.
** Otsego County's Town of Otego is formed from the Town of Unadilla
and the Delaware County Town of Franklin.
Apr 13
The Walk-in-the-Water is refloated, beating the May 1st
deadline. ** The Orleans County town of Oak Orchard (later Carlton)
is formed from Gaines and Ridgeway.
Apr 16
The Chemung County towns of Big Flats and Southport are incorporated.
Apr 17
The Orleans County town of Yates is founded from Ridgeway, as
the town of Northton.
Apr 29
Montour fruit farmer George C. Wickham is born in Hector, to Mr.
and Mrs. William Wickham.
May 9
John Jay addresses the American Bible Society in New York, discussing
the inadequacy of reason to penetrate the mystery of God.
May 22
The first bridge at Carthage collapses into the Genesee River.
June
Members of the Erie Canal Commission spend a week at Buffalo's
Eagle Tavern listening to arguments of proponents for both Buffalo
and Black Rock as the western terminus of the canal. ** The contract
for the easternmost prism (bed) of the Erie Canal is awarded to
John Merriam and Obadiah Densmore.
August
Rochester's fourth village census show a population of 4,274.
Aug 8
Buffalonians assemble at the Eagle Tavern, soon march down Main
Street to the planned exit of the Erie Canal at Little Buffalo
Creek. Presbyterian minister Mlles B. Squire offers prayers for
the success of the project and several member of the group break
ground. ** Mechanical and hydraulics engineer Birdsill Holly is
born in Auburn.
Aug 24
A continuous line of wagons moves out of lower Manhattan to Greenwich
and the upper part of the island, carrying those wishing to avoid
yellow fever.
Aug 25
More wagons leave town. Many businesses and government offices
make the temporary move in the following week.
Sep 26
Mill owner Thomas Hart Rochester, son of community founder Nathaniel
Rochester, marries Elizabeth P. Cumming at St. Luke's Church in
Rochesterville.
October
400 New York City residents have died of yellow fever.
Oct 29
The first boat with a cargo of Rochester flour leaves Hill's Basin
for Little Falls, via the Erie Canal.
Oct 30
Publisher Horatio Gates Spafford is granted two patents on a steel
manufacturing process, similar to the Bessemer process that will
come along in 1856, but fails to describe the process in detail,
rightfully fearing infringement.
Nov 28
The Champlain Canal is extended through the village of Waterford.
Dec 19
Publisher Horatio Gates Spafford is granted a patent for improved
tool edges. ** New York's Erie Canal Commission signs a contract
with Samuel Wilkeson and Ebenezer Johnson, for building the dam
at Tonawanda.
City
The office of the mayor becomes an elective position. ** The Fulton
Fish Market is completed. ** Churchyard burials are banned, for
health reasons. ** After her father's death socialite Caroline
Matilda Stansbury convinces her mother to move to Clinton, so
she can be near her fiancé, professor William Kirkland
of Hamilton College. ** J. R. McDowell begins publishing The
Albion, devoted to British news. ** Black woman Rose Butler
is hanged for murder at the gallows near today's Washington Square
Arch. ** A yellow fever epidemic sends many citizens fleeing to
central and northern sections of Manhattan. Corn growing on the
corner of Hammond (West 11th Street and 4th Streets) on a Saturday
morning is replaced by a boarding house built by Syles and Niblo
by the following Monday. ** Fort Lafayette, at the entrance to
the Narrows, begun in 1812, is completed.
State
The first printing presses in Chemung, Niagara and Orleans counties.
** A huge tree in Silver Creek is blown down in a storm. It will
be hollowed out and have a room made in it. ** The total value
of shipments out of the Genesee River reaches $500,000. ** Erastus
Shepard ceases publication of the Western Republican, sends
his materials to Elmira and takes a position as foreman at James
Bogart's office in Geneva. ** The Angelica Republican ceases
publication. ** Another treaty with the Onondaga reduces the size
of their reservation a third time. ** Master Masons Bruster &
Allen build the Brethren's Shop and Sisters' Workshop at the Shaker
colony at Watervliet (Albany). ** Newly appointed Le Roy land
agent Jacob Le Roy, son of the former agent Herman Le Roy, enlarges
the land office. It will one day become Le Roy House. ** Gideon
Granger, Postmaster General under Jefferson and Madison, dies
in Canandaigua. ** The legislature assumes the responsibility
for appointing the Secretary of State. ** Charles Butler becomes
deputy clerk of the State Senate. The appointment of State Treasurer
also moves from being a Board function to one of the Legislature
** Gibbs and Company opens Batavia's Genesee House inn, with Rastus
Smith as landlord. ** James L. Blodgett, the Hermit of Hermitage,
is born to Hermitage pioneer Lewis Blodgett and his wife. ** Hinman
Holden leases his Town of Batavia inn to David Danold. ** Geneva
Hall, the first building on the campus of Geneva's Hobart and
William Smith Colleges, is built with community contributions.
