The History of
Buffalo: A Chronology
Buffalo, New York
1841-1865
| 1841 |
Ed
Comentale, Buffalo
in the 1840s Short essay There are 140 lake vessels occupying the cramped lower harbor. A lack of harbor facilities and no means of unloading vessels save for manual labor was the reason for the overcrowding. A push for more substantial mooring space and unloading methods is on. 2 million bushels of grain are being unloaded on the waterfront - all of it by hand, mostly by Irish laborers who helped dig the Erie Canal. In 1842 the first U. S. steam-powered grain elevator is built at Buffalo by Joseph Dart, A steam-powered elevator had been invented and developed in England in the 1790s by Oliver Evans, but had never been used for the unloading and storage of grain. In 1841 Dart tries it. It is, he says, "a simple apparatus consisting mainly of a series of buckets attached to a leather canvas belt which revolved on pulleys." Importance of Dart's invention: Along with the Erie Canal, Dart's steam-powered grain elevator was critical to the city's commercial development. For there was now no limit to the amount of western grain that could be handled in the city's port. - Source: Mark Goldman, "High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York." Pub. by State U. of New York Press, Albany, 1983, p. 58 By the middle of the 1840s, an ever increasing amount of grain transshipped through Buffalo is going to Europe and England. Passenger Lake service: the latest technological advance is a screw propeller driven steamer. Until this time only paddlewheels had been used. The launching of the "Vandalia" at Oswego ushers in an era of newer, bigger, faster and more elegant steamers. By 1845, Steamship lines will carry over 93,000 passengers that year, most of them on the daily runs to Detroit, Lake Erie and Lake Michigan ports. Travel to Chicago will be frequent and usually will take three to four days. For the well to do who could afford a $10 ticket, it was a very pleasant experience in the best grand hotel tradition. Fine dining and ballroom dancing along with luxurious relaxation made a trip on one of these floating palaces a holiday in itself. In 1847 one will be able to take a train from New York City to Buffalo and then board the elegant "Hendrik Hudson" for passage to Chicago. Only five days after leaving the Atlantic seaboard you could be in Chicago. The great steamers of the era included the "Vandalia," the "Great Western," the "Western World," the "United States," the "Plymouth," the "Queen of the West," the "Empire" and the "Hendrik Hudson." These were but a handful of the great lake steamers. Jan. 19 Buffalo's first double hanging. All citizens invited to view the hangings of John Johnson and Major McElroy in Niagara Square. Johnson pleaded guilty to murdering his wife out of jealousy and told the court he was ready to hang for his crime. Police linked foot-tracks to McElroy on the farm where Rainsford Otis was burned to death. Until 1841, three
known murderers were publicly executed. witnessed in public Washington Adams Russell moved from Buffalo to the Buffalo Plains and bought 200 acres of the Dr. Daniel Chapin farm (Chapin's farm: most of the land from Granger's farm north to near the present South Campus of the State University of New York at Buffalo and south from Main Street to Elmwood Avenue). Russell's house will still stand at 2540 Main Street in 2002 and will be the oldest structure in the Parkside area. |
| 1842 | W.
G. Fargo, In Buffalo, forms a partnership
with Henry Wells, in
Cleveland. By 1850, they will have formed the American Express
Company. First steam-powered ship enters Buffalo harbor. The "Vandalia" was built at Oswego in 1841. Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Efforts to remove Senecas from their lands culminated in the Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838, by the terms of which the four remaining reservations -- Buffalo Creek, Tonawanda, Cattaraugus, and Allegany -- were sold and provisions were made for the Senecas to remove to Kansas. The corrupt proceedings were protested, however, and a new treaty of Buffalo Creek was signed in 1842. The new agreement stipulated the sale of Buffalo Creek and Tonawanda, but retained Allegany and Cattaraugus. As a result of the Buffalo Creek treaties, some Senecas moved to Kansas Most did not, however, and of those who did, all but two returned. Senecas of Tonawanda, who had not been present at the treaty proceedings in 1842, objected. By a treaty signed in 1857, they bought back most of their reservation with money set aside for their removal from Kansas. The Tonawanda Senecas maintain their government by hereditary chiefs, practice the Longhouse religion, perform traditional calendric rituals, and have medicine societies (a tradition separate from the Longhouse religion) for preventative and curative practices. |
|
1843 |
Buffalo's
reputation as a center of anti-slave activity grew, and in August 1843
the city hosted two national abolitionistconventions.
