Geneva1881Geneva Jan 1 Oneida Perfectionists abolish community property and form the Oneida Community, Ltd., a joint-stock company. May 21 Clara Barton founds the American branch of the Red Cross, in Rochester. Aug 22 Operatic tenor and Metropolitan Opera manager Edward Johnson is born in Canada. Sep 26 Rochester holds a parade in honor of assassinated U. S. President James A. Garfield, buried today. Dec 13 Former U. S. Brigadier General John Henry Martindale, a New York State native, dies in Nice, France, where he's come for medical treatment. City The city's first cooperative apartment building, the Rembrandt, at 152 West 57th Street, designed by Hubert & Pirsson for clergyman-entrepreneur Jared B. Flagg, is completed. The Gainsborough artists' co-op at 222 Central Park South, designed by Charles W. Barkham, opens later in the year. ** Architect Christopher Gray's Windmere Apartment House is built, on West 57th Street. State The state senate begins sitting in its new Chamber. ** Le Roy's Ingham University becomes independent of the Presbyterian Synod of Genesee. ** Cropseyville's Garfield School is completed. ** Pioneering ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan dies. Batavia Concert pianist Monica Dailey is born. ** The E. N. Rowell paper box factory is founded. Buffalo Grover Cleveland is elected city sheriff. ** Canadian-born clockmaker Myles Hughes begins crafting an apostolic clock. He will finish it in 1916. Rochester The Kimball Tobacco Company factory is built on the Genesee River. A statue of Mercury is placed atop a smokestack there. ** The Genesee River excursion steamer Flour City burns on a visit to the Thousand Islands. ** East Avenue's Warner Observatory is demolished. Syrause Joseph Lyman Silsbee's Dutch Reformed Church is completed. 1882 January Charlotte's Spencer House hotel burns down. Jan 30 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is born near Hyde Park. April Rochester nurserymen Ellwanger and Barry give a sixteen-year lease on property at the Genesee River's lower falls to an electric light company. Apr 7 The Rochester Evening Telegram, a new daily newspaper, begins publication. May 26 The Oratorio Society of Rochester presents a Beethoven program with an orchestra and a chorus of 200. June Edward Clark's New York City west side apartment house is named the Dakota. Jul 1 The Prospect House resort opens at Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks. Jul 22 Painter Edward Hopper is born in Nyack. Sep 4 Thomas Edison opens the first power station, on New York City's Pearl Street. Oct 14 Henry Brougham Farnie, Henri Meilhac, Robert Planquette and Philippe Gille's Rip Van Winkle, based on the Washington Irving story, opens at London's Comedy Theatre. November Rochester goes on railroad time. Previously fifteen minutes later than New York City time, it becomes the same. Nov 11 Future mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia is born in New York City. Dec 19 Rochester street car service on the St. Paul Street run is discontinued for the winter, leaving riders stranded. City Plans are filed for a cooperative at 121 Madison Avenue and the Gramercy at 34 Gramercy Park. ** The Knickerbocker Ice Company becomes the city's biggest ice firm. Annual consumption in the city is estimated at 1,885,000 tons. ** Democrat Franklin Edson defeats Republican Allan Campbell to become mayor, serving 1883-1884. State Churchville's Smith House hotel burns down. ** Chicago industrialist John Coonley, owner of Wyoming's Hillside, dies, leaving the house to his widow, poetess Lydia Avery Coonley, whose family prviously owned it. ** The Corning family presents Corning with a clock and tower in honor of the city's namesake Erastus Corning. ** The Johnston Harvester (later Massey Harris Harvester) Company, a manufacturer of agricultural equipment, its factory in Brockport having burned down, is given $62,000 raised by Batavia citizens and businesses, moves there. ** Tolls are abolished on the Erie Canal. 