** The Champlain Canal excavation reaches within a mile-and-a-half
of Waterford. ** John T. Patterson is elected as Monroe County's
second sheriff, serves until 1825. ** The deed for Lewiston's
Oakwood Cemetery is issued. ** Lockport is made the seat of Niagara
County. ** Amos Eaton publishes "A Geological Profile of
the rocks from Onondaga Salt Springs, N.Y. to Williams College,
Mass." ** The 27th Congressional District is established,
encompassing Livingston and Monroe counties. ** The general election
supervisory duties of the sheriff of Steuben County are transferred
to the county clerk. The supervisor, town clerk and justices of
the peace are made election inspectors.] ** The Steuben County
Agricultural Society holds their first fair, in Bath, aided by
a $100 state appropriation. A race track is built and there are
nine categories for the judging of cattle and sheep. ** A portion
of the Onondaga Salt Springs Reservation is sold off. ** Canandaigua
lawyer Walter S. Hubbell builds a home and a law office at 164
North Main Street. ** Governor De Witt Clinton decides not to
run for re-election.
Law
A new state constitution goes into effect, setting the term of
the governor at two years, and requiring he be a U. S. native
and a freeholder. Judges will be appointed by the governor and
the state Senate, one in each county to be a First Judge. The
office of state attorney general falls under the jurisdiction
of the State Legislature, and is set a term of three years.
Buffalo
South Pier, into Lake Erie, is completed. ** Black Rock receives
a $12,000 grant from Albany and begins building the Bird Island
Pier into the Niagara River. ** Ebenezer F. Norton sells the Eagle
Tavern to New York City investors for $10,000. Benjamin Rathbun
leases the tavern from them, begins making improvements. ** Walk-in-the
Water builder Noah Brown arrives to build a replacement vessel.
Connewango
Calvin Treat builds a small grist-mill on Spring Brook, the first
in the town. John Fairbanks a and his wife Experience settle in
town. Valentine Hill arrives from Ohio. Julius Gibbs arrives from
Chautauqua County. General Seth Wood settles on the land abandoned
by the Barton brother two years ago. He later moves to Ohio. **
Samuel Cowley arrives from York, New York.
Erie Canal
The packet Myron Holley arrives in Bushnell's Basin, south
of Rochester. The town of Fairport is created on that spot. **
A dam is constructed on Schoharie Creek at Fort Hunter to create
a slack water section where Erie Canal boats could be towed across
the creek. Lock number 20 is completed nearby. The canal is opened
to Schenectady ** The decision is made to run the canal on the
northern side of the Mohawk River, in the Schenectady-to-Albany
portion. ** The canal reaches Palmyra. ** The Erie Canal's Great
Embankment is built, a mile in length and seventy feet high, to
carry the canal over Rochester's Irondequoit Valley. ** An aqueduct
is built at Little Falls.
Rochesterville
The first court house is built. ** The village's population reaches
3,130. ** Seven-year-old John S. Wilson arrives with his family
from Massachusetts. ** Trustees levy an annual license fee on
gambling locations. ** An attempt is made over the next two years
to establish a water supply system for Rochester, but it fails
because the current supply from wells and springs is adequate.
** Construction on a new Erie Canal aqueduct across the Genesee
River is begun. Grimsby sandstone quarried at the nearby village
of Carthage is used. Mason William Morgan arrives to work on the
aqueduct. ** Printer Everard Peck begins publishing the Western
Agricultural Almanac, with astronomical calculations by Lyman
Wilmarth and innkeeper Oliver Loud, both of Bushnell's Basin.
