Lost Arts. The Gregg Method.

My mother was a prolific list maker. They were all over the house and jammed into her purse.  If the season changes and she added a chic new exchequer, the lists made the transfer with her lipstick and wadded up currency and life savers.  They were as constant as the rising sun and the stars in the sky.

Those bits of her streams of consciousness always smelled of TABU and tobacco and sported the inevitable loose speck of her Virginia Slims. Every once in awhile she would cleanse the house of her lists and slowly, but surely the accumulation would begin again. Mostly they were grocery lists, but there were reminders to write her sisters or her brother. She never wrote “Bill”…always “Brother” and the random events…PTA meetings and Christmas parties…birthday notes and something for a neighbor. Her conversation with herself because there was no other adult in the household to share the weight of her thoughts.

I am her.  I have a lifetime of my own lists…and remake them religiously.  I keep notebooks and they are a grand design of random thoughts, tasks, and doodles.

Many of my mother’s lists were simply replays because in the melange the original was ‘somewhere’ and time was wasted sorting through the paper trail to update them.   Besides, I think it was a comfort device for her to put those things down in her flourishing handwriting and begin afresh.  Again…like me.

Except for Christmas lists. Mom was trained in Gregg’s shorthand.
She knew my sister and I would stumble across one of the months of wish lists and spoil her Christmas Day surprises. Instead there were among the daily wool gatherings that began in October, the purposeful squiggles that we couldn’t decipher…no Google in the 1950’s. It wasn’t driven by today’s nutty Christmas marketing before Halloween.

No, it was about a single mother putting our gifts on layaway and paying on them incrementally until they were freed from their ransom and she could bring them home for her girls.

The only telltale mark that my sister and I sleuthed out was the check mark next to a line of squiggles…some ‘thing’ was paid for.

One elegant purse lives vividly in my memory.  She carried it at my wedding.  Mom had saved for it and treasured it above others.  Yes.  Elegant.  That was her.   And when she helped me change into my ‘going away dress’, she opened her purse to retrieve a hankie and there in the midst of the familiar tobacco bits, lipstick tubes, crinkled cash and perfume was her latest list of ‘things to do’ the morning of my wedding.

I am so fortunate to have had a wonderful mother who kept lists and loved to be vivacious until her last days.   I bought her a new purse for every birthday and put in a note in lieu of a list…one item.  Thank you, Mom.

Deborah J.  Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright October 2016.  All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

The Flowery Kingdom

Occasionally genealogists spend research time delving into the nooks and crannies of history to broaden the knowledge of an ancestor’s life.   For some time I have been gathering information on the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  Specifically the Japanese Pavilion under the direction of Royal Commissioner Seiichi Tejima (1850 -1918) and the charming teapot exhibit contributed by my first cousin, Frances Lorinda Heath Eldridge (1847-1930) of Yokohama, Japan.

As described by R.E.A. Dorr in “Arthur’s Home Magazine, Vol 62”.  Published in 1892,

1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Japanese Pavilion. Chicago, IL.

“Of all the countries that will exhibit at the fair, the plans outlined by Japan are now attracting the greatest interest.  The appropriation of $630, 000 by the legislature or parliament of the Flowery Kingdom was a genuine surprise, and there was at once much curiosity to learn how so large a sum was to be expended.   A few days after the appropriation was announced by cable, Mr. S. Tegima (sic), the Japanese royal commissioner, arrived in Chicago.  He was a most courtly, elegant gentleman, who, except on occasions of extreme ceremonial, appeared in European costume.  He was wined and dined at the Chicago clubs and in the most exclusive homes.  He was taken to Jackson Park and shown the exposition grounds and plans of the buildings in process of construction.

Finally Mr. Tegima asked for a business meeting with the director-general and chief of construction.  At this meeting he unfolded a plan of operations for Japan which it is believed will eclipse the plans of any other foreign power.   He demanded space at the north end of the wooded island for a Japanese building to cost $100,000 and for a botanical garden to cost nearly as much more.  He proposed an annual appropriation by his government to keep both in order and repair.  The propositions were both accepted, and Mr. Tegima, having secured surveys of the ground allotted him, left for Japan with the promise to return in July with two hundred native carpenters and gardeners and begin work on August 1st.

The building will be a duplicate of one of the emperor’s most beautiful and ancient temples.  It will be built in Japan in sections, taken apart, sent to America in a Japanese war-vessel, and put together by the emperor’s own workmen at Jackson Park.  The garden, too, will be laid out in Japan, and Mr. Tegima promises that landscape gardening effects will be produced far more wonderful and beautiful than anything before seen outside his own country.  Tons of earth will be brought with the plants, as many of those to be used thrive only in their native soil.

Inside the Japanese palace will be a collection of relics, carvings and other articles showing the implements of industry and the art treasures of this ancient people.  Many of these articles will be loaned by the emperor from his private collection, and from the national museums.  Native attendants and soldiers will have charge of and guard these treasures of the East, and native gardeners will have exclusive charge of the flower beds.  In short, a small section of Japan will be shown at the fair.

Altogether Japan will occupy within the exposition grounds 148, 975 square feet of space.”

Anxious to provide the exposition with the best representation of Japan, the number of items shipped far exceeded by many tons the contracted amount.  The Meiji had heavily invested in the industrialization of Japan and promoting their arts and goods to the world.  The enthusiasm for the opportunity the exposition offered was met with an enormous gathering of exhibit material.  What was excess was sold at the Exposition and shops in Chicago.

“The Japan Daily Mail” revealed that the “Ho-o-den” – the pavilion- was so jammed with items “as to be well-nigh bewildering”.  The pavilion, known to westerners as the Phoenix Pavilion, was given to the City of Chicago as a permanent showcase of Japanese art and a gesture of good will and the city maintained it thus for 120 years.

The pavilion was lost to fire in 1946, but many of the individual items remain and revitalization is underway.  Just last year three two-sided panels called fusuma were found in a Chicago Park facility.  Yoko Ono has contributed a major piece of art to the project.  The garden in Jackson Park has been re-designated as “The Garden of the Phoenix” and promises to restore the grounds, install a pavilion and once again inspire visitors to the site.

Seiichi Tejima.

It is worth noting that Seiichi Tejima is a venerated figure in modern day Japan.  Mr Tejima was curator of the Tokyo Educational Museum.   He had relationships with many collectors and museums and as Dr. James Stuart Eldridge (my cousin’s husband) was favored by the Meiji emperor and was a collector of Japanese art, artifacts and antiquities, it would be no small leap to think that Mr. Tejima went to Frances and asked her to contribute her collection of rare Japanese pottery teapots.

Since my cousins…the Eldridge’s direct descendants…did not know of the exhibit, but do have letters and Japanese artifacts, it might be fun to have them go through what they have in order to find mention of Mr. Tejima and together perhaps we will be able to connect the 123- year-old dots.

 

Deborah J.  Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright September 2016.  All Rights Reserved.

 

Photograph of Mr. Tejima courtesy of Tejima Seiichi Sensei Den (手島精一先生伝), Published in 1929.

 

Edward Gray. Clam Chowder and Genetic Memory.

I have lived in several different areas of the country other than my beloved New York State Finger Lakes region over the years and some places had that inexplicable sense of ‘home’ almost immediately. None so much as living in Rhode Island. It was instant and heartfelt. I could never put my finger on it until in my later years I began to research my heritage and discovered my deep roots in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

When I return now to research, it is with a heightened awareness of my heritage and love of the New England coastline. I fondly recall the drive through Tiverton and heading south to Newport and the anticipation of a steaming bowl of clam chowder at the Black Pearl and a leisurely afternoon strolling through the grounds of one of the grand mansions.

And always the smell of the sea.

Perhaps there is something to the scientific theory that we have genetic or ancestral memories.

Plimoth Plantation is part of my heritage with both Mayflower passengers John Billington, Edward Fuller and Reverend John Robinson and a plethora of Great Migration settlers as well. As I have been working these lines for some time now, it occurs to me that like my New York State family, a New England nexus is present so I am building a graphic to illustrate the connections and to show the disbursement points westward. A much more daunting task than the New York State project because of the sheer number of ancestors in New England.

So what…or should I say WHO compelled me to begin this New England project?

My paternal 8th great grandfather -The English immigrant EDWARD GRAY, SR. (1629-1681) of Plymouth, Massachusetts

“where he settled as early as 1643, and died in June 1681. He received a grant of a double share of land at Plymouth, June 3, 1662, and was made freeman, May 29, 1670. He received a grant of one hundred acres at Titicut (located at a bend of the Taunton River), March 4, 1674, was grand juryman, 1671, and deputy to the general court in 1676-77-78-79. He was appointed a member of a committee, July 13, 1677, to examine the accounts of the various towns on account of the recent Indian war. He had nine-thirtieths of a tract of Tiverton lands, purchased with other, March 5, 1680, for eleven hundred pounds.” [i]

“Before Europeans arrived, the Pocasset people fished and farmed along the eastern shore of the Sakonnet River in what is now Tiverton. Forests, swamps, and streams provided fresh water, game, wood products, berries, and winter shelter. In 1651, Richard Morris of nearby Portsmouth purchased the Nannaquaket peninsula from its native inhabitants. There is no evidence of Morris settling here, so he may have used the peninsula to grow crops and graze animals. In 1659, Morris’ claim was recognized as legitimate by Plymouth Colony, which at that time included the Tiverton area as part of its holdings.

Strapped for cash by King Phillip’s War (1675 – 1676), Plymouth sold a tract of this land in 1679 for £1100 to the Proprietors of Pocasset. The “First Division” of the Pocasset Purchase created thirty large lots, with the northernmost edge close to the present-day Fall River-Tiverton border and the southern boundary at the Tiverton-Little Compton line.

Edward Gray (1667 – 1726) held nine shares along the southern boundary of this purchase. The 237-acre tract now known as Pardon Gray Preserve passed to Edward’s grandson, Pardon Gray (1737 – 1814), who farmed the property. During the Revolutionary War, Pardon Gray became a Colonel in the Rhode Island militia, and he was placed in charge of the local commissary, which he ran from his home. Colonel Gray supplied 11,000 militia and Continental troops stationed at Fort Barton prior to the Battle of Rhode Island in 1778. Marquis de Lafayette briefly used a house nearby as his headquarters. Pardon Gray died at the age of 78 in 1814, and he is buried alongside his wife, Mary, in the family cemetery.”[ii]

That land purchase in Tiverton caused his son EDWARD GRAY, JR (1666-1726), my 7th great grandfather, to migrate there and like his father was a merchant who traded between Plymouth and Newport. His many descendants and my ancestors were born, lived, married and toiled along the coastlines in Tiverton and Newport, Rhode Island and Dartmouth and New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Edward Gray, Jr. is buried on his former property in Tiverton.  The house was on the main road (Route 77) in Tiverton between Newport and Boston, and not far from the intersection known as “Four Corners.” (Routes 77 and 179)   The grave is not marked. On an old Tiverton map the location is indicated by a cross.  (Plat 15, Book 1, Town Hall. Notation: Old Edward burying place.  Tiverton Town Hall Land Records).

The Pardon Gray Preserve

I am excited to visit this historic preserve and visit the old Gray Family cemetery and perhaps get that tingle of ancestral memory.

The 230-acre Pardon Gray Preserve was purchased and preserved as permanent open space by the Tiverton Land Trust in 2000. It is an active farm and forest preserve adjacent to Main Road in South Tiverton and contiguous with the 550 acre Weetamoo Woods Open Space. The property, originally part of the Pocasset Purchase signed in 1676, contains many colonial artifacts including the Gray Family Historical Cemetery, an old well house (restored as a visitors’ kiosk) and original stonewalls. The Tiverton Land Trust stewardship program focuses on protecting open space, agricultural lands, historic sites and wildlife habitat. (Sakonnet Historical Society).

Stereopticon Card Image of Edward Gray Monument. Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts

Edward Gray, Sr. is buried in Plymouth in Old Burial Hill. His restored monument still stands.

 

 

 

 

 

[i] NEW ENGLAND FAMILIES, Genealogical and Memorial.  A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of Commonwealth and the founding of a Nation.   Compiled under the Editorial Supervision of WILLIAM RICHARD CUTTER, A.M. THIRD SERIES. Volume 1.  New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Company.  1915.

[ii] History of Pardon Gray Preserve By Tiverton Land Trust with research support from Tiverton Land Trust.

Deborah J.  Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright August 2016.  All Rights Reserved.