One was the National Convention of Colored Men. The other was the
National Convention of the Liberty Party. Buffalo financier Benjamin Rathbun, having served a sentence for forgery, is released from Auburn Prison. St. Louis Church, built in 1843, will burn down in 1885, but will be rebuilt. The St. Louis Church that survives today is a Gothic structure and a landmark. It reflects the growth of the German population in the parish at the time.
Joseph G. Masten elected mayor. Judge. Masten Park, Masten Avenue named after him. |
|
1844 |
1844 -
Online Buffalo City Directories - LINKS (BuffaloResearch.com)
The Rochester & Tonawanda Railroad builds a spur to link its Rochester terminal with the Auburn & Rochester, several blocks away, finally linking Buffalo and Albany by rail. Representative Millard Fillmore is defeated in his bid for the governorship. General Peter Porter, a commander during the War of 1812, dies at his Niagara Falls home at the age of 74. William Ketchum is elected mayor. Seiche of 1844: One of the greatest disasters in the city's recorded history occurred at 11 p.m. October 18, when a wall of water quickly inundated the commercial and residential districts along the waterfront. The disaster occurred without warning, breaching the 14-foot seawall and flooding the waterfront. Newspaper accounts of the time indicate that at least 78 people drowned. The tragedy was caused by a seiche -- pronounced SAY-sh. Prolonged strong winds produce a seiche by pushing the water toward one end of lake Erie. When the winds stop, or shift to the opposite direction, the water moves back in the direction from which it came. It is estimated that Buffalo has two or three seiches a year, but the threat has been largely eliminated by building a breakwater in Lake Erie, a project that started in the 1860s. |
|
1845 |
Buffalo's population: 29,773; Erie County's: 78,635.
Boundaries:
Eagle, Clinton, lower Pearl and lower Franklin, and Swan are residence streets. Independent settlements adjoining Buffalo:
Poinsett Barracks, as the U.S. Artillery garrison is called, is vacated in 1845, and the house becomes the private home of Joseph G. Masten who engages architect Thomas Tilden to add the Greek Revival portico, Palladian windows, and stone lintels facing Delaware Avenue. Three companies of the U.S. Artillery had established a garrison at what now the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site. The house, with a simpler facade then, was one in a row of officers' quarters. It was a two-family structure that housed both the commanding officer and the post's surgeon. Also, the house faces away from Delaware Avenue and toward the garrison parade grounds. In 1883 Dexter P. Rumsey will buy the J. Masten house and gave it to his daughter and new son-in-law, Ansley Wilcox; it will become known as the Wilcox Mansion. Elk Street Market completed. located at the corner of Elk and Michigan
With the arrival of several thousand German immigrants into Buffalo the city becomes famous as a manufacturing and distributing center of beer. Philip Born established a brewery at the corner of Jefferson and Genesee Streets. Eighteen years later Gerhard Lang will purchase the brewery and move it to where War Memorial Stadium is located at Jefferson and Best. Steamship
lines carry over 93,000 passengers this year, most of them on the daily
runs to Detroit, Lake Erie and Lake Michigan ports. Travel to Chicago
is frequent and usually takes three to four days. For the well to do
who can afford a $10 ticket, it is a very pleasant experience in the
best grand hotel tradition. Fine dining and ballroom dancing along with
luxurious relaxation make a trip on one of these floating palaces a
holiday in itself. |
|
1846 |
In the winter of
1846, the medical school is established, which later Buffalonian Anna Katherine Green (1846-1935) essentially invents the detective novel (way before Arthur Conan Doyle) which becomes America's first best-seller. The first telegraph message reaches Buffalo. The telegraph office is located at 12 Exchange Street. When New York's most prominent shipyard, Bidwell and Banta, launch the "Niagara" in 1846, the vessel is one of the largest, fastest, and most luxurious steamboats the world had ever seen. Buildings erected:
|
|
1847 |
Because of severe
overcrowding in the Buffalo harbor, the city leadership votes to
increase the size of Buffalo Harbor and build a new City Ship Canal. Elbridge Gerry Spaulding elected mayor of Buffalo, but he will not finish his one-year term because he will elected an assemblyman in the state legislature. Spaulding's contribution to the city will be the plan of 1847 that provides important legislation for an improved sewer system, an increase in the size of Buffalo Harbor, and the building of a new City Ship Canal. Spaulding also invests in a new company, the Buffalo Gas Light Company, to provide electricity for the city. See 1862 below for Spaulding's contribution to winning the Civil war. The Great Lakes steamer "Baltic" is built by Bidwell & Banta in Buffalo. Between 1847 and 1849 the railroad embarks on an improvement project to replace the wooden rail covered by strap iron with solid iron rail. On many occasion passengers have been maimed or wounded when the strapping had become loose at one end of the rail to the point where it would leap over the wheel of the passenger coach, pierce the wooden floor of the coach and become a become a ribbon of death as it sliced its way unimpeded through the interior of the passenger coach. The advancement of ironworking in the United States put an end to this menace, much to the relief of both passengers and railroad employees alike. - Source: The City of Buffalo - 1840 to 1850 Essay Pope Pius IX creates the diocese of Western New York and appoints John Timon of Pennsylvania as the first bishop. Within weeks of his arrival, in a dispute over control, Timon moves the bishop's see from (German- Catholic) St. Louis Church to a ramshackle wooden-frame Irish church. The St. Louis trustees win in court. Timon recruited teaching orders of nuns and priests from Europe and started Catholic schools, churches, foundling homes, homes for Catholic aged and a Catholic orphanage. In 1854, Timon will build a cathedral in the most visible and centrally located piece of real estate in the city, on Church Street right between the two oldest Protestant churches in Buffalo.
