History of Buffalo, (Erie County) New York United States of America

BUFFALO, a city, port of entry, and seat of justice of Erie county, New York, is situated at the eastern extremity of Lake Erie, 2 or 3 miles S. from the commencement of Niagara river: W. from Albany 364 miles by the Erie canal, and 325 miles by the Central railroad, (both of which terminate in this city,) 470 miles N. W. from New York. 22 miles S. S. E. from Niagara Falls, 103 miles N. E. from Cleveland, 290 miles N. by E. from Detroit, and 597 miles E. by N. from Chicago. Lat. 42° 53´ N.; lon. 78° 55´ W. It is regularly, and for the most part, handsomely built, partly on an elevation, and partly on a marsh or low ground, intersected in the southern part by Buffalo creek. This latter portion is the seat of the principal business. The site rises gradually as it recedes from the water's edge, and at the distance of 2 miles becomes an extended plain, 50 feet above the level of the harbor, affording delightful views of the city, lake, Niagara river, and Canada shore. The streets are broad, straight, and usually intersect each other at right angles. Main street, more than 2 miles long, and 120 feet wide, is perhaps the finest in the city, being enclosed on either side with lofty buildings. There are three public squares, Niagara, Franklin, and Washington, all of which are planted with shade-trees, and otherwise ornamented. The harbor is formed by Buffalo creek, and is of sufficient depth one mile from its entrance into the lake, for vessels drawing from 12 to 14 feet of water. It is capacious, and well protected from storms, having a pier or breakwater which extends 1500 feet from the S. side of the mouth of the creek. By thus confining the channel, the bar that originally obstructed the entrance to the harbor has in great measure been washed away by the current. Upon the end of this pier is a light-house, 20 feet in diameter at its base, and 46 feet high. The principal obstruction to the harbor at present, is the ice which at the breaking up of winter is often driven into it by strong westerly winds, where it not infrequently remains long after the lake [p.157] clear. Severed hundred thousand dollars have been expended within a few years past, on this portion of Buffalo creek, in the construction of slips and ship canals to meet the growing wants of commerce. The public buildings are a court house, a jail, 2 market-houses, and about 40 churches, several of which have recently been erected. The Catholic cathedral, not yet completed, will be one of the finest structures of the kind in the United States. St. Paul's and St. John's, (Episcopal,) the North church, and the Central church are distinguished for their architectural elegance.

Among the literary, educational, and benevolent institutions may be mentioned the Buffalo University, chartered in 1846. Connected with it is a flourishing medical college. The Young Men's Association has a library of over 6000 volumes, and sustains an able course of lectures. A society recently organized, denominated the German Young Men's Association, possesses a valuable collection of about 2000 volumes, consisting for the most part of works in the German language. Both of these societies have reading-rooms well supplied with periodicals and newspapers. The female academy is delightfully situated, and endowed to the amount of about $50,000. Buffalo is distinguished for her public schools, and has the honor of being among the very first cities in the state in introducing and perfecting this system of popular education. The schools are under the direction of the city council, and open to the children of all classes free of charge. Buffalo has a marine hospital, founded in 1833, an orphan asylum, and an organization called the Sailors' and Boatmen's Friend Society.

The manufactures of Buffalo are important, especially in the article of iron, in the production of which several large establishments are engaged. The city is supplied with excellent water from Niagara river by a corporation having a capital of $400,000: it is also lighted with gas.

Commerce.-The trade of Buffalo is immense. Its position is such as to render it a great entrepôt, through which much of the commerce between the East and West must pass. The first impulse was given to it by the completion of the Erie canal in 1824. Since then lines of railways have been constructed, opening communication with nearly every section of New York, with the great cities on the Atlantic coast, and in Canada, and with the fertile valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. These improvements, with her advantages for navigating the great inland waters, have secured to Buffalo the first rank among the great commercial cities on the north-western lakes. Mother railroad is also projected, to connect with Pittsburg through the Sunbury railroad. This will communicate with the coal regions of Pennsylvania. During the year 1852, there were built at this port 6 steamers, 9 propellers, and 8 schooners, with an aggregate burthen of 8610 tons. There were also commenced in the fall of 1852, to be completed for the spring navigation, 5 steamers, 4 of 1800 tons each, 2 propellers, 4 schooners, one of 360 tons, 1 brig, and 1 steamtug. The aggregate burthen of the vessels to be built during the winter of 1852 and '53 was 11,142 tons. From 1000 to 1200 mechanics are constantly employed at the various shipyards on the creek. There were enrolled and licensed, December 31st, 1852, in the district of Buffalo Creek, 28 steamers, 31 propellers, 33 brigs, 1 barque, and 100 schooners, with an aggregate of 56,523 tons.