 

The Lost Son

A Note to My Readers:  Genealogists understand that researching entire families, siblings, in-laws, aunts and uncles and cousins more often than not reveal the human history of our ancestors and indeed are likely to break down brick walls.  In my nascent days of genealogical research, I called this kind of research “sideways”.  I believe the scholarly term is “indirect evidence”. I still say “sideways” out of habit, but I am finally channeling my instinctive and self-taught methods into developing a more academic approach to accepted standards set by the Board for Certification of Genealogists®

I may need more than a modicum of patience for myself and the discipline of BCG reportage.   Still I have learned a great deal from historians, archivists and fellow genealogists and the satisfaction of continuing to improve on my knowledge and skills keeps it all so very interesting.

And, pardon the pun.   Relative.

The Long Lost Son. Walter George Lounsbury (aka Downing).

For several years I was trying to find out what happened to Medorah Rogers, daughter of the prominent veterinary surgeon from the village of Cayuga and Rochester, NY and his wife Mary J. Downing.  Medorah had a son, Walter George, but due to a misspelling of her his last name (Longsby) an error in transcription in the 1875 New York State Census, I could not find her or her family. Today I discovered that the name was Lounsbury not Longby and with that I was able to create the life and circumstances of  Walter George Lounsbury Rogers Downing.

 

As is my practice, I often go back to enigmas and check to see if I might find a new source of information that has come to light.  This time it was to once again see if I could find out what happened to Medorah Rogers Longsby and her son Walter George.  Medorah is an unusual given name and using it and the advantage of Soundex, there might be hope for discovery.  I have been back to these individuals countless times with no luck, but if I have one trait, it is tenacity. Or maybe I am just a cock-eyed optimist.   It paid off when I found Walter’s death claim and the complicated research data came together.

U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007

 

Name	Walter George Lounsbury
SSN	565035802
Gender	Male
Race	White
Birth Date	28 Oct 1874
Birth Place	Tonawanda, New York
Type of Claim	Original SSN.
Signature on SSN Card	WALTER DOWNING
Relationship of Signature	Signature name differs from NH’s name.
Notes	May 1937: Name listed as WALTER GEORGE LOUNSBURY
Household Members	Name Age George Lounsbury Medora Rogers Walter George Lounsbury

It was time to work backward and sideways.  Create a timeline and analyze my research.   Still using my own wonky vocabulary as you see.

How and why did Walter George Lounsbury become Walter Downing?

According to his Social Security record, Walter was born in 1874 in Tonawanda, Erie county, New York.  His professional biographies state that he was born in Rochester, New York.  The confusion is understandable since Walter’s father, George, was from Tonawanda and his mother from Rochester.  Sometime shortly after his birth, his mother died. His father moved back to his hometown of Tonawanda, working as an Express agent or ‘cartman’ and traveled constantly.  He left Walter with his late wife’s parents, Dr. George G. Rogers and Mary J. Downing in Rochester, New York. Walter’s father continued on with his occupation and subsequently remarried and adopted a young German orphan girl, naming her Carrie after his sister. Walter was raised by his mother’s parents in Rochester, New York.

In the New York State Census of 1875 the infant boy was enumerated in his grandparents’ Rochester, New York household as their grandson, Walter G. (transcribed incorrectly as Longby which I have since reported to Ancestry.com).

Walter continued to live with his grandparents and was enumerated in the 1880 Federal Census in Rochester, New York as their 6 year old son “Walter G. Rogers”.   In the New York State 1892 Census, Walter was living with his now widowed grandmother in Rochester and still enumerated as her son, “Walter G. Rogers”.

When Walter G. Rogers married Katherine Ellsworth on October 15, 1897 in Rochester, New York, the marriage license listed his parents as George and Mary Downing Rogers and he was an insurance agent.  By 1900 Walter had relocated to Auburn, Cayuga, New York living on 87 East Genesee Street with his mother, Mary J. and a second wife enumerated as Mary, an actress. George continued selling insurance.

After  his mother Mary died in 1902, Walter G. Rogers left Auburn and I chased him by all three surnames all over country.  Born circa 1874 in New York State. Parents born in New York State.  Occupation: Insurance.  Wife: Mary who was an actress.  I found some promising information here and there, but nothing with that ‘slam dunk’ factor.

Since Walter’s social security records confirmed that he also used the surname of DOWNING, his maternal grandmother’s last name as his ‘stage name’, I went searching and found one Walter Downing. Actor. In Hollywood. With a wife named Augusta.  An actor that was in bit parts…mostly in ‘oaters’.

Working backward, in the 1930 Federal Census I found a stage actor named Walter Downing born in New York circa 1874 with parents who were born in New York , but with a wife, Augusta.  Just possibilities, so I went into industry sources to find more on Walter Downing.

 

Walter Downing’s IMDB bio states:

Walter Downing was born on October 28, 1874 in Rochester, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Two-Fisted Sheriff (1937), The Hidden Light (1920) and One Man Justice (1937). He died on December 21, 1937 in Hollywood, California, USA.

The bio also indicates that he began his film career in 1915 though I found him in Broadway productions in the 1920’s.  So Walter was bi-coastal.

His brief biography in “The Stars of Hollywood Forever” by  Tony L.Scott fills in more information which indicated that Walter was in New York City performing.

DOWNING, Walter (b. October 28,1874 Rochester, NY d. December 21, 1937 Hollywood, CA-  Veteran western actor, Downing appeared in two Broadway productions: “Taboo“ in 1922 starring Paul Robeson and Ruth Taylor and “The 19th Hole“ starring Marion Abbott, Kitty Kelly and Howard Sidney.

Subsequent research into film titles in “The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion  Pictures;

Walter Downing as ‘Newspaper Editor Bill’ in “Kentucky Blue Streak”

Feature Films (1931 -1940)” include Walter’s listing in such films as “Helldorado“(1934),  “Kentucky Blue Streak” (1935), “Code of the Range“(1936),  “Two Fisted Sheriff” (1937) and ironically, “The Case of the Missing Man“(1935).  “Kentucky Blue Streak” is available to view online at no cost. Walter is cast as ‘newspaper editor Bill’.

In a 1920 Broadway show cast list, Walter Downing was cast as ‘Chief of Police’ in the comedy production of “Outside Looking In” starring James Cagney.

And what about “The Lost Son”?

Walter was never lost. He never ran away from home. He always lived with his mother’s parents and without much doubt spent time with his uncle, Edgar O. Rogers, the great showman and actor from Rochester, New York.   His father couldn’t have failed to know exactly where his son was. Dr. Rogers was prominent in his field of veterinary surgery specializing in horses and was listed in Rochester directories for all to see.  After the death of Walter’s grandmother,  it seems logical that the reason I lost track of him after 1902 was that he was offered a position with his uncle’s traveling emporium of actors and circus entertainment. Edgar’s wife who was a celebrated actress and his business partner died suddenly in 1903 and uncle and nephew found comfort together as a newly minted family and show business entity.  Goodbye, insurance and hello to the hurly burly of limelight and the romance of stage plays and life on the road.

All The Life’s A Stage

My favorite area to research is old newspapers. When I had nailed down the primary sources of censuses and death records and directories and noted secondary sources for further research, I settled down to the tried and true method of boolean searching for Walter George Lounsbury Rogers (on occasion Rodgers) Downing.  Two newspaper articles popped up concerning one George A. Lounsbury of Tonawanda who ‘found his long lost son’ in 1905. Walter would have been on the road with E. O. Rogers at most only three years at that time.

North Tonawanda NY Evening News 6 Oct 1905

According to the article, George thought Walter had died until one day in 1905 he read the posted bills of E. O. Rogers Repertoire Company that was posted in a public place with  the words ‘under the management of Walter G. Lounsbury’ and in a flash of recognition, found his long lost son.   What no doubt caught his attention was the fact that his son was listed as managing his uncle’s traveling acting troupe. George Lounsbury would have known his brother-in-law and putting two and two together and approaching his 60th year, he wanted to see his ‘long lost’ son.

Walter died in 1937 and is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery (formerly Hollywood Memorial Cemetery).   Walter’s wife Augusta died in 1944.  There is no evidence that Walter had any children from any of his marriages.
Author’s Note:  Mary J. Downing Rogers is the sister of my maternal 3rd great grandmother.   She and her husband, Dr. George G. Rogers are buried in Lakeview Cemetery in the Village of Cayuga.  The research is the ‘easy’ part.  The ‘fun’ part for me.  I travel the individual’s history with them in kind of a time machine and always with a sense of visiting family.   My imagination and my practical fact finder detective brain work that way together.  Note taking and citing are on autopilot.  It is when I have to abandon my time machine and report the work academically that I chafe.   All those citations.

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

©May 2016   All Rights Reserved.

The Luck of the Irish

Researching my Irish third great grandparents, Anthony Curry and Bridget Grant over the past few years has been a piecemeal effort. I was thrilled when I found their names in Francis J. Curry’s Civil War documents and his actual birth date, April 12, 1829. In New York State and Federal Censuses his birth place was enumerated each and every time as “Free Ireland”. That is one generous and complicated research pool. And what was “Free Ireland”?

It was time to delve into Irish history and learn about the timeline of Francis’ life and have context for why a seventeen year old would migrate alone across the Atlantic Ocean to a young country. The big question remained. How do I narrow down where to search for Anthony and Bridget Curry? After the usual Boolean attempt and finding nothing, I went back to their son to see if there could be a clue in some document.

First, I ordered his death certificate from New York State Vital Records. Francis died in 1887 on his farm in Montezuma, Cayuga County. Though New York State began death certificate registration in 1880 and 1881, I found that was no guarantee that one had been filed. Especially in rural areas. It wasn’t until 1913 that compliance was reliable and complete. Luck of the Irish, his death certificate was filed with the state and unlike some others, the information was complete and the handwriting quite legible. And the clue I needed was there. Not “Free Ireland”, but County Clair (sic).

Back to online Irish sources and I went to County Clare Library to see what types of records were available. The first easy step was to “search this site” with the surname Curry and I expected to find either mountains of Curry families or none at all if the records were sparse. First hit was Anthony Curry in the 1855 census transcript in Ennis and there was a Bridget Curry in Ennis as well. The Parish was Drumcliff, but there were place names like Ballyfaudeen and Killaspulgonane and Clonroad and Drumcaurin. Another source stated that in County Clare, a processor named Anthony Curry, worked on documenting the poor. A third document showed an Anthony Curry living in Drumcliff Parish on ½ acre of land in the town of Drumcaurin. I clearly need to learn more about geopolitical boundaries and geography and social, political and religious aspects of County Clare before I try to parse records. Search isn’t research without having a set of valid parameters and all I had was the location of County Clare, but I am not researching with enough basic understanding of its community.

What I am beginning to understand is its history and the event known as “The Great Famine” or the “Irish Potato Famine” and its implication in the migration of my seventeen year old great great grandfather to America. I am also catching on to the continuing reference of “Free Ireland” versus just stating “Ireland”.

Frank Curry arrived in his new home in 1846 and in 1850 Frank was working on the farm of James and Abbie Tyler Jenney in Springport, Cayuga, New York. It is where he would fall in love with and marry Deborah Jane Tyler, Abbie’s younger sister. Debry, as she was affectionately known by her family, was part of the large Tyler family who came to Cayuga County in 1793 and collectively owned some of the best farm land along Cayuga Lake.

By 1855 Frank, Deborah and their two infant sons, William and Henry Eugene, were living in the village of Cayuga and farming. In 1856 Frank’s father-in-law, Lonson Tyler took him to the Cayuga County courthouse and there Frank became a naturalized citizen. Both men signed the document. Frank was literate not just a poor tenant farmer’s son with no education. He could write. Another clue toward Frank’s life in Ireland. Free Ireland. County Clare.

By 1860 the Curry family included my great grandmother, Kate C. Curry and they were living on their own modest farm in Montezuma where they had an apple orchard and cows and chickens.

Frank enlisted in the NYS 111th infantry Company in August of 1864, kissed his wife and two sons and two daughters goodbye and went to fight in the Army of the Potomac. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the 111th was there. He mustered out in Alexandria, Virginia in June of 1865 and with his fellow New Yorkers made the journey home. Like his fellow veterans, his health was fragile the rest of his life and he died at the age of 57 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

My notes are better populated with avenues to research and I am hoping that the Anthony Curry I found in Drumcliff is my ancestor and I have the Luck of the Irish working for me.

Go n-éirí an t-ádh leat.

 

Deborah Martin-Plugh
Author, Writer and Genealogical Researcher
© Copyright 2016. All Rights Reserved.

