1885
Jan 27
Composer Jerome Kern is born, in New York City.

Jul 23
Ulysses Simpson Grant dies, near Saratoga Springs.

City
An office building at 26 Broadway, the new home of Standard Oil, is
completed.    **    The Brooklyn Bridge cable railway installs new cable
grips based on a design by A . S. Hallidie.    **    The "Daly Law"
pr
Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) is founded, to tie the Bell companies
together. American Bell Telephone Company general manager Theodore N. Vail
is named president.    **    A man dies jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, as
a stunt.

State
Watervliet is chosen as the site of a federal arsenal to produce the new
breech-loading artillery.    **    Batavia's E. N. Rowell Company is
incorporated.    **    Construction is begun on Geneva's Belhurst Castle.
**     Canal builder John B. Jervis dies, leaving $50,000 to the city of
Rome, New York, for a public library.

Albany
William P. Mason's Report on the Albany Water Supply made to the Albany
Board of Health.  The mayor vetoes a plan for using gang wells.

Rochester
Tobacco manufacturer William Kimball orders a 21-foot statue of Mercury to
be placed above his factory.    **    Builder John Canfield dies. (The
city's Canfield Place was named for him).

Syracuse
H. P. Smith's History of Essex County  is publ;ished here.    **    The
municipal water company obtains an injunction against the Mayor and
Council, preventing them from awarding the contract to the newly-formed
Central City Water Works Company.


1886
January
Writing in Leslie's magazine, Miss Linda Gilbert suggests turning the
towers of the Brooklyn Bridge into observatories, to finance her social
work for the poor.

Jan 30
An International Billiard Match is held in New York City.

Mar 1
The first issue of Cosmopolitan magazine is published, in Rochester.

Mar 14
The steamship Oregon collides with a schooner off Long Island's Fire
Island. The schooner's occupants are lost. The Oregon sinks eight hours
later but her captain and crew are rescued.

Mar 24
A flower show is held in New York City's Metropolitan Opera House.

April
Richard Morris Hunt's base for the Statue of Liberty is completed.

Apr 10
The first U. S. exhibition of the French Impressionists opens in New York City.

May 17
Congress commissions West Point graduates as second lieutenants.

Jun 1
Pierre Lorillard IV founds Tuxedo Park, as an enclave for the wealthy.

Jun 15
The Atlantic Yacht Club of New York City conducts trials for an America's
Cup defender. The wind dies off and the winner drifts in with the flood
tide.

Jul 3
Otto Mergenthaler, working for the New York Tribune, uses his linotype to
print a newspaper page for the first time.

Jul 11
Carlisle Graham shoots the Niagara River rapids in a barrel.

Jul 12
Workmen begin applying the copper sheets to the Statue of Liberty.

Jul 22
Albany celebrates its 200th birthday.

Jul 23
Steve Brodie claims to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge on this date.

Aug 4
1876 Presidential candidate Samuel Tilden dies, in New York City.

Sep 2
The New York Stock Exchange takes up a collection for the Charleston, South
Carolina, earthquake victims.

Oct 3
Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet costume designer Barbara
Karinska is born in Russia.

Oct 10
Griswold Lorillard and several others wear a new tailless dinner jacket to
a ball in Tuxedo Park. The jacket takes on the name of the village, but
does not catch on right away.

Oct 12
Bloomingdale's opens a new New York City department store on 59th Street
and Third Avenue.

Oct 28
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) is dedicated,
attended by President Cleveland, designer -Auguste Bartholdi and Suez Canal
builder de Lesseps.

Nov 2
Industrialist Abram S. Hewitt, running on the Democratic ticket,  defeats
Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Labor Union candidate Henry George to
mecome mayor of New York City, serving 1887-1888.

December
Long Island Railroad (LIRR) president Austin Corbin buys a controlling
interest in the East River Ferry Company (ERFC).

Dec 15
The New York Stock Exchange trades over a million shares for the first time
in its history. A panic ensues even though the drop is only one to five
percent on the average.

City
The world's first crosstown trolley line is built along Manhattan's 125th
Street.    **    John H. Taylor inherits Queens' Oakland Gardens nursey
business from his father, restauranteur John Taylor.    **    Henry
Hardenberg designs a series of rowhouses on East 87th Street, for the
Rhinelander interests.    **    The Evelyn apartment building on West 78th
Street is built.

State
The city of Jamestown is incorporated.    **    In a special election,
Syracuse voters defeat municipal owenrship of the city's water supply.

Rochester
The Rochester and Lake Ontario Steamboat Company is formed to manage the
Genesee River's excursion boat trade.    **    The Rochester Yacht Club is
founded.    **    Restauranteur Osmer Hulbert dies.


1887
January
New York City longshoremen walk off the job over cuts in wages and benefits.

Jan 22
Steuben County Republican Party chairman Herman Bates is born on a farm in
Troupsburg.

