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