Beyond the Black and White Image

I was talking with some genealogical researchers today and we were discussing physical traits of our grandparents and great grandparents. Because I was born late in my parents’ lives, I did not know my grandparents and my kids barely knew theirs. There are records that give physical descriptions…mostly for men as they are military…that state height, hair color, eye color and ‘build’. On occasion there is a traveler who gets a passport that gives us our female ancestor description. Kids, you have seen my heritage portrait wall of black and white photos, but that doesn’t specify the details or the histories and I realized that I am your link to know about those facts.

So. Because my kids never knew him…their grandfather (my dad) was barely 5′ 3″ and though I know he was pretty slim, I don’t know his specific weight. Look at my brother, their Uncle David Martin…that is pretty much our dad. I do know that my father had straight, reddish blonde hair with a receding hairline and that he had (my) blue eyes. Oh…and though this is not genetic…he smelled wonderful of Old Spice and starch and just a whiff of lemon drops. He had his brilliant white shirts done at (pardon the politically incorrect language) the Chinese laundry and to hide his road tipple of whiskey, he sucked on lemon drops in an attempt to hide it from my mother. It never worked, but that is another story.

At the age of seventeen my father lost his right pointer finger and half of his index finger when his hand was caught in a piece of machinery when he worked at Beacon Milling in Cayuga (now part of Cargill). I held his hand without a hesitation when we tromped through the high grasses along Cayuga Lake while we looked for walnuts and butter nuts…and a handful of Tiger Lillies and Bittersweet for my mom. When he would pose for pictures, he hid his hand. Mostly in his suit coat pocket. Dad was nearsighted and had gold-rimmed spectacles that he would habitually remove and clean and replace in the same fashion. Left ear…nose…right ear…in such a familiar gesture that I can still see him doing it some 50 years later. His pockets were always filled with NECCO wafers or LifeSavers and he would share them with me while I sat on his lap.  I spun the sweet candy idly around my mouth, dreamily listening as he spun odd tales in a ritual we called “The Big Lie”. It was mostly a deliberately garbled rendition of various fairy tales spiced with his inventive imagination and twist and turns that left us breathless laughing.  Those were the good times.

He was a complicated man arisen from a 5 year old boy who witnessed his father committing suicide by swallowing carbolic acid. Dad was brilliant and entrepreneurial and could take anything mechanical apart and put it together again without one ounce of doubt. On occasion when he hit a snag, he might utter a ‘dammitall”, but he was persistent and by golly, it never failed to run. It was kind of a magical genius.

Human beings were another thing.

I was four when Dad was first committed to Willard State Hospital for alcoholism. I have a letter from his doctor that my mother tucked in the pages of the family bible. It spoke of a man who doubted his faith in being loved. He was in his late forties and to everyone else he was a successful self-made man.  Dad had thrived during the Great Depression and WWII. He owned an airplane and a valuable piece of Ithaca real estate on State Street in the 1940’s that has since ‘disappeared’ into urban renewal. He also had a mistress…one Harriet “Hattie” Daniels.  Mom always knew about Hattie.  I can’t imagine what it was like for her.  Dad would take the plane and fly down to D.C. on the weekends to see Hattie.  The affair lasted for decades until I was born.  You can imagine that Hattie lost it and told him to take a hike.  Then my father’s unraveling truly began and we lost everything. Our home. Everything.  While Dad was hospitalized, his business manager cleaned out the assets.  When my mother and father came back to the business, it was an empty building.  The inventory was gone and the office equipment including my little pink wicker chair that played nursery rhymes when I sat on it.  The bank accounts were almost empty.  Just enough was left to keep the accounts open.  And the business manager had fled the country.  The authorities including the FBI bumbled around and called the trail to South America ‘cold’.    Years after my father’s death, my mother shared the story with me so I knew what happened to our Ithaca life and I suppose so she could mourn the loss with a sympathetic child.

To say that ‘Daddy” – I call him that to this day- had a difficult and complicated history is an understatement. But when I attempt to describe him with ‘my blue eyes’ and a slight build…it overly simplifies it all.

I have come to the conclusion that you cannot create a biographical profile in a sterile box and with just a physical description. That said, “what did my grandfather look like” is the question. We family historians cannot resist to fill in with the other senses and emotions.

Still and all, he was my ‘Daddy’ and that means something to my child self.

When my brother, Rich died this year, we sat by his grave…next to my father’s in Lake View Cemetery in the little village of Cayuga, NY…and I allowed myself to grieve for them both.  I will return next summer and place flowers like I always do and choose to remember “The Big Lie”.

 

Deborah Martin-Plugh
Author, Writer and Genealogical Researcher
© Copyright 2015. All Rights Reserved.

That’s Philip Stein.

A Note to My Readers:  Recently a fellow historian and Auburnian, Lydia Rosell and I were communicating about a photo that she had found on eBay several years ago.  Lydia collects some intriguing items relating to Auburn, New York and Auburn Prison and posted on FaceBook that she hadn’t been able to find anything about the murder case involving the man in the photograph…”Philip Stine.”  As any historical researcher knows that is like waving a red cape at a fierce bull and shouting “Toro”.   Thus I was off to see what I could find.  The first thing I did was consider a name variation.  As soon as I made it “Philip Stein”, the story of a troublesome criminal life culminating in the murder of William Jones unfolded.   I also found the tale of intrepid Police Officer Benjamin B. Roseboom and the capture and conviction of Philip Stein.

Winter weather was in full force in central New York and Auburnians had their homes secured against the blustering and chilling December winds and the inevitable snowfall. Sleighs had been readied with newly waxed runners and reins had been inspected and treated with saddle soap. The folks in central New York needed no lesson in being prepared to tackle Mother Nature. They just didn’t count on the likes of career criminal Philip Stein.

Stein hailed from Rochester, New York and though he committed many of his crimes in that general area, he held no prejudice for where or whom he victimized. He was an opportunist. His father, Peter, had been a shoemaker and his Uncle Philip was a grocer in Rochester in 1860 and young Philip and his siblings were surrounded by family in a section of Rochester filled with immigrant tradesmen with a strong work ethic. Philip’s father had died and his mother, Johanna, remarried to another “Prussian” immigrant. Stein’s older siblings were off on their own in 1870 and 14 year old Philip and his 12 year old sister Maggie were part of the newly blended household. His stepfather, Franz, was a grocer and Philip was an apprentice carpenter. All in all, it seemed that the young boy had a clear path to make a good life for himself.
Something went very wrong. At 19 years of age, Philip was an inmate at the Monroe County Penitentiary, married and declaring his trade as butcher in the 1875 New York State Census. His life of crime had clearly begun in earnest. Five years later in the 1880 Federal Census, Philip was a convict at Auburn Prison. Still married and still claiming his occupation as butcher, it seemed more likely that crime had become his true vocation. In New York State prison records, his crime at that time is recorded as receiving stolen goods.

In April of 1881 Philip was released from Auburn Prison and made his way back to his wife and child in Rochester. Within hours, he was in serious trouble again. The young Mrs. Stein had supported herself and their child during his incarceration and according to the authorities, had ‘an unblemished reputation”. Her errant husband begged for forgiveness and asked to let him stay with her. His promise of acquiring gainful employment went unmet and his young wife’s supporters advised her to be rid of him. She stood her ground and told him to leave immediately. Angry and resentful, Philip left. Feeling content that she once again had the peace of her own humble life, the young woman put her child to bed and settled down in her parlor which also served as her bedroom. At 10 PM her reverie was broken with the harsh report of a pistol. Two shots were fired,

“the balls passing through the window, burying themselves in the bedding”.

Alarmed, she dashed to the door in time to see Stein running away. Securing the young one, she ran to the nearby police headquarters and an arrest warrant for Stein was issued.

In February of 1882, Philip Stein was back in Monroe county jail awaiting transfer to Auburn Prison for the crime of Grand Larceny in the second degree. He was arrested in Rochester, tried and convicted and was due to be returned to Auburn Prison to serve out an eight year sentence. Once again his crime was outrageous and showed a disturbing state of mind. He had entered a barn in Parma, Monroe, New York where he killed twenty sheep, skinned them and sold the pelts for $26.50. Seems that his trade of butcher was indeed accurate. Within no time after being incarcerated, Stein had proved himself again handy with tools by jimmying a lock with a pen knife and escaping into the Monroe County countryside. On February 15th Stein jimmied open a lock to a dungeon cell and acting as the ringleader, along with his fellow convicts drilled a hole through a three foot thick wall. The dungeon cell led to a chicken coop in the jail yard where the convicts found a hand ladder and scaled the wall.

The alarm went out to the Rochester officials who knew Stein on sight after dealing with him for over a decade. Disguising himself by shaving his mustache and wearing civilian clothes, he prowled Rochester to find shelter and perhaps seeking another crime opportunity. As he walked down Front Street, a vigilant sheriff spied him and arrested him on the spot. The sheriff questioned Stein to determine the details of his escape and his evasion, but Stein refused to cooperate. Still mum, Stein was taken to Auburn Prison and placed in a cell with a lock that offered no chance of tinkering. His reputation in central New York was becoming infamous as he was dubbed “The Sheep Killer”.

Stein did not serve the full eight years of his sentence and that sealed the fate of William Jones of Erie, Pennsylvania. State Prison records for Auburn Prison report that Stein’s sentence was commuted for good behavior and he was released on August 15, 1887. This time Stein did not return to the Rochester area and he would surely be under the watchful eye of Auburn police. He went instead to Erie, Pennsylvania.

Philip Stein, courtesy of Lydia Rosell

William Jones was the proprietor of the St. Cloud hotel in Erie. In November of 1877 he had taken Stein in out of pity and gave him shelter from the bitter cold and provided him a warm meal and board. Stein was allowed to stay for a few days. A desperate man, Stein rewarded Jones’ generosity in a most heinous gesture. On December 1st, as Jones sat alone in the hotel with Stein, Jones drew him a beer and went about his evening routine. Stein crushed the top of Jones’ head with a blunt object described as an ice pick or a mallet or a bung starter. Jones lingered for the month of December and finally died of his injuries on December 31st.

“While Jones lay quivering in his life blood, Stein took a wallet containing $60 from Jones’ pocket and turning out the lights fled to Auburn.”

Once again the Rochester and Auburn police departments were on notice to watch out for Stein. A $250 reward was offered and the citizens were unnerved after learning of the nature of the crime. Stein had graduated from a thief to a murderer. Stein was accustomed to evasion and kept a low profile and yet he returned to Auburn where his face was well-known. He learned that the police were actively pursuing him in Auburn and began to make his way into the countryside. He would not make it out of the city. “an old prison official”, spotted Stein on Dill Street and alerted the Auburn police. The entire force was mobilized, but they could not seem to catch up with Stein. Days later, he was spotted on North Street and Officer Roseboom answered the call. He secured a horse and buggy and pursued Stein as he attempted to flee on Grant Avenue. Brandishing a gun, Roseboom commanded Stein to stop. Knowing he couldn’t outrun a buggy on foot, Stein turned and drew his knife. Staring down the barrel of Roseboom’s gun, Stein threw down the knife and a bottle of sulphuric ether and surrendered. He had been on the run for eleven days.

Philip Stein Arrest Record December 11, 1887.  Courtesy of Lydia Rosell

Auburn police officer Benjamin B. Roseboom and police reporter Charlie Rattigan and Erie, Pennsylvania Detective J. P. Sullivan and Captain Grant had their hands full transporting Stein. Despite Stein’s calm demeanor, he was shackled hand and foot as they were acutely aware of his wiliness and his earlier escape. They also had to worry about the enraged citizens of Erie. When the Lake Shore train reached Westfield, Chautauqua, New York on December 17, 1887 a telegram from Erie District Attorney Baker was given to Captain Sullivan. Throngs awaited the arrival of the train and along with a steady snow, shouts and curses filled the air. A plan was formulated to take Stein to another part of the train and disembark away from the mob. They no sooner had stepped down onto the remote platform than a shout went up.

“Hang him to that post!”

Stein was tossed into the waiting carriage arranged by D. A. Baker and the men were off to the Erie jail at a tear. The mob had been in full pursuit and as many as 25 people reached the carriage, but it had a good start and soon the enraged citizens were left behind and the lawmen and the suspect were on their way unencumbered.

Though the circumstantial evidence of his culpability was powerful, Stein maintained his innocence throughout his arrest and trial. Appearing in Erie court in May of 1888, Stein was dressed neatly in black and his previously shaven mustache had been grown back. He was cool and confident and represented by two of the best defense lawyers that money could buy. Stein’s brother-in-law, Phillip Christman, a well-to-do butcher and grocer from Rochester, footed the bill. Christman had married Stein’s sister, Maggie. When pressed by an Erie reporter about Stein’s case, Christman stated that he believed Stein to be too cowardly to commit such a crime and that his forte was stealing. He also stated that Stein had never attempted to hurt anyone. Mr. Christman clearly hadn’t considered the incident when Stein attempted to shoot Mrs. Stein.