1883 Apr 9 Daniel Frohman's production of Mrs. Burton N. Harrison's A Russian Honeymoon , directed by Franklin H. Sargent and David Belasco, opens at New York City's Madison Square Theatre. Apr 10 A man is killed in Rochester when the Hayden & Company building, its foundation undermined by street construction, collapses. May 24 John Augustus Roebling and Colonel Washington Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge opens to traffic, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan. Jun 2 A Russian Honeymoon closes. Jun 5 Daniel Frohman's production of The Rajah or Wyncot's Ward , directed by Sargent and Belasco, opens at the Madison Square Theatre. Jul 24 Mahew Webb drowns trying to swim Niagara rapids. Aug 10 Composer Douglas Moore is born in Cutchogue. Oct 10 James McNeill Whistler has his first U. S. show, at Wunderlich and Company Gallery in New York City. Oct 22 New York City's Metropolitan Opera House opens, with a performance of Gounod's Faust. Oct 30 Batavia industrialist E. Newton Rowell shoots and kills Johnson L. Lynch of Utica, his wife's lover. Nov 9 Rowell is released on bail. City 121 Madison (at 30th Street), built by Hubert & Pirsson for Jared B. Flagg, is completed, the first surviving building in the city designed as a cooperative. Flagg's son Ernest works on the building's design, creating the duplex style. The Gramercy apartment house is also completed. ** Jose de Navarro's Navarro Flats apartment complex on Central Park South is completed. ** The only cable railway on a bridge in the U. S. goes into service on the Brooklyn Bridge. ** Joseph Puliutzer buys the New York World ** John Quincy Adams Ward sculpts a statue of George Washington for the Subtreasury Building, on Wall Street. State Electric lighting is installed in the state Senate Chamber. ** Middletown is incorporated. ** Le Roy manufacturer Orator F. Wodward goes into the patent medicine business. ** The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad is completed. Batavua Edward Gould Richmond is elected mayor. ** The Richmond Hotel is built, on the site of the 1823 Eagle Tavern. Rochester George Eastman moves his operations for a second time, from 149 State Street to 323 State, future site of Kodak Office. ** The Erie Railroad tracks are elevated. 1884 Jan 31 Batavia manufacturer E. Newton Rowell is acquitted in the slaying of his wife's lover Johnson L. Lynch. The admitted killer, he's judged to be sane and within his rights as a husband. He will file for divorce. Feb 14 Teddy Roosevelt's wife and mother die in New York City. Apr 1 New Yorker Staats-Zeitung publisher Anna Behr Uhl Ottendorfer dies at the age of 69. June Rochester celebrates its semi-centennial. President Grover Cleveland attends. Aug 5 The cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty is laid. September The chapel of Rochester's Third Presbyterian Church is dedicated. Sep 20 Editor Maxwell Ewarts Perkins born in New York City. October The Women's Suffrage Convention meets in Buffalo. ** Young men of Rochester's St. Andrews Church start a coffee and reading room in the city's 12th Ward. Oct 11 Anna Eleanor Roosevelt is born in New York City. City Bank robber George Leslie is murdered. ** Businessman Edward Severin Clark invests in the building of the Dakota apartments. ** Former Democratic mayor William R. Grace, running on the Independent ticket, defeats Tammany Hall Democrat Hugh J. Grant and Republican Frederick S. Gibbs to become mayor, serving 1885-1886. ** Presbyterian minister Dr. Samuel D. Burchard visits Republican candidate James G. Blaine and refers to the Democrats as the party "of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" Blaine lets the remark pass and loses the New York Catholic vote. ** Banker Berthold Hochschild arrives from Frankfort, Germany, to trade in metals. State Chili Seminary changes its name to Chesbrough Seminary, for benefactor A. M. Chesbrough. In 1945 it becomes Roberts Junior College. ** Architect Claude Bragdon graduates from high school in Oswego and his family moves to Rochester, where his father George Bragdon becomes an editorial writer for the Union and Advertiser. ** The Batavia and New York Woodworking Company is founded. ** The West Shore Railroad reaches Oakfield. Rochester Samuel Wilder remodels his Academy of Music to increase its seating capacity. David Minor Eagles Byte Historical Research Rochester, New York 716 264-0423 http://home.eznet.net/~dminor