In addition to $34,052,798 worth of goods received by shipping, $819,737 worth of goods were brought by the State Line railroad, making the total value of all the imports received at Buffalo from the West in 1852, $34,872,535, being an increase from 1851 of about $3,000,000. The value of the imports from Canada the same year amounted to $1,068,585, and by canal, $41,810,398. The value of the exports from Buffalo by canal in 1852 was $21,049,908, and from the [p.158] district of Buffalo Creek to Canada, $840,800. The duties collected at this port amounted, in 1843, to $4346; 1846, $12,389; 1849, $46,939; 1852, $69,723. The shipping enrolled and licensed in the district of Buffalo Creek, June 30th, 1852, amounted to an aggregate of 49,614 3/9 7/5 tons.

There are in Buffalo 10 banks, 2 savings institutions, and upwards of 40 fire, marine, and other insurance companies and agencies. About 15 newspapers are issued here. Among the hotels, the American, the Clarendon, and the Mansion House, on Main sweet, and the Western Hotel, on the Terrace, near the Niagara Falls Depôt, may be named as the most prominent.

Buffalo was originally laid out by the Holland company in 1801. In 1812 it became a military post. In December, 1813, it contained 200 houses, all of which, except two, were burned by a party of British and Indians. As a compensation for their losses by this disaster, Congress granted the inhabitants the sum of $80,000. An act, incorporating it a city, was passed by the legislature in April, 1832. It is divided into 5 wards, and governed by a mayor and common council, annually elected. Population, in 1810, 1508; 1820, 2095; 1830, 8653; 1840, 18,213; 1850, 42,261; 1853, estimated, 60,000.

Biographies:

Mason Brayman, lawyer, was born at Buffalo, N.Y., May 23, 1813. He was reared on a farm, learned the printer's trade and in 1834-'35 edited the Buffalo Bulletin. He was admitted to the bar in 1836, and removed to Monroe, Mich. He served as city attorney of Monroe in 1838, and in 1841 edited a newspaper. In 1842 he established himself in the practice of law at Springfield, Ill. In 1843, us a special commissioner under the government, he adjusted the Mormon disturbances at Nauvoo and was employed as counsel in the prosecution of the offenders, and conducted the negotiations which resulted in the withdrawal of the Mormons from Illinois. He revised and published the statutes of Illinois in 1844-'45. He became the attorney of the Illinois Central railroad in 1851, and afterwards a pro motor of railroad enterprises througbout Missouri, Arkansas, and the southwest. He joined the Federal army in 1861, as major of the 29th Illinois volunteers, became colonel in the following year, and fought in the battles of Belmont, Fort Don-elson, and Shiloh. For especial gallantry at these engagements he was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers. He was in command at Bolivar, Tenn., when General Van Dorn's attack was so effectively repulsed. He re-organized the returned Ohio regiments at Camp Dennison; was in command at Natchez from July, 1864, to May, 1865; was appointed presiding officer of the commission which met to examine into the cotton claims, and was mustered out of service with the rank of major-general of volunteers at the close of hostilities, when he revived railroad interests in the south. In 1872-'73 he edited the Illinois State Journal; in 1873 he removed to Ripon, Wis., and practised law until 1877, when he was appointed by President Hayes governor of Idaho. At the expiration of his term in 1880 he resumed the practice of his profession at Ripon, Wis. He subsequently settled in Kansas City, Mo., where he died Feb. 27, 1895.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Charles Coleman, Caryll, painter, was born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1840. He was educated in the public schools of Buffalo and in 1859 went to Europe, where for two years he studied in France and Italy. In 186l he returned to the United States and served out a three years' enlistment in the Union army. He returned to Europe in 1866 and opened a studio in Rome. He was elected a member of the London art club, and in 1881 associate of the National academy of design, New York city. His more important pictures include Interior of Chapel adjoining Sala del Cambria at Perugia; The Bronze Horse of St. Mark's, Venice (1877); The Troubadour, The Young Monk, and Nuremberg Towers, exhibited at Philadelphia at the Centennial in 1876; Decorative Panel at the Paris Exposition of 1878; Venice, Ancient aud Modern (1880); Remote Quarter of Paris in 1878 (1881); Capri Interior, Capri Reapers and Head of Capri Girl (1886).