Erie District Attorney A. Elverton Sisson

At the trial no defense was offered, but rather the attorneys battered the court with procedural sparring. Objections flew at every point. They tried to get the jury dismissed on the grounds that it was drawn for the second Monday of the term instead of the first which would have considerably delayed the case. The judge denied the motion and the jury, consisting of eleven farmers and one ‘city’ man, was seated. The prosecution team of District Attorney A. Elverton Sisson and his predecessor, Cassius Leland Baker and Captain J. P. Sullivan worked the arrest and trial so as no fault would bring about a verdict of not guilty. A precise prosecution strategy was in place.

The prosecution swore in between forty and fifty witnesses and their testimonies solidly refuted Stein’s statement at his arrest. Jones’ leather wallet Stein had stolen was produced as evidence. It had been found along the tracks where Stein was spotted fleeing. The circumstantial evidence mounted and confident that they had made their case, the prosecution rested. At the close of the trial, the defense pulled their trump card. Laying claim on a common law case tried fifty years earlier, they demanded to open AND close the argument phase of the trial. The prosecution’s hands were tied and the defense proceeded with their strategy. Observers thought the defense might be able to sway the jury for an acquittal. Baker, however, had a compelling close and was a deft and eloquent speaker. With the advantage of giving the final argument of the case, defense attorney and ex-Congressman Samuel Myron Brainerd held the floor handily.  Brainerd had also served a three year term as District Attorney for Erie county before his stint in Congress.   It was a battle of wits and experience between the three men who served the same office.

Thanking the jury, the judge sent them off to deliberate the case.

After five hours of deliberation, the verdict was pronounced. Guilty of second degree murder punishable by imprisonment for life. Trial attendees and reporters noted that Stein’s escape from a verdict of first degree murder was a direct result of that defense strategy. A defiant Stein demanded a new trial.

Officer Roseboom and Rattigan of Auburn and Chief Detective Hayden of Rochester left that night after staying in Erie for the duration of the trial having been the guests of  the county of Erie.

It appears that Stein’s demand for a new trial went unmet and Stein was imprisoned in Pennsylvania to serve out his life sentence. No trace of him appears in later official records or newspaper accounts. Stein’s infamy came and went as he served his time in Erie, Pennsylvania prison.  Christman returned to Rochester to run his market and raise his family.

Twenty-two years later, a Rochester lawman, Chief Hayden, remembered Philip Stein.

In 1888 Hayden received a telegram from Erie, Pa., which read: “Wanted for assault and attempt to kill, an American, 28 or 30, five feet, ten inches, 165 pounds. Evidently American. Had one weak and watery eye.”
“That’s Philip Stein, “Hayden said to Chief Cleary and Captain McCormick. “The fellow who was convicted awhile ago of stealing sheep from a Parma farmer, and has been out of Auburn only a short time.”

Philip Stein never left the thoughts of Roseboom and Rattigan either.  When 70 year old Roseboom was interviewed in 1915 in his cozy home at 3 Sumner Street in Auburn, New York, the journalist wrote

Pointing out the window toward Lansing Street, he mused: “Right back of that house I took a murderer, a fellow named Stein, way back in 1887.  And he’s sworn revenge on me and Charlie Rattigan, a police reporter at that time, whose testimony down in Pennsylvania sent the man up for a dozen years.  But Charlie and I are here yet.”

Author’s Note:  The mystery remains…Philip Stein was given a life sentence and Roseboom mentions a dozen years.  Since I fail to find Stein after his incarceration…did he die before 1900 in a Pennsylvania prison while in his mid thirties?  Seems unlikely that in light of his crime, Stein would have been released.  But then Officer Roseboom’s light-hearted comment seems to tell us that Philip Stein is safely tucked away.  Dead or alive.  And no threat to Roseboom, Rattigan or the citizenry of Auburn, New York.

Deborah Martin-Plugh
Author, Writer and Genealogical Researcher
© Copyright 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Old No. 63 Trolley

A Note to My Readers:  Trolleys are one of my all-time favorite things. I lived in the San Francisco bay area for a couple of years and loved hopping onto those beauties. I am also a train geek…passed that on to my grandson. As a kid growing up in Auburn, New York, I only vaguely became aware of trolleys when winter thaw would lift the weakened macadam from the underlying cobblestone on Genesee Street and the iron rails would be exposed. My mother, who grew up in Ithaca, would often tell me about riding the trolleys as a child and what a thrill that was for her. It wasn’t a typical thing for the Purdys to do, but an event where everyone wore their best attire, including hats and gloves.

My grandmother would tuck peppermints in her purse and once they were seated, she would dole them out to keep the children still. There is something tender about that bit of nostalgia and I suppose that is why the romance of riding a trolley has stuck with me. When my father died in 1958, mom sold the car and our transportation modes were city bus and good old ‘bus number two’. Those were the days when not everyone had a car and those that did had just one. The family car. Fathers drove it to work and to church and took the family on those wonderful Sunday drives in the countryside.

I didn’t drive until I was 24 years old and a young mother. My mother said I was a pioneer. Really!

She always carried peppermints in her purse and I suspect if Auburn still had trolleys when I was growing up, she would have definitely preferred to hop on and let the buses go on without her.

HIRAM MIAL TITUS

Hiram Mial Titus (1861-1943) is my first cousin 3X removed. We are both descendants of Gilbert Titus and Jane Hoag who along with their son David Sands Titus and his family and their daughter Lydia H. Titus Downing and her family arrived in the village of Cayuga in 1829. Hiram is descended from David and I am descended from Lydia. Lydia is my mother’s great great grandmother. I have put together a scholastic publication for this branch of the family tree and it will be published later this year.

While it has been a great journey studying my Quaker family history, it has also been fascinating to learn about the generations beyond David and Lydia.

Hiram Titus and his wife Susan Cook with his Indian motorbike in 1912.

David’s son Hiram inherited a substantial part of the Titus land in Cayuga and by 1879 had an impressive operation with prize -winning cattle and horses. Though he indulged in a team of “handsome” matching black horses for his sleigh and drove the team into Auburn, New York often to show off his magnificent animals, he also loved the ‘new-fangled’. He was an old man of eighty-four in 1912 when he was photographed with his wife, Ada B. Shoemaker Titus and his prized Indian motorized bicycle.

Despite all of Hiram’s successes at farming and his social and political prominence in Aurelius, his sons did not share his passion for the bucolic life along the shores of Cayuga Lake. In 1895 thirty-four year-old Hiram, Jr. sold his meat market and left the small village of Cayuga to go to the bustling and expanding city of Auburn, New York to ride the rails.

As one of the first men to be employed by the Auburn & Syracuse Electric Railway(then the Auburn Inter-Urban Electric Railroad), he helped survey the line on which he later became a conductor. During that time, Hiram served as superintendent of the old Lakeside Park at the foot of Owasco Lake for over fifteen years when the park was operated by the railway. A park that was part of my summer every day of my young life in the 1950’s and 60’s and where my 50th class reunion will be held this year.

No. 63 was full to capacity that day and many took the ride as a last goodbye to the old trolley that they had ridden for decades. One elderly woman who had traveled from Skaneateles needed to be helped aboard the car and told a reporter that she had made the journey to take the last ride before the buses of Cayuga Omnibus Corporation began that very day. Timothy Hayes of Throopsville in Cayuga County, who had made his first trip in 1903, was a passenger on that last grand journey. Charles H. Abbott of Auburn who traveled the line as a passenger on the very first day of the road’s history journeyed with Mr. Hayes. Many of the passengers kept their tickets as a souvenir.

Conductor Hiram M. Titus of Auburn, New York

There was no grand ceremony to see them off from Syracuse. No bands. No flags or banners. No grandstand. No speeches. Only two minor officials were present to travel on old Number 63 as it made its way to the Auburn barn before it would be claimed by a wrecking company. The crowds were there. The many faithful passengers and citizens who wanted to be part of a passage in time.

The car left Syracuse several minutes after its scheduled departure of 11AM and Hiram remarked to his passengers

“Well, if they don’t like it, they can fire us.”

Motorman Gordan Winters gave the whistle ‘vigorous pulls’ as they pulled out of Syracuse in a raucous goodbye to an era and to the crowds who had gathered to watch the trolley depart one last time.

As No. 63 slowly traversed the streets of Auburn, men and women had waved and shouted, but it was during the journey from Syracuse to Auburn that this event made its greatest impact. The farmer stopped his plow to watch its journey out of sight. The housewife stood on her porch

‘with wistful eyes as though looking for the last time at an old friend’.

Boys and girls ran along the route waved and swung their caps and bonnets in a hearty farewell. Frequently along the route line, the car was forced to stop by sentimental central New Yorkers in order to permit more snapshots of the moment.

Old No. 63 on its last journey.

It was at Skaneateles that an appreciative crowd had gathered and Hiram and Gordan stood to pose before a battery of cameras. The arrival and departure was signaled by waving of hats and blowing of horns.

It was Hiram’s 65th birthday that day. Cameras clicked as Hiram and Gordan took the car from the Dill Street station where they discharged fifty-nine passengers and took the car to Genesee and Exchange Streets where it was boarded by city and railroad officials who made the final leg of the trip to the Franklin Street Barn. Observers stood silently as they realized that they were seeing something that marked the changes of life. Changes that the automobile made on their everyday existence.

“Passing through the streets of Auburn during the noon hour, the car was the center of all interest until it had deposited its last passenger and had departed with its load of officials for the car barns.”

Not to let history go without a memento, the car was scavenged by onlookers. Still someone had a greater thirst for a piece of history.

“Some souvenir hunter possessed himself of the car sign and it was reported that the draw-head was sought by another before he was stopped.”

A draw-head is part of the coupling mechanism and this souvenir hunter was one ambitious gent!

When the No. 63 trolley entered the car barn switch for its final stop, “torpedos” (fireworks) placed along the rails gave out a passing salute.

As the A & S Electric Railroad Company passed into history and No. 63 sat at its destination in the Franklin Street barn, the final transaction to transfer the property of the road took place. Aboard No. 63, President of Enna Jetticks, Fred L. Emerson, delivered to Mayor Marvin of Syracuse a check in the amount of $225,000. In that single gesture, the interurban traffic over the A & S road ceased after twenty-seven years of continuous service. A single official photographer memorialized the transfer of the check.

On that day, Hiram Titus and Gordan Winters were presented a check for $50 and a commemorative gift by Treasurer Zinsmeister on behalf of Fred L. Emerson. After the two trolley men stepped down from the car, they shook hands and each man made his way home that April afternoon. Without further fanfare, Mayors Marvin and Charles D. Osborne, City Manager John F. Donovan, City Attorneys William S. Elder, A. H. Cowle, William H. Seward and William B. Haeffner, Superintendent William Lee and Treasurer W. K. Zinsmeister adjourned to awaiting automobiles that drove them to the Osborne home for lunch.

Within the hour of No. 63’s arrival…indeed as the check was being transferred, the Cayuga Omnibus Corporation’s first bus left Skaneateles eastbound at 11 A.M.

The Auburn & Syracuse was part of what was called the “Beebe Syndicate” or “Empire United” lines that also included the RS&E, Auburn Northern, Rochester, Lockport & Buffalo. Developed by Clifford D. Beebe, the network of suburban and interurban lines ran through Baldwinsville to Phoenix, Fulton and Oswego. A native of Michigan, young Mr. Beebe and his syndicate bought up the financially troubled Syracuse & Auburn railroad in 1904. At that time the line had only been completed as far as Skaneateles and had been initiated as the Auburn Inter-Urban Electric Railroad. Opened on January 1, 1901 it had struggled until Mr. Beebe’s group came along with the money to invest in its future. Under this syndicate, it was extended to Auburn within the year. The company also ran the South Bay line and the Newark & Marion Railroad. All of the lines were interconnected. While there were few grades on the Auburn & Syracuse line, it was still referred to as a ‘roller-coaster operation’. Trolleys ran every half hour with extra trips during peak periods.

