Geneva1877
April
The New York Central, the Erie Railroad, the Pennsylvania Railroad and
the Baltimore Railroad announce an end to their rate war and a 10%
reduction in wages.
State
Adirondacks photographer Seneca Ray Stoddard takes a portrait of
promoter-builder William West Durant at his Camp Pine Knot. ** The
New York State Reformatory at Elmira opens. It's the first to result
from the prison reform movement.
Albany
Socialite Huibertje Pruyn (Hamlin) is born.
Rochester
School principal Anna Galbraith moves to Lafayette Street.
1878
Jan 22
Edward Collins, founder of the Collins steamship line, dies in New York
City.
May 21
Aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss is born in Hammondsport.
Jul 11
President Rutherford B. Hayes removes Chester A. Arthur as Collector of
Customs of the Port of New York and Naval Officer Alonzo B. Cornell, in
defiance of New York City bosses.
Oct 27
Bank robber "Western George" L. Leslie pulls off his greatest heist,
stealing $3,000,000 from the Manhattan Savings Institution.
Nov 13
The first telephone on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange is
installed.
Nov 17
Author-teacher-bacteriologist Hans Zinsser is born in New York City.
City
Elevated railway tracks are built on Third and Sixth Avenues. **
Brooklyn printer J. H. Wehman begins publishing song sheets. **
Wealthy businessman William C. Rhinelander dies, freeing the family
estate, held in trust, for distribution to his heirs. **
Industrialist Edward Cooper, running on the Republican ticket, defeats
Democrat August Schell to become mayor, serving 1879-1880. **
Theodore N. Vail is named general manager of the American Bell
Telephjone Company. ** Mount Sinai Hospital describes Tay-Sachs
disease for the first time in the U. S. ** Philanthropist Mrs.
William Choate founds the New York Exchange for Woman's Work to enable
women, especially Civil War widows, to sell homemade goods and earn
money.
State
A building is erected at Charlotte to house life saving crews. **
Hamilton College confers an honorary LL.D degree on canal builder John
B. Jervis. ** A contractor for the Rochester and State Line
Railway hurries through a track-crossing-track project before he can be
halted by the crews of the established Erie and Central Railroad, in Le
Roy. ** Rochester's Vacuum Oil Company, drilling in Middlebury,
strikes salt on the Hayden farm, founding a local industry.
Albany
The Prospect Hill Pumping Station reaches a capacity of 10,000,000
gallons of water per day.
Rochester
Two Italians are fined $50 apiece for using the child of one to play in
the saloon band of the other. ** George Eastman begins
manufacturing the photographic dry plate.
Syrause
Construction begins on Joseph Lyman Silsbee's Dutch Reformed Church.
1879
Jan 16
New York City gets 13 inches of snow.
Feb 22
Frank Winfield Woolworth opens his first five-cent store, in Utica.
March
Workers reopening an entrance to an Ellenville lead mine discover the
bones of David M. Smith, a telegrapher for the local D & H Canal
office, who had disappeared 13 years previously.
May 8
Rochester inventor George B. Selden applies for a patent on a
gasoline-powered vehicle.
June
Perfectionist John Humphrey Noyes, warned of an attempt by James
William Towner to depose him, flees his colony at Oneida and flees to
Canada.
Aug 20
Noyes sends his followers in Oneida a message, partially renouncing
"complex marriage".
Oct 5
Writer-educator-musician John Erskine is born in New York City.
City
Scots author Robert Louis Stevenson travels by train from New York City
to San Francisco.
State
Charlotte's import revenue drops to $148,000, from an 1855 peak of
$1,534,000. ** Spiritualism's Lily Dale Assembly is founded, in
Chautauqua County. ** Wayne County peppermint farmer Peter Hill
dies, leaving his land to his son Edmund, a lawyer. ** Le Roy's
first salt well is drilled. ** General John S. Clark of Auburn
draws a map of the Groveland Ambuscade of 1779 (the Boyd-Parker
murders). ** The state now has approximately 5360 miles of
railroad track. ** W. H. Vanderbilt begins selling some of his
holdings in the New York Central Railroad, in London, England, through
the offices of Morgan and Company. ** A steamboat company, The
Hudson River Line, is incorporated by Van Santvoord and Associates.
Rochester
William Reynolds sells Corinthian Hall to Samuel Wilder, who remodels
it as the Academy of Music. ** The library of the Rochester
Theological Seminary on East Avenue opens.
1880
July 1
Albany's Fort Orange Club is organized.
Oct 15
Ruth Bryan, daughter of the woman who used Batavia, New York's Holland
Land Office building for a dance studio, deeds the property to the
Batavia Free Methodist Church.
City
The Rhinelander family builds Charles W. Clinton's Manhattan Apartment
House. Clinton's 66th Street and Park Avenue armory is also completed.
** Democrat businessman William R. Grace defeats Republican
Wiiliam Dowd to become mayor, serving 1881-1882.
State
The approximate date the Empire Stove Foundry is built, in Troy. **
Corning's population nears 5,000. ** Rochester's Bausch & Lomb
Company opens a sales office in New York City.
Batavia
A monument is erected in Batavia Cemetery to lapsed Mason William
Morgan, by the National Christian Association Opposed to All Secret
Socieites. ** Buffalo lawyer Grover Cleveland tries a case here.
** A fire destroys 11 buildings on the east side of State Street.
The Pioneer Sheds will be erected on the site, as a livery stable .
David Minor
Eagles Byte Historical Research
Rochester, New York
716 264-0423
http://home.eznet.net/~dminor