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

John W. Hinsdale, soldier and lawyer, was born in Buffalo, N.Y., Feb. 4, 1843; son of Samuel Johnston and Elizabeth (Christopher) Hinsdale, of Fayetteville, N.C.; a grand nephew of George E. Badger, U.S. secretary of the navy, 1841, and a descendant in the ninth generation of Robert Hinsdale, who came to America in 1638, and settled in Deerfield, Mass.; and on his mother's side a lineal descendant of Gov. William Bradford and Elder Brewster, of the Mayflower. He was a student at Donaldson academy, Fayetteville, at the military school of Colonel Starr, Yonkers, N.Y., 1853-58, and at the University of North Carolina, 1858-61. He joined the Confed erate army in 1861 and served as an aide to his uncle, Lt.-Gen. T. H. Holmes; as adjutant-general on the staff of Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew in the battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, Va.; and as acting assistant adjutant-general on the staff of Maj.-Gen. W. D. Ponder in the seven days' fights around Richmond. In 1862, when General Holmes was transferred to the command of the Trans-Mississippi department, Lieutenant Hinsdale was made his aide-de-camp and took part in the battle of Helena, Ark., being subsequently made assistant inspector-general of the district of Arkansas. He commanded the 72d North Carolina regiment (3d regiment of junior reserves) in the battles of Kinston and Bentonville, N.C., and surrendered with General Johnston's army at High Point, N.C. He studied law at Columbia college, 1865-66, and began the practice of law at Raleigh, N.C., and for many years was attorney of the Seaboard Air Line railroad system in North Carolina. He also practised before the U.S. supreme court in important cases, and was retained by the state in various tax suits. He is the author of an annotated edition of Winston's North Carolina Reports, and of the Non-Suit Act, and Equity Reference Act, as adopted by the state legislature. He was married in 1869 to Ellen, daughter of Maj. John Devereux, chief quartermaster of North Carolina. 1861-65, and granddaughter of the Hon. T. P. Devereux, a prominent North Carolina lawyer.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

John Louis Lay, inventor, was born in Buffalo, N.Y., Jan. 14, 1832. He was appointed second assistant engineer in the U.S. navy in July, 1862, and was promoted first assistant engineer in October, 1863. He designed the torpedo which was used by Lieut. William B. Cushing to destroy the Confederate ironclad Albemarle in the Roanoke river at Plymouth, N.C., Oct. 27, 1864. After the fall of Richmond in 1865, he was sent in advance of Admiral Porter's fleet to remove obstructions from the James river. At the close of the war he joined the Peruvian service and fortified the harbor of Callao with fixed mines and suspended torpedoes, in order to prevent the entrance of the Spanish fleet, and he also served other of the South American republics as a torpedo expert. He returned to the United States in 1867, and invented the Lay locomotive submarine torpedo, which was purchased by the U.S. government. This torpedo, a cylindrical boat with conical ends, was designed to carry either a spar torpedo or some high explosive and was propelled by a screw driven by a carbon dioxide gas engine. The boat could be connected to the shore or a ship by a coil of rope, enabling the operator to steer, regulate and explode it by means of an electric battery and keyboard. His inventions brought him a large fortune, which he lost in speculation, and his last days were spent in poverty. He died in Bellevue hospital, New York city, April 17, 1899.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Local Historical and Genealogical Records:

From: History and Genealogy of the Ancestors and Family of Captain Israel Jones of Barkhamsted Connecticut. By Asahel Wellington Jones. Published by Laning Co., 1902.

History of Buffalo, (Erie County) New York

Local History Notes:

Biographies:

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