In its heyday, the region was in the throes of ‘trolley fever’. A fever that had begun in the area when surveyors filed proposed railways in the 1870’s when Hiram Titus, Senior was a young farmer building his new barn and driving a well into the deep bedrock. When the cars first traveled the Auburn & Syracuse line, the roads running along Route 20 were narrow and dirt-covered and the tracks followed the shoulder of the road. From Syracuse the line passed out Burnet Avenue to Split Rock, Howlett Hill and Marcellus paralleling Howlett Hill and Lee-Mulroy Roads along Route 20 to Skaneateles and to Franklin Street Road from there to Auburn. The stop at Split rock was the first major stop along the line and from there it passed through a scenic gorge with rocky cliffs on either side. In the late 1920’s the roads were beginning to be paved. Trucks and cars were easily making their way between Syracuse and Auburn and with that, the fate of the electric interurban lines was sealed.

For another year after the Auburn & Syracuse line ceased to run, travelers could still get from Syracuse to Auburn on the trolley via the Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern through Jordan and Weedsport to Port Byron, then to Auburn on the Auburn & Northern. Once the railways became a modern day dinosaur, relics of trolley fever still remained well into the 20th century. Along Route 20 just east of Skaneateles a brick building which housed machinery to convert alternating current to direct current for the Auburn & Syracuse Electric railroad stood abandoned for some time. It was a garage and then a restaurant known as “The Willows” during the 1960’s before it was abandoned again. A design firm owned it for a short while and restored it including adding some railroad tracks and ties in tribute to its past. The white paint was removed and the old bricks re-pointed and replaced. The design firmed moved on and sold it to an insurance agency. It is believed to be the only original building still standing on the A & S Interurban line.

I wonder as I come home and drive that stretch of Route 20 if there is a bit of rail line underneath the shoulder of the road.

As always, my genealogy research serves as a time machine and my first cousin, Hiram Mial Titus, is the conductor on this trip. Motorman Winters….pull that whistle!

All aboard.

Deborah Martin-Plugh
Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher
©Copyright 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Postcript.  In advance, I beg your indulgence if I have spelling and grammatical errors at this time.  I damaged my eyes and am awaiting eye surgery so my usual editorial fastidiousness is absent.

Great Grandmother Nature Abhors a Vacuum

A Note to My Readers:  I may not be the “Lone Ranger” here, but I am fortunate to be the custodian of a great many family treasures including my maternal great grandparents’ family bible circa 1867, a myriad of cabinet cards, Victorian trading cards, a key to the city of Auburn, NY presented to my mother, my parents’ marriage ceremony booklet,  a panoramic photo of a 1929 Tyler Kindred of America family reunion and an 1896 fraternal order ribbon badge to name a few.  Most all photos are from my mother’s side of the family which includes a few reproductions of the originals that are in the possession of cousins.  My mother was hugely sentimental and the ‘keeper of memories’ and she passed the torch on to me. 

My father died when I was ten and there was some Martin family time with his kith and kin, but it did not have the bonded blood-to-blood tribal love that imbued every Purdy gathering.  Accompanied with singing and gossiping, cigarettes, cocktails, bosoms sporting expensive perfumes and glorious shades of lipsticks that marked cigarette butts and children’s cheeks,  nothing was done in small doses in my mother’s family.  Especially reminiscing.  Along with the affectionate and dramatic Purdy panache,  I was provided with enough memorabilia, photos and lore to know my mother’s side and to begin to build a worthy maternal family tree.  Not so with my father.  I barely had time to know my father and having no knowledge of my paternal history was something that challenged me from the very beginning.  It also gave me one of my first and ongoing brick wall mysteries.

Lillian W. Jennings Martin (1858 – 1905)

My great grandmother, Lillian Jennings Martin, disappeared off the planet shortly after her daughter Lillian was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1898. I have researched every entity, nook and cranny in and out of the genealogist’s toolbox within the boroughs of NYC and including a Long Island Sanitarium.  In fact, I even searched in nearby New Jersey as she had given birth to a still born child at a hospital there in 1888.  Though I could cull much about her husband Henry from Brooklyn newspapers, there was nothing about Lillian.  According to Evergreens cemetery in Brooklyn, NY where her husband (and my great grandfather, Henry A. Martin) is buried, she had no burial record there.  On March 30, 2015, I found that to be wrong.*

Failing to find her information in the Brooklyn area, I went back to her hometown of Auburn, New York.  Burial records for North Street Cemetery in Auburn, NY are full of gaps of information. The maintenance of the grounds and records have a terrible history, but I do have records of most of the burials in the Jennings family plot as recorded in an old sexton’s log book.  In addition, I have the obituaries of her father, Daniel and sister, Harriet Jennings White that state their burials took place in North Street Cemetery ‘in the Jennings plot’.   Lillian is not listed among them in the book and no stones remain to mark any Jennings burials due to scores of years of vandalism and lack of care.  Painstakingly searching through Auburn, New York newspaper articles for any Jennings or Martin mention, I had no trouble finding information on her Jennings family members including death notices and obituaries. Why not Lillian?  Her husband’s Martin family lived in Auburn and they never failed to show up in the local newspapers.   Only Lillian’s 1884 marriage to my great grandfather surfaced in an Auburn, NY newspaper article.

Lacking any more avenues to find Lillian, I decided to open up the research to her siblings.  Perhaps there was a clue awaiting me among the Jennings kin.  I began with  Lillian’s sister Emily Russell Jennings Trowbridge and brother William H. Jennings.

Trowbridge & Jennings Art Store in Auburn, New York.

Lillian’s oldest sister, Emily Russell Jennings Trowbridge, lived in Auburn for decades with her husband and three children.  John Jasper Trowbridge in partnership with his brother-in-law William H. Jennings owned and operated an art and supplies store in Auburn, New York.  Both men were prominent citizens and socially and politically active.  Information on the two siblings was an embarrassment of riches.   When  John moved on to open another store in Binghamton, NY,  Will Jennings continued to run the Auburn, New York store with his sons.  His new venture was social and business news in both Auburn and Binghamton newspapers.   After the turn of the century, the Trowbridges relocated to Orange, New Jersey for a short time as John found a new opportunity to pursue.  Eventually the family came back to Binghamton where John had been offered a lucrative position.  He and Emily spent their remaining years in Binghamton as did their spinster daughters, Grace and Emma.  Son Charles Jasper Trowbridge had fallen in love with socialite Paula Mencken Flugal and the pair were married in West Orange, New Jersey in 1909.  Their wedding was reported in the New York Times.  A salesman like his father, Charles found opportunity in several places…Philadelphia, New York City, Buffalo, New York, Newton, Massachusetts eventually living in Long Beach, California with his wife and near his married daughters, Ruth Jennings Trowbridge (wife of Graham Hurd Stewart) and Louise White Trowbridge (wife of Philip L. Bruce).   I followed Lillian’s nieces and nephew in the hopes that sister Emily’s family would shed some light on her fate.

As I considered it, Emily and her family were living in East Orange about the time Lillian and Henry were living in Brooklyn.  And about the time she disappears from any records of any kind.  Emily would have known about Lillian’s life and death.  Possibly they spent time together as the distance was not great.  Perhaps West Orange might hold some kind of clue.  A long shot to be sure, but as any genealogical researcher can attest, long shots are very often the very weapon that solves a mystery.   New Jersey held no revelation so it was back to Auburn.

The Trowbridges of Binghamton…Emily, and her husband, John Jasper Trowbridge and their spinster daughters, Grace and Emma were all brought back to Auburn, New York to be buried in their family plot in Fort Hill Cemetery.  North Street Cemetery had long been disregarded as suitable and Fort Hill held the ‘new’ pioneer burials with all of the grand monuments.   Would Lillian have been brought ‘home’ to rest with her Jennings family members in North Street Cemetery?  Could she have died in Auburn and not in the Brooklyn area?  Was she buried in Brooklyn or her hometown of Auburn?  Nothing. No death records. No burial records. No obituaries or death notices.  Anywhere.  Just unanswered questions lurking everywhere.    Lillian’s fate remains a mystery despite my best efforts.  I keep at it…blurry eyed, out of ideas, yet still believing that I will find her.    Perhaps that energy and faith lives in the ether.

Emily Comes Home

Dad, his Uncle George and Uncle George’s Aunt Harriett Jennings White. Two of my brothers play at their feet. Four generations!

One of two Jennings photos I have is one of Lillian’s sister, Harriet Jennings White. She lived in Auburn all of her life and died in 1940. My father visited her quite often and I am fortunate to own the original photo of Harriet taken around 1936 with my father, his Uncle George Martin (my grandfather Albert’s brother) and two of my older brothers. The other photo I have is gift from an individual who found it among her great aunt’s belongings. It is of Grace Trowbridge.  Her cabinet card was tucked among her schoolmate’s memorabilia for over a century only to be found by her schoolmate’s granddaughter.  She discovered my blog and reading about Emily and her daughter, Grace, sent Grace’s photo to me to once again be part of family.  Grace’s cabinet card is framed and hung in my gallery among her extended family members.  She is home.

Emily Russell Jennings Trowbridge

Recently I was offered another family treasure…a gift…by another historian who found the cabinet card of Emily Russell Jennings…Mrs. John J. Trowbridge in an antique shop near her home.  Vicky is an historian herself and makes a point of rescuing the random orphan image and sets about to find family of the subject.  A thoughtful (and kindred) spirit, she dug in to the Trowbridge research and came upon my blog and sent me an inquiry.  On the back of the cabinet card is gold stamped “Mrs. J. J. Trowbridge.  Binghamton, NY”.  Was I family?   It was the most stunning moment because I had been looking into my Jennings material at that very moment with the hope that a new source had become available and perhaps I might find Lillian.

This was one of those shiver moments.  Scoff if you will, but to have the image of Lillian’s sister Emily cross the grand void and find me at that very moment took my breath away.   I think I am pretty stubborn…tenacious sounds better…and I hate an unsolved mystery and abandoning an ancestor.   What do they say?  “Nature abhors a vacuum.”  So do I.   An incident such as this reinforces my instinct to press on.

Emily’s image is now hung in the gallery in my sitting room where I research and where she has joined her daughter, Grace and her sister, Harriett in the Jennings collection.  Perhaps some day, Lillian will find her way home.  Meanwhile, I adore the image…the very light blue eyes that I sport.  I see family so clearly in her face.

For the few days it took for Emily’s image to arrive in the mail,  I haunted my mailbox.

This is when my neighbors question my sanity as I dance to the mailbox in anticipation.  Call me a silly and sentimental, but make sure you add genealogist.

Then my bit of Terpsichore to check the post will explain everything.

*March 30, 2015 UPDATE:  I found a death record today for Lillian and Henry’s 14 year old son, Howard.  He died in 1907 and was buried in Evergreens Cemetery.  I called them today and they confirmed he was in the family plot.  As was an “L” Martin.  That was Lillian!  She was buried there on July 2, 1905.  No details on where or how she died and it deepens the mystery since Henry declared himself a widower in the 1900 Federal Census and the 1905 New York State Census.  It does make me think that the Lillian W. Martin in Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital is my great grandmother.  It was abandoned and the records moved and I have begun the daunting process of trying to find out just where they ended up.  The good news is I know where she is buried and that is a sense of closure.

Deborah Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

http://www.facebook.com/thegenealogistsinkwell

(c) Copyright 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

I Can’t Knit, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

A Note to My Readers:  It’s Women’s History Month and I am reading material on the Suffrage Movement as it relates to my hometown of Auburn, New York.  Auburnians Emily Howland, Julia C. Ferris, Sara Wadsworth, Lucy Brown Mosher and Eliza Wright Osborne were influential suffragettes and leaders in the movement. A plaque in their honor was installed in the reception room of the National League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C. on April 15th, 1931. Their biographies characterize these women as determined and dedicated as prominent leaders in political, social and educational activities in Cayuga County and New York State.

Dr. Emily Howland from The Emily Howland Papers, Cornell University

Miss EMILY HOWLAND was born on a farm near Sherwood, Cayuga, New York on November 20, 1827 to Slocum and Hannah Talcott Howland. She was reared as a Quaker,  educated in Sherwood and later at a Society of Friends school in Philadelphia. Miss Howland’s life was dedicated to education, women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. In 1880 she published a monograph entitled “Early History of Friends in Cayuga County” which recounted the Quaker families and characters and the history of Scipio Meeting.  For me it is a delightful read because in 1829 my Quaker family migrated to the west side of Cayuga Lake and became members of the Scipio Meeting.

Emily was a teacher before the Civil War and after the Emancipation Proclamation she nursed and taught in a camp for freed slaves. Fearlessly she continued her work there despite a severe outbreak of smallpox. After the war, as Miss Howland continued her mission for education and health for all, she established schools for the freed slaves in Virginia.