Feb 11
New York City's Knights of Labor District Assembly 49 calls a strike.

Mar 8
The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher dies. He will be succeeded at Brooklyn's
Plymouth Church by Lyman Abbott.

Mar 22
Comedian-pianist Leonard "Chico" Marx is born in New York City.

Jun 25
Broadway playwright-producer-director George Abbott is born in Forestville.

City
German-born metals broker Berthold Hochschild forms American Metal (Amco).
**    American Telephone & Telegrahph (AT&T) president Theodore N. Vail
resigns following a dispute over policy.    **    The National Institute of
Health is created (as the Hygenic Laboratory, on Staten Island.

State
The R. E. Chapin Company is founded in Oakfield.    **    John H. Alexander
becomes the second black to graduate from West Point.

Batavia
The Batavia Carriage Works opens.    **    The Bryan Seminary for Young
Ladies, formerly the  mansion of land agent Joseph Ellicott, is demolished
to make room for Dellinger Avenue.

Rochester
1,000 telephone customers remove their phones from the hook and leave them
off for eighteen months to protest a rate hike.    **    A woman falls
outside of the home of Georgianna Sibley. Mrs. Sibley decides to have
Highland Hospital built so there will be one on that side of the Genesee
River.    **    The city acquires resorts at Charlotte, converts them to a
public beach.    **    The Genesee Valley Railroad builds a station at
Court Street.   **    Monroe Avenue's Eames Bakery opens.    **    The
Board of Health orders a complete renovation of a block on North St. Paul
Street, in the Italian section.


1888
Jan 25
Rochester Germicidal liquid is patented.

Mar 12
A blizzard strikes New York City.

Mar 13
Saratoga Springs gets 58 inches of snow.

Apr 16
Batavia's  Holland Land Office property, minus the building, is sold to
Rueben Lawrence of Bethany.

Sep 4
George Eastman patents a roll-film camera, markets it with the slogan "You
press the button, we do the rest".

Sep 17
Maude Adams makes her New York stage debut in The Paymaster.

Sep 24
The New York Herald  reports Margaret Fox has confessed that her lectures
debunking Spiritualism are being given solely for financial gain and that
her sister Catherine has supported this confession.

Oct 16
Playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill is born in New York City.

Nov 1
The first U. S. golf game is played in Yonkers on the St. Andrews Golf
Course built by Scottish immigrants John Reid and Robert Lockhart.

Nov 9
An explosion and fire at the Rochester Steam Gauge and Lantern works kills
41 men.

Dec 18
Urban planner Robert Moses is born in New Haven, Connecticut.

City
The Players Club opens on Gramercy Park.    **    Democrat    city sheriff
Hugh J. Grant defeats Republican Joel B. Erhardt to become mayor, serving
1889-1892.   **    Following last year's walkout all Port of New York
longshoremen's organizations have disappeared.    **    William Dean
Howells hunts for an apartment in Manhattan. The experience is so
frustrating he will satirize it in his novel A Hazard of New Fortunes.
**    Catherine Fox Jenkin returns from England to live in New York

State
The city of Ithaca is incorporated.    **    New York City architect Robert
H. Robertson designs Camp Santanoni in the Adirondacks.    **    Macedon's
Erie Canal Lock 60 is lengthened to accomodate double
tows.   **    Binghamton clock maker Willard Bundy invents the time clock.
**    The oyster sloop Priscilla, is launched  at Patchogue, Long Island.
**    Movement co-founder Margaret Fox begins a series of lectures
debunking spirit rapping and other  phenomena. Spiritualists denounce her
as a drunk.

Batavia
The Palmer and Rowell Box Factory (later the E. N. Rowell Company) is
founded by Rowell and W. T. Palmer, and begins manufacturing paper boxes
for pills and medical powders. Rowell's divorce from his adulterous wife is
finalized, with Rowell gaining custody of their two daughters.    **    The
Bank of the Genesee, a national bank since 1851, reverts to being a state
bank, and moves from East Main and Bank to Main and Park Place.

Rochester
"Poison Row", in the Italian section, condemned by the Board of Health, is
demolished.    **    Vaudeville star Tony Pastor appears at the Academy of
Music this season and next.     **    The People's Rescue Mission opens at
173 Front Street.**    The White Caps, a Indiana Ku Klux Klan offshoot,
surfaces in the city.     **     The Lyceum Theater of Clinton Avenue is
completed.    **    The Ellwanger and Barry Nursery donates land to the
city that becomes the nucleus of the Rochester Parks System. They dedicate
the Children's Pavilion in the new Highland Park, on the east side of South
St. Paul Street.

David Minor
Eagles Byte Historical Research
Rochester, New York
716 264-0423

http://home.eznet.net/~dminor