** Peck publishes The New England Primer and The Fashionable
Letter Carrier or, Art of Polite Correspondence.... ** The
Charlotte Lighthouse is built on Lake Ontario. ** The approximate
date a stone warehouse is erected at today's Mount Hope and South
avenues.
Connecticut
Promoters of a canal to reach from the Housatonic River at Sharon
to New York's Hudson River offer to build a side canal to New
York City.
Jan 15
Geneva diarist Josephine Matilda deZeng is born.
Jan 29
The Wayne County town of Macedon is formed from Palmyra.
Jan 31
The Allegany County town of Allen is created out of Angelica.
Feb 5
Yates County is created and named after the governor.
Feb 11
Former Massachusetts congressman Henry Shaw writes to congressman
Henry Clay, saying New York State's politics are in such a state
of flux that there's no way of being sure of next year's election
results there.
Mar 3
Moncrief's British hit Tom and Jerry; or, Life in London
opens at New York's Park Theatre.
Mar 4
The Orange County town of Crawford is formed from Montgomery.
Mar 27
The town of Alden is formed from the Erie County town of Clarence.
Mar 28
The towns of Auburn and Fleming are formed out of the town of
Aurelius.
Mar 30
Hurricane-force winds blow across the northeastern U. S. bringing
high tides to the seacoast and heavy snows from Pennsylvania to
Maine.
Apr 11
Wayne County, named for general Anthony Wayne, is formed from
Ontario and Seneca counties. Officers are John S. Talmadge, first
judge and surrogate; Hugh Jameson, sheriff; William H. Adams,
district attorney; Isaiah J. Richardson, clerk.
Apr 12
The Wyoming County town of Wethersfield is formed from Orangeville.
Apr 16
The Chemung County towns of Veteran and Catlin are formed from
Catharines.
Apr 23
New York State charters the Delaware and Hudson Canal.
May 8
John Jay addresses the annual meeting of the Bible Society, asserting
that the Reformation began bringing reason to religion.
May 28
The cornerstone of Rochester's Presbyterian Church is laid.
June
The Baltimore-Conewago Canal commissioners leave Baltimore to
meet with De Witt Clinton in New York City. They hire James Geddes
as their canal director. From there they continue to Albany and
take the Erie Canal route to Cayuga Lake. They take a steamboat
to Ithaca and travel overland to the Susquehanna River. Their
efforts are for nothing, their canal is not built.
Jun 15
Rochester miller Charles J. Hill marries Salome Morgan of Massachusetts.
September
A horse-car railroad opens between Rochester and the Genesee River
landing at Carthage. ** Joseph Smith says an angel named Moroni
appears to him and shows him the site, at Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra,
where tablets containing the history of the lost tribes of America
are buried.
Sep 10
Lands belonging to Mary Jemison, the "White Woman of the
Genesee", are sold to Micah Brooks and Jellis Clute for next
to nothing. ** The Champlain Canal is completed at a cost of $875,000,
excluding the feeder to Glens Falls. ** James Dean, missionary
to the Oneida Indians, dies in Westmoreland at the age of 75.
October
An aqueduct designed by David Stanhope Bates is completed in Rochester,
to carry the Erie over the Genesee River.
Oct 1
The first water is put into the completed portion of the Erie
Canal.
Oct 8
The first boats arrive in Albany.
November
The canalboat Mary and Hannah arrives in New York City
with a cargo of wheat, the first to arrive from Seneca Lake via
the Erie Canal. The owners are presented with an engraved urn.
Nov 12
The musical melodrama Clari, or, the Maid of Milan introduces
John Howard Payne's song Home, Sweet Home.
Nov 21
Erie Canal commissioners sign a contract with John W. Hayes for
the construction of the river lock on Tonawanda Creek, as well
as a guard lock there and the Buffalo guard lock.
City
Attorney John Wells, co-founder of Cadwalader, Wickersham &
Taft, dies. ** A new charter makes the post of mayor an appointive
one. Mayor Stephen Allen is confirmed in office by the Common
Council. ** A citizens group forms a society for the improvement
of juvenile delinquents, joins with another group formed to construct
a House of Refuge for delinquents following the Griscom Method.
** Centre Market is demolished. ** Initiation fees are introduced
at the New York Stock Exchange - $25 per