Returning to her roots along Cayuga Lake, Emily turned her energies toward women’s suffrage and became a delegate to state and national conventions and at one time addressed the United States Senate. It was not uncommon to see her giving speeches in the streets of Auburn and Syracuse.

In 1882 Emily also founded a school in Sherwood, New York and in 1927 it was renamed Emily Howland School in her honor. In 1926 she was the first woman in the state to be honored by the New York State Board of Regents with an honorary doctor of letters.

A woman of great intellect and leadership skills, she managed two Cayuga County farms and was a director for the Aurora National Bank. During her lifetime,  she was a member of the board of no less than 30 schools.

Miss Emily Howland died on June 29, 1929 in Sherwood at the age of 101 years and is buried in Howland Cemetery in Ledyard, New York. The inscription on her monument reads:

She wished to have these words upon her stone.

“I strove to realize myself and to serve. Purposes nobly fulfilled.”

Miss JULIA C. FERRIS was also an educator and independent woman. Born at 16 Court Street on July 3, 1844 to Charles Thacher Ferris and Jane Underwood, she studied in Auburn public schools and was a graduate of Albany Normal College at the age of 16. Julia first taught at the Basswood Street School in Aurelius and then on to the No. 1 School in Auburn (Fulton Street School). After the Civil War she taught at a private school which was held over Sutton’s Drug Store on Genesee Street and then went on to be principal at the Genesee Street School. Briefly she was a teacher at a girl’s school in Detroit, but returned to Auburn in 1878 where she taught at Auburn High School. From 1881 to 1887 she was principal of North Street School. In 1888 she went on to head the mathematics department of the Central Grammar School until her retirement in June of 1913. It was estimated that she had taught in excess of 7, 500 pupils

“hammering the puzzling problems of ‘rithmetic into the heads of youth today”.

From 1914 to 1928 she was commissioner of education, a political position that she did not seek. In fact, she was nominated by educators and former students and placed on the ballot. She won over other candidates with a resounding margin and went on to be named as president of the board.

When Julia C. Ferris died in 1928 at the age of 83, Mayor Charles Osborne ordered the flags on all public school buildings to be flown at half-staff until after her funeral. She is buried in the Ferris family plot in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.   Julia’s sister, Mrs. John G. Hosmer survived her as well as many nieces and nephews.

Sara Wadsworth 1916

Miss SARA WADSWORTH was the daughter of Auburn scythe manufacturer David Wadsworth and his wife Phebe E. Partelow. She was born in Auburn to wealth and leadership as was her brother David, Jr. who served at one time as Mayor of Auburn. Sara served at separate times as the president and the treasurer of the Cayuga County Woman Suffrage Association and was praised for her dedication giving the better part of her own time and money to the cause. Her home at 210 West Genesee Street (situated at the corner of Genesee and Fort Streets) was the family home that she inherited from her father. One of the loveliest homes in Auburn, it was a constant venue for teas and boarding for suffrage organizers, speakers and dignitaries. In 1937 the old Wadsworth Mansion, as it was known, was dismantled and all of the antiquities and valuables auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Sara was a delegate to conventions and conferences and traveled often in the company of Mrs. Osborne to promote women’s suffrage. Sara’s politics were more of the intellectual and genteel persuasion and she frequently wrote other groups and asked that they refrain from picketing as it detracted from the message. She traveled often and used the ‘boardroom’ approach to ply her message and in confrontation with male politicians was intelligent and stern yet gracious. She impressed them with her intellectual skills and often won them over to at least have a discussion. That said, when pressed and the heat was on, Sara was a presence at the 1916 street rally to demonstrate at the New York State Republican Convention held  in Saratoga, New York. She lectured to other suffragette groups on

“how to raise and spend money”.

In a letter to the Citizen Advertiser, she reports that as treasurer of a fund for The Women’s Union in 1922, she had managed the donation of Mrs. Osborne in the amount of $25,000. Sara was often found in fundraising events for the Women’s Union and though she was pouring tea, she was often in the role of financial management.

Sara died in 1927 at the age of 76 and is buried in the Wadsworth family plot in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.

Eliza Wright Osborne

Mrs. ELIZA WRIGHT OSBORNE was the wife of David Munson Osborne and the daughter of David Wright and Martha Coffin and the niece of Lucretia Mott. Born on September 3, 1830, Eliza was a powerful force in the Suffrage Movement doing

‘everything for the cause of suffrage that her position as one of Cayuga County’s leading women would, who believed in the cause.”

Like her friend and fellow activist, Sara Wadsworth, she was born to a family of influence. When she married David M. Osborne, a wealthy farm machinery manufacturer, she plunged into the Women’s Suffrage Movement and with her fellow Auburnian suffragettes assumed positions of leadership. She traveled to conferences and conventions and in her own home hosted regular meetings which often included Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. She was described as a “lover of books and a woman of wide reading” as well outspoken and courageous with a devotion to principles yet with a love for flowers and humanity. Her collection of books was reported to be massive.  At the age of 80 and showing no signs of losing her passion for women’s suffrage, she led a delegation to Albany and appeared before legislative committees to promote the cause.

Eliza’s  information is archived in the Library of Congress in the NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911 and in Collections of letters at the Smith College. One such letter written in 1892 from Elizabeth Cady Stanton shows the endearing relationship the two women had and the delight in one another’s wit.

Dear Eliza,
In a recent letter… speaking of the occasion when we last met you say, “why was Mrs. Stanton so solemn?” to which I reply, Ever since an old German Emperor issued an edict, ordering all the women under that flag to knit,…I have felt humiliated whenever I have seen any daughters of our grand republic knitting,…or occupied with any of the ten thousand digital absurdities….
Looking forward to the scintillations of wit,…the mysteries of theosophy, palmistry, mental science, the revelations of the unknown world where angels & devils do congregate, looking forward to the discussions of all these grand themes, in meeting the eldest daughter of David and Martha Wright, the niece of Lucretia Mott, the sister in law of William Lloyd Garrison,…one can readily imagine the disappointment I experienced when such a woman pulled a cotton wash rag from her pocket & forthwith began to knit…: it was impossible for conversation to rise above the wash rag level….
Who can wonder that I was “solemn” that day? I made my agonized protest on the spot, but it fell unheeded &, with a satisfied sneer, Eliza knit on….I not only was “solemn” that day, but I am profoundly solemn whenever I think of that queenly woman & that cotton wash rag. And yet one can buy a whole dozen of these useful appliances…for twenty five cents!! Oh Eliza, I beseech you, knit no more.

Affectionately yours,

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

In 1910 with her health failing, Eliza had to decline her attendance to a rally.  In good humor and still in the game, she writes –

My dear Anne: –

It certainly would be dandy to join your party and go on to Albany.  When I was there last spring I said I never would miss another one, but all the same I have to miss it.  I am not quite graduated from my nurse and not at all able to leave home for which I am exceedingly sorry.  It will be might interesting this year, and what do you think of a man lobbyist?  Funny what a snarl they have got into regard to the different schemes of the different people who have lately come into the work.  Thank you for the clippings.

Hoping and know that you will have a perfectly delightfully time, believe me,

Affectionately & Most regretfully yours,

Eliza W. Osborne

Eliza Wright Osborne died in Auburn on July 18, 1911 at the age of 82 and was cremated and buried in the family plot in Fort Hill cemetery between the graves of her husband and daughter. Eliza and David have generations of  descendants.  She was the only one of these amazing women that did not live to see the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

Mrs. LUCY M. BROWN MOSHER was born on September 27, 1844 in Clay, Onondaga, New York, to Mr. and Mrs. Seeber and Margaret Brown. The Browns moved to Fleming and then to Union Springs where she met her husband, Charles S. Mosher. The Browns and Moshers arrived in Auburn in 1882 and Lucy immediately became involved in her new community in religious, social and political pursuits. Lucy was best noted for her work during the suffrage campaigns of 1915 and 1917 arousing the interest of the community. She was chairman of the speakers’ bureau and directed speaking tours and mass meetings and her home, too, was the site of teas and social hours for dignitaries who spoke at the Suffrage headquarters.

I have an affinity for Lucy as she, too, was a genealogist and loved her heritage. The Mosher home at 125 East Genesee Street was not only a gathering place for women’s suffrage events such as The Society for Political Education, but it was also a museum to her family heritage. One of her favorite treasures was a

quilt fashioned by her mother with a signed block bearing an autograph of General Lafayette which had been signed by him when he visited Cayuga County in 1825.

Unfortunately the relic was lost in 1916 in a fire at their home. Lucy was a wonderful storyteller. At a Brown family gathering, she told the story of her maternal grandmother’s saga along the Mohawk River as an infant. Her grandmother was ‘stolen by the Indians’ from the family log cabin while she was asleep in the cradle while her distraught mother was threatened by the Mowhawk invader. It was claimed that it was the ‘renegade’ Joseph Brandt who had instigated the murder and scalping of white settlers from New York to Pennsylvania and who was a British ally under Burgoyne. For eight years the child lived with the Indians while her father, friends and neighbors searched for her. When they found her, the Indians wanted money for her return. A large sum of money was offered by the father and the little girl was returned to her family. She was not accustomed to their way of living and was homesick for her Indian family. Eventually she adapted and, as they say, the rest was history.

LUCY M. BROWN MOSHER died in her Genesee Street home on January 27, 1922 and is buried in Fort Hill Cemetery alongside her husband, Charles and their son and only child, Judge Edgar Seeber Mosher. Lucy and Charles have generations of descendants.

Vira Boarman Whitehouse circa 1915

Author’s Note: The resolve and great character of these women speaks volumes about the journey they had to take among some harsh attitudes regarding equality that existed by both men and women. There was an Anti-Suffrage Movement and other women echoed the sentiments of the men in their opposition to women ‘getting the vote’. Auburn members of the State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage proclaimed “hundreds of thousands of votes of illiterate women would show a criminal disregard for American institutions”.

In an open letter in 1917 to Senator Elon R. Brown, a New York State suffragette leader, Vira Boarman Whitehouse,  challenged the senate leader’s perfidy.

‘Dear Sir – Although your party endorsed the principle of woman suffrage at its national convention and recommended submission of woman suffrage to the voters of New York state at the next election in November, at its state convention, and although you yourself voted in favor of this resubmission amendment, nevertheless, in your speech to the senate on Monday, March 12, you say:
“I am opposed to woman suffrage because it conflicts with my ideals of manhood and womanhood. The present European conflict illustrates my point. Who fights? The men of France or the women of France? Who for Belgium? Women can neither defend themselves nor the state.”

When I began to read about these women, I thought it would be a brief research in order to gain a simple biography for each one and a sense of the history. As I began to unearth more about them, I realized the subject of suffrage history was highly complex and spanned over scores of years of daunting struggle.  In fact, the lives of these most interesting women were so full of character, charm, intelligence and fearless commitment that I became overwhelmed with the scope. Each of these women met the barriers of bigotry and unvarnished prejudice from men in power and indeed from some of their own sex. To be considered as too illiterate as to be criminal in matters of American institutions in light of their great intelligence and capabilities seems unfathomable to me.

As a mother, grandmother, historian and an accomplished businesswoman and leader in my own right, I owe them a gratitude for forging a path for me and the future of our nation.

It is a sisterhood and probably why I cannot knit, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

 

Deborah Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

(c) Copyright 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

 

Much Reason to Fear

A Note to My Readers:  It’s been a deep plunge into early American history and my German-Swiss immigrant families…the Learns and the Brinkers…and their pre-Revolutionary life in northeastern Pennsylvania. I found a number of colonial Pennsylvania archives online that witness the months, weeks and days before the Learn family massacre on July 3, 1781. It becomes a warren of circumstances that entail personal grudges, slander, political clay feet, atrocities and the fog of war.

Pennsylvania Historical Marker-The Learn Massacre

For quite sometime I have researched Tannersville and Wyoming Valley during the pre-Revolutionary period because my maternal 4th great grandfather, Samuel Weyburn, fought with the Pennsylvania Rangers as part of Washington’s Continental Army and was under General Sullivan’s command. Journals from officers encamped in Tannersville, refer to John Learn’s tavern as a favorable and strategic bivouac point in the Pocono Mountains. General Sullivan and his troops used the Learn site to gather and prepare for Sullivan’s Campaign in 1779.  Not far from the site of John Learn’s tavern is Brinker’s Mill which still stands today. Jacob Brinker is my paternal 6th great grandfather. His daughter, Anna Margaretha, married George Learn (son of John Learn) and they are my paternal 5th great grandparents.  On July 3rd, 1781, Jacob Brinker would lose his daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter and close friend in what has come to be known as “The Learn Massacre”.

As the story unfolds, John Learn and Jacob Stroud (Stroudsburg, PA was named after him.) were not on the best of terms. It seems that Stroud got it into his mind that John Learn was a Tory sympathizer and as the local in charge of militia, left Learn’s tavern without protection during the restless and uncertain days of the Revolutionary War. Though the Learns often traded with the local native population and according to survivors had no issue of any kind, they still worried. Tory sympathizers and British soldiers under the command of the infamous Captain Joseph Brandt, a Mohawk,  and Colonel John Butler were providing the local tribes with liquor and guns and fostering ill will against the settlers. The situation was escalating and becoming unpredictable and perilous.  John Learn and Jacob Brinker petitioned over Stroud’s head for more military protection. While witnesses testified Stroud’s behavior was concerning and promised a tragedy, nothing went further up the line to get help. It seems a junior politician (Robert Levers) worried about his fledgling career though he did have the honesty to admit it in a letter to his superior after the massacre.

On July 7, 1781 a grieving Jacob Brinker came to the quarters of Robert Levers and gave the account of the Learn Massacre and what led up to that unfortunate day. I transcribed the letter that Levers wrote to Joseph Reed, President of the Supreme Council (a position analogous to Governor).

“Jacob Brinker, whose daughter was the Wife of George Lerne, Two of the late unhappy Victims slain by the Indians, was with me last Evening, with young John Lerne, who killed and scalped an Indian soon after his Father was shot, desiring a small party of men might be posted at the place of his late Father deceased, for the Protection of his Crop and of his mother and younger Brethren – upon what occasion I know not, but Lerne tells me, that a few men were posted at one Jacob Lewis(?) about a mile & and half within Lernes’. Here a Regard to Truth, and a Commiseration of this unhappy Family, constrain me to reveal to Council what has long lain on my mind with deep Concern; it is in the Line of my duty now I apprehended if I interfered some Persons in County might have given an ungenerous Construction to my good design.

These Families, there is too much reason to fear, have unhappily fell a Sacrifice to malicious Resentment; -Frequent application had been made to Col. Strowd for Guard, by the late unhappy John Lerne, whose Place is so situated that it is certainly a proper Post, and he was as often refused; and, as the deceased some time past told me himself, because Col. Strowd asserted he was a Tory, and he only wanted men there to have them destroyed, and on which Account John Lerne, in his Life Time, brought and action of Slander against Col. Strowd. On the 30th June, when Col. Chambers was with me, he produced to me a paper directed to him, & delivered as he said, by one Mr. Denis (?) to him; the Paper contains a Number of Charges against Col. Strowd, and I have taken the Liberty to enclose a Copy; and I was desired to put Col. Strowd under Arrest.

‘It occasioned me much Uneasiness of mind, and I declined the matter, telling Col. Chambers I was young in office, the Military duty never having engaged much of my Thoughts; and that as it was well known that I had an unfavorable Opinion of Col. Strowd, which however well grounded, my Interference at such a time might rather be injurious, and frustrate my design, which was rather to cement different Parties than divide; nevertheless, I would take a Copy of them, and if upon strict Enquiry, I should find the Charges well grounded, I would transmit them to your Excellency and sollicit advice and Instructions from you on matters of that Nature. What has since happened, has made me conceive it to be my duty to represent the Whole to Council without Reserve.

From the Account I have received from young John Lerne, the Indian attack was thus: – his Brother George was mowing Grass in a meadow where he was attacked; upon endeavoring to make to the House, his Retreat was cut off and he killed & scalped. The old man with Son John were in a Rye Field, and attacked by Two Indians, who both fired; John Lerne the Elder having first fired, but missed, he was shot and began to run; his Son escaped, and whilst he was watching the Fate of his Father, the Two Indians running after him to scalp him, Young Lerne saw another in the Rye, with his Head down as if he was doing something to his Rifle, upon which Lerne immediately fired & shot him through the Head, but dared not venture to scalp him at that time. He thinks he could have shot another of the Indians after he had loaded, but his Weakness of body being such that he could not make his Escape if he should have missed, he judged, as his Father and Brother were killed, it was best to secure himself. He says had there been Four or Five Persons then present, beside the Family, all the Indians must inevitably have fallen into their Hands –From every Circumstance it appears there were but Four. The Indian he killed was of those who formerly lived at Chemung, named Edsky, but about Five years ago gave himself the name of Jacob Stroud. His Brother George’s Wife and Child were taken & carried off by the Indians, with some Plunder, the House, &c, not destroyed – and after the Prisoners were taken some distance were both killed. That upon Col. Strowd coming up with a Party, the Indians were pursued to the Edge of the Great Swamp; and upon one of the Party’s going into the Swamp & whistling in the Indian Fashion, he was answered by the Indians, and by the Sound at a very small distance, it is imagined the Indians supposed it to be the Comrade that Lerne had killed – But it is said that the Party Col. Stroud had the Command of, had taken out a Ten Gallon Keg of Whiskey, and some of them had become so intoxicated with Liquor, and began to whistle, hoop & haloo, that they might have been heard a mile, by which unhappy Accident the Indians were alarmed, when that had collected wood to make a Fire, and went off in a great Fright, leaving their Plunder, besides other matters of their own, behind them.

It is generally conjectured old John Lerne wounded one of the Indians, and that he died somewhere of his Wounds; because Two Indian tracks were only seen on their Retreat. – Young Lerne tells me a strange circumstance of Col. Strowds’ Conduct, which I have heard from others, and is difficult to be accounted for – That after having marched some distance with Party on the Pursuit along the Indian Tracks, and had passed the Place where the Woman and Child had been killed, he lost his party, and was afterwards found on the Road leading from his house to Wyoming, (about Four miles, supposed to be across from the Indian Track pursued, by a party that had come out to strengthen him, and had reached Lernes’ after he and his Party had marched about two Hours; with which latter Party her returned & proceeded to the great Swamp. The Two Companies is said to have been about Fifty men. I cannot say how far this Report is to be depended on, as I have heard nothing from Col. Chambers; but it appears of too serious a nature not to mention it in Council.

I have the Honor to be,
your Excellency’s
most obedient Servant,
ROBERT LEVERS.

John Learn Monument. Miller Cemetery, Lansing, NY

Other accounts of the event are more specific. John was killed first and then his son George, as in the testimony given by George’s surviving brother, Margaretha was carried off with her infant daughter, Susan. Both were scalped and gutted. Their two year old son, John, survived the attack after being gathered up by his aunt who hid with him in the unmowed rye. The young family dog threatened to give them away so she kept it and the child silent until it was clear to run for help.

The little boy is John Learn, my 4th great grandfather. He was raised by his father’s family and when they migrated to New York State, he settled in Lansing, New York. John is buried in Miller Cemetery along with his wives, Elizabeth (my 4th great grandmother) and Linda.

Deborah Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

(c)Copyright 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

The Last Grand Curtain Call

Helen Modjeska

In the fall of 1927 an old theater curtain…a ‘drop’ as they were called, was found in a remote niche on the upper level of the old Burtis Grand Theater on North Street. It was made of canvas…yellowed and crumbling. As fragile as parchment with the hand painted images vague and muted. When examined, dozens of autographs were discovered. Applied with crayon and make-up paint, the signatures revealed were of old performers with names like John Drew, James Hackett, Nat Goodwin, Charles O’Neill, Otis Skinner, DeWolf Hopper, Lincoln Carter and the great “Modjeska”. Polish-born actress Helen Modjeska was an amazing stage presence…sometimes vamp…sometimes the spirit of a rascally boy…or the epitome of royalty.

At the time of the discovery the theater had already been unused for a short period of time. It was at one time a combination theater and skating rink and built in place of the Academy of Music. After major construction, it was opened on November 13, 1889 as the Burtis Opera House. There were indoor circuses.  Touring stock companies performed.  Surrounded by the soaring architecture, politicians and civic leaders delivered elaborate speeches. Vaudeville first came to Auburn to appear within those walls. Wrestling matches and boxing bouts were held at the Burtis as well. The theater was described as a “‘second story’ house…its stage and auditorium being above the first floor with stores beneath”.

During the administration of Mayor Thomas Mott Osborne, the city became concerned about fire and forced the owners to install fire escapes and to remodel the front of the building.  One of the favorite dining places was the Osborne Hotel and  the patrons of the theater could be found enjoying small performances held at the hotel as another venue for Auburnians to enjoy entertainment and club gatherings. The Jefferson, erected by Mayor Osborne, also figured into the entertainment of Auburnians with an active billing roster. A new name to me was Motion World. Just as the Burtis and the Jefferson began to show the occasional moving picture, Motion World also hosted live entertainment. Dog acts seemed to be a particular favorite for Auburnians.

By 1913, The Burtis Opera House underwent another name change. It became the Burtis Grand. To illustrate the lively nature of entertainment available in 1912 and 1913, newspapers around the area published the bookings commenting “Three shows at the Jefferson, three shows a day at each the Burtis Auditorium and the Burtis Grand and the usual entertainments should furnish plenty of amusement for Auburnians next week.” At the Burtis Auditorium…’eighteen new reels of pictures and eight acts of vaudeville a week’. The Burtis Grand not to be left behind promised ‘popular priced vaudeville’ with excellent several bills. “All of the smaller houses will offer the usual big entertainments for a little money next week and doubtless draw their usual big patronage.” More sites…the smaller houses start becoming familiar…Turn Hall with a boxing exhibition following by a dance party. The Cornell…The Genesee and The Universal where motion pictures were featured with starts as late as 10:45 PM.

Who says Auburn rolled up the sidewalks and everyone went to bed at sunset??!! If you had a nickel, you had somewhere to go.

Amid the grease paint and roar of the crowd environment came civic events and the occasion of the preacher with a theatrical style who was not intimidated by the spirit of the painted vamps and rascals. In 1918 while the United States was at war and the epidemic of Spanish Influenza was killing millions…including Auburnians, the theaters still flourished. Touring troupes from New York City clamored to be booked in Auburn’s theaters. And the audiences came and filled the seats. Laughing, crying, applauding, they chased away the harsh times that existed outside of the majestically adorned halls. It was also in 1918 that the Burtis Grand went up for auction to settle the estate of Edwin C. Burtis, the son of Cary S. Burtis who originally built the Burtis Opera House.

In 1920 it was a great occasion for the Burtis Grand, now billed as “Auburn’s Foremost Photoplay House”, as it featured Lionel Barrymore’s silent motion picture, “The Copperhead”.  As advertised, the audience came from near and far to sit in the great darkness and weep and cheer as the Civil War drama unfolded on the silver screen.

New seats and decorations had replaced the old fixtures by 1927, but the general grand architecture still existed at the Burtis Grand as it had when

crinoline and bustle adorned the stage and heroes in knee pants and silk stockings strutted their hour upon the stage.

Films continued to flicker inside the building which came to be referred to as the ‘old’ Burtis Grand as its grandeur faded and Auburn’s audiences sought a newer vogue. In 1928 and 1929 local groups such as the Odd Fellows could be found gathering at the Burtis Grand.  Meetings, speeches and exhibitions were still filling the auditorium. The great open interior still provided accommodation for large gatherings and though its beauty was of yesteryear, it was still…grand and appreciated. On Halloween night in 1928 the Republicans held a rally featuring Assistant Secretary of War F. Trubee Davison with music by the Salem Town Commandery Band.

As one old theater buff reported

The shell of a once proud palace of amusement today lies idle, facing the prosaic possibility of someday being converted into an office building. But the glory of its past remains as a shadowy heritage of a bygone day, recalled for its brief moment by the hidden musty scroll of names of stars now gone.
Few living remember the heyday of the theater’s prestige, few remain who played upon its boards in the golden days of the trouper. The glamor has gone from a temple of make-believe whose old-time stars themselves have answered the last curtain call.

Eventually the Burtis Grand became The Capitol Theater. By the mid 1950’s there was no sign of the old double mansarded building and the ghosts of Modjeska, Eddie Foy, the Burtis Orchestra and the thousands upon thousands of central New Yorkers who strolled what could easily be called Auburn’s theater district were left to drift the much emptier streets in search of one more encore.

Suffice it to say, Auburn’s downtown (I still call it that) was a vibrant center of activity and theater played a significant role in its culture and economy. Mayor Thomas Mott Osborne was known to complain that there weren’t enough restaurants to accommodate conventions and theater go-ers and that would be the downfall of the theater and convention business. I have read a great deal these past few days about the scores of years that marked that period of its history and I have barely scratched the surface. There are a number of people who have made this part of Auburn’s past their grand passion for decades and I envy their amazing deep knowledge. I think I would love to do a walking tour with these wonderful historians and drift among the ghosts of Auburn’s theatrical heyday.

Author’s Note: I have theater in my blood so to speak. My great grandfather, George Downing Curtis and his cousin, E. O. Rogers were born in the little Village of Cayuga and became ‘theatrical’ men. George owned one of the first motion picture houses in Ithaca and Rochester, New York and booked vaudeville acts all over New York State and the Midwest. Edgar O. Rogers was larger than life and took his Uncle Tom’s Cabin Touring Group to perform far and wide.  Ned Wayburn…my 3rd cousin 2x removed produced and choreographed with the famous Ziegfeld Follies. I followed another actor…Nat Blossom…who ran off with one of my great grandmother’s family members.  I myself flirted with the limelight a bit in my youth.

And I love old architecture. It speaks to me and when it disappeared before I could experience it,  I cannot help but feel that empty space.

Deborah Martin-Plugh
Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher
© Copyright 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Signs

A Note to My Readers:   Family lore often assists in uncovering mysteries.  Breaking brick walls.  On the other hand, it can also be the cause of those brick walls as well.  Or the very least throw a cloud over the real lives of the people you are researching and removing an important aspect of the times in which they live.   For years I was under the impression that one family’s deafness was due to so many first cousins marrying.  It was perpetuated by other Tyler researchers like the proverbial ‘whisper down the lane’.  The more it was repeated, the more it became fact.  That is, until I began to find out more about my second cousins, the Doty Family of Cayuga County, New York.  I looked for the ‘signs’.

Researching my maternal 4th great grandfather, William Tyler (1773 – 1860) and his wife, Abelina Bartlett (1772 – 1855) also involved the extended family – the Dotys. My second cousins.  William and his wife, Abelina Bartlett Tyler, were feeble in their final years. William suffered from senility and so the pair were separated by 1850. Abilena spent her remaining days with her two daughters, Marietta Roberts and Almyra Swain in Aurelius. William went to live with his daughter, Anna Tyler Doty in Sennett. Anna married her first cousin Jason Martin Doty.  Jason’s mother, Deborah, was William Tyler’s sister and she was married to Timothy Doty.

New York Institute for Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb

It wasn’t uncommon in the Tyler line for first cousins to marry. Kin was a big deal…family wealth was kept close and family loyalty was paramount. It wreaked havoc on the gene pool back then among many families that practiced the tradition.  At first I thought that was borne out by the number of individuals that are recorded as ‘deaf and dumb’ in the family of William B. Doty…John Mason Doty’s brother. Will and his wife, Lucretia Pierce, had eleven children. Three of them were deaf and dumb and were sent off to New York City to the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb to learn to read and write, but more importantly to learn to sign to stay connected to the greater world. After their education, the children returned and married fellow students of the institution.

Several poignant records came to my attention regarding the Dotys. The first was the 1850 Federal Census that shows sisters Phebe Doty Cuddeback (1833-1930) and Rebecca Doty Gilbert Cross (1829-1915) living at the NYC school as students and enumerated as ‘inmates’ and ‘deaf and dumb’.  Inmate is a term frequently used for students and patients in institutions when enumerating in the censuses.

I also came across Phebe’s marriage announcement in a local newspaper – the Auburn, NY Weekly Journal from November of 1852.

“At Weedsport on Tuesday, November 9th, by the Rev. S. R. Brown, Mr. CORNELIUS CUDDEBACK, of Phelps, Ontario County, to Miss PHEBE DOTY, of Weedsport. Both were graduates of the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. The ceremony was performed in the language of signs.”

U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages, Rebecca Doty weds George M. Cross

For Rebecca Doty, I found her first husband, Gustavus O. Gilbert and his sister, Lucy, each listed as an ‘inmate’ at the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in the 1850 census. Rebecca and Gustavus were students there at the same time. When Gustavus died in 1865, Rebecca married George M. Cross, another young man who was profoundly deaf. Their marriage record in the U.S. Census on Deaf Family Marriages tells the real story about why the three Doty siblings were afflicted. The cause was attributed to WHOOPING COUGH. The Dotys were not ill at the same time as their ages ran a span of decades.  Rebecca and Phebe most likely were ill at the same time as they were just four years apart, but the youngest, who was also deaf, was not born until 1846.   All lost their hearing at a young age which in turn affected their speech.

As I read through Auburn area newspapers from the 1840’s and 1850’s, it became apparent that whooping cough was a widespread problem during that time.  Along with whooping cough, scarletina, diphtheria and consumption (phthsis),  the area residents had suffered for several decades prior to the 40’s and 50’s as well.  It was a constant threat and institutions had been established to manage the long-term effects.  The New York Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb was established in 1817.  The U.S. Census on Deaf Family Marriages (1888-1895) read more like a medical report defining the cause of the deafness and details on the parents and other siblings.  This was a society looking desperately to manage infectious diseases that clearly impacted large segments of the population and remained unchecked.

Adelmor Doty Monument. Throopsville Cemetery

I mentioned three siblings…the last was Adelmor Doty (1846-1864) who died at the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb of typhoid when he was just 18 years old. Adelmor is buried among his Doty family members in Throop’s Community Cemetery. His monument is particularly touching. It features three signs that spell out G. O. D. and the inscription:

“The ears of the deaf shall be unstopped”. Isaiah 35 Chap 5 Vse. Selected by his teacher.”  ADELMORE. SON OF WM. & L. DOTY.  DIED AT WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, N.Y. CITY

In my initial research of this Doty family, I found Adelmor’s monument first as I did Tyler work in the old Throopsville Cemetery.  Walking cemeteries in the process of documenting my family’s old pioneer burials, I happen upon monuments that capture my attention.  They have a character that tells you that there is a bigger story to tell.  The unusual engraving and the inscription on the stele of Adelmor Doty was the beginning of that deeper research.

Signs.

 

Deborah Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian, Genealogical Researcher

(c) Copyright 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

Standing Room Only at the Burtis Opera House

A Note to My Readers:  In the process of researching individuals who provided the nexus of my immediate ancestors in Auburn, New York, I spent some time reading the daily newspapers of their time to get a sense of the events of the day during 1895. It’s always interesting to read about the politics of the day or the great events and very tempting to plug them into that larger perspective. But I decided to slow it down and hang out there…check out the weather, go to a strawberry festival, shop in the old stores that lined Genesee Street and maybe duck into the old Burtis Opera House confident that an unaccompanied female historian would be safe.

Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide, Volume 14, p 581. 1909

Opened in 1889, the Burtis Opera House was built by Leon H. Lempert & Sons of Rochester, New York and was located at 16 -22 North Street.  The Burtis Opera House was rebuilt from the Corning Hall also known as the Academy of Music. The auditorium was described as a

‘magnificent theater one hundred feet wide, with depth from footlights forty-two feet containing twelve dressing rooms lighted by electricity and all modern and up-to-date facilities”.

Its twin mansard roofs dominated the skyline on North Street.

Robert Bruce Mantell, actor.

The Burtis became a grand addition to Auburn’s architecture and culture under the management of Auburnian E. S. Newton. The historical society reported the “completion of the Burtis Opera House affords an elegant resort for public entertainments, which ‘fill a long felt want’.” It was dedicated on the 18th of November with the appropriate devotions and addresses by Mayor Wheeler and Congressman Payne. Its first performance was the play of “Montars’ with Robert B. Mantell as its premier performer. It was not his first performance in Auburn and securing him for the opening performer was considered by the trade as they say now…a real ‘get’. A short biography of Mantell describes the Burtis Opera House as “one of the finest and coziest little playhouses in a city of its size in the country”.  Mantell went on to star in silent films and had a long and successful career.

The drama was not confined to the stage.

In 1895 one of Auburn’s finest had just been assigned to the Burtis due to complaints about ne’er-do-wells and updated electric lighting was being installed to further brighten the interior.  An Auburn newspaper had publicly chastised the Burtis’ manager, Mr. E. S. Newman, holding him responsible for the dereliction of the police in not “suppressing the hoodlums who hang around the entrance to the Opera house and calling for police to be regularly assigned to the Burtis”. In December two young thieves Eddie Kaul and Burt McLaughlin, ages six and ten, had stolen personal belongings from the young students attending Mrs. Luce’s dancing academy on Genesee Street. Among the victims was Margaret Downer, the little daughter of William S. Downer, a teller at the Auburn Savings Bank. Mr. Downer was having none of it and put in a complaint at police headquarters. Police were immediately on the trail of the boys who had been observed loitering about the academy and, once identified, the pilferers were traced to the Burtis. The pair were found happily ensconced in the audience and thoroughly enjoying the show having paid for their tickets with the change found in little Margaret’s purse.

Burtis Opera House Auburn Old Souvenir Book (1906)

National trade publications proved the popularity of the opera house among entertainers with the listings and details of their constant bookings.  The New York Dramatic Mirror reported Thomas E. Shea’s Company finished a week’s engagement with seven performances with SRO (Standing Room Only) at nearly every performance. The paid admissions accounted for 7, 684 attendees which broke the record of the house. On the flip side, the New York Philharmonic Club had a single performance.  There with just fourteen souls to exclaim it as an “excellent entertainment”. Auburn had its local talent bookings as well. The above-mentioned Mrs. Luce held her Dance Academy recitals at the Burtis.  In November, the Ladies’ Aid society of the First Universalist Church held four performances of “Ben-Hur” done in pantomime. Interspersed between the vignettes were

drills, marches and quaint Oriental and recherché dances, and the continuous orchestra music, varying with the theme and always subdued, lends an unconscious rhythm to the steps and gestures of the actors. All this, embellished with nearly $20, 000 worth of superb special scenery and rich and striking costumes, and illuminated with magnificent calcium and electrical effects, combines to make it one of the most gorgeous and attractive productions every presented on the American stage.

The Auburn Dramatic Club presented “The Woven Web’ late that fall as a benefit for the ushers of the opera house. On Thanksgiving night, the Burtis was packed and the SRO sign was hung outside its entrance when national sensation Minerva Dorr performed in the comic opera “Niobe”. Ms. Dorr’s reviews called her “charming”, with an “admirable singing ability” and “kept the audience in a continual state of uproar.” A Christmas Day musical event featured the Cornell Musical Club accompanied by several social events…receptions, luncheons…during the day and after the performance a dance was held in honor of the collegians and Cornell graduates from the area and all of Auburn was abuzz with the social festivities.  The auditorium was filled to capacity.

As I read through the schedule of that year…save for two weeks in April when the Burtis ‘went dark’ due to some minor renovation…it was never without a performance…large or small. All of that coupled with political gatherings and the occasional ball and gala with attendees from near and far. Beyond the artistic performances and political rallies and fraternal organization events and conventions, there were illustrated lectures. Another group found the Burtis a successful venue. Peddlers came from near and far selling all manner of merchandise and on occasion – ‘remedies’ – advertising their availability in the local papers. One particular article in the spring of 1895 about an incoming troupe sparked an image of just what the hurly burly of the train station in Auburn must have been. I realized that Auburn in 1895 was not a sleepy little city, but rather a vibrant, excited and excitable community.

The most remarkable spectacular production yet presented on any stage is Palmer Cox’s Brownies. It is of such a costly and elaborate nature that it can be only shown in the largest theatres throughout the country. It will be seen in all its vast metropolitan entirety at the Burtis Opera house Monday evening, April 22nd. The huge spectacle will be brought to Auburn by special train in fact from its great run of 150 nights at the Fourteenth Street theatre, in New York, where the newspapers and magazines devoted whole pages to the description of its scenes of dazzling splendor. Such grand effects as a thrilling shipwreck, a terribly realistic earthquake and volcano, and the instant destruction of a magnificent palaces are presented in a way that has been hitherto unattempted. The very height of the stage art has been reached in these grand climaxes. The final transformation, “A Night in Brownieland”, showing in marvelous hues the unfolding into glorious life of the moonflower and night-blooming cereus is of such magnificence that worlds fail to describe it. It is well worth coming miles to see. Over 100 of the highest salaried artists are necessary for the gorgeous production. The world famous Brownies are surround by beautiful women. There are large ballets, choruses and wonderful acrobats engage abroad. Among the features are the aerial ballet, danced in mid-air to the most superb calcium effects, and the Oriental ballet, both of which have created furors.

Sounds a bit like Cirque du Soleil and Vegas, doesn’t it?

The glorious Burtis Opera House was demolished in August 1939.

Deborah Martin – Plugh Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Miles to Go Before I Sleep. The trails of Samuel Weyburn

 

Deborah Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

(c) Copyright 2015.  All Rights Reserved.