|
|
1848 |
1848 - Online Buffalo City Directories - LINKS (BuffaloResearch.com) There is now a network of seven railroads connecting Buffalo and Albany and from there Cornelius Vanderbilt's Hudson River Railroad carried passengers to and from New York City. The fastest packet boats of the day take 6 days to travel from Albany to Buffalo, the railroads make the trip in 25 hours. It is painfully obvious what the preferred method of travel will be for the foreseeable future. Buffalo Board of Trade is formed by waterfront merchants to help spearhead future harbor improvements. This group will become The Merchant's Exchange and Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Walter Cary (1818-1881) marries Julia Love, the daughter of Judge Thomas Cutting Love. Their house, at 184 Delaware, was one of the brightest spots in the social and cultural life of the city. It was also the home of Cary's vibrant sister-in-law, Maria Love.
The Free-Soil party is organized in Buffalo. Its platform calls for an end to the expansion of slavery and for no increase in the number of slave states. Buildings erected:
|
|
1849 |
Buildings erected: Another outbreak of cholera. More than 3,000 cases recorded; nearly 900 people die. The first epidemic occurred in 1832 a third and worst will occur in 1854. Howard Iron Works founded. In 1851 it will manufacture one of the first lawn mowers. By the end of the century it will occupy three acres of land on Chicago Street and manufacture elevators and machinery for grain elevators. By the end of the 1840s, rails have begun to compete for right-of-way space along the waterfront in an effort to distract some of the less bulky produce like flour, lumber and livestock from the canal boats. The Buffalo
City Water Works is incorporated on March 15, 1849. This Buffalo house becomes the residence of Millard Fillmore newly elected vice-president (1849-1850); Franklin near Mohawk. Now 180 Franklin Street, with different front. Two years later President Taylor will die and Millard Fillmore will become president. |
|
1850 |
Appendix
and Index to Volume VI of the Buffalo Historical Society Publications
Reprinted by Cornell U. Forest Lawn Cemetery incorporated. The original 80 acres of land near the edge of the city were purchased by Charles E. Clarke in 1849 with the intention of establishing a cemetery, based on the French and English example of rural cemeteries. Besides interment on family land or in churchyards, various spaces in Buffalo before 1849 were also designated for burial. Some of them:
See Cemeteries - Links. The concept of owning a place for future burial, especially in a rural setting outside the city limits, is a new and generally alien concept in the mid-1800s. In 1852, the Franklin Square cemetery Memorial is placed to mark the relocation of graves from the older burial ground, and this helps the public to accept the new cemetery. By 1861, rural cemeteries across the country are a popular place for recreation, and this will lead to the urban park movement first made famous by Frederick Law Olmsted. Source: "A History
of Forest Lawn Cemetery," by Albert L. Michaels and Bette A. Rupp. Pub.
in "Forest Lawn Cemetery: Buffalo History Preserved." available at
Forest Lawn Administration Bldg. and in bookstores. Millard Fillmore becomes thirteenth president in July when Pres. Tyler chokes on food and dies. Fillmore signs Compromise of 1850 which includes the Fugitive Slave Act on Sept. 20.
|
| 1851 |
The "Swedish
nightingale" Jenny Lind performs before a sold-out crowd at the
North Presbyterian Church at Main and Chippewa Streets. President Millard Fillmore and his Cabinet are among the passengers to ride on the Erie Railroad's first westbound train into WNY. The Erie is hailed as the greatest venture of private enterprise of its time. Buildings erected: |
|
1852 |
Formation of the Young Men's Christian Union in Buffalo (renamed YMC Association in 1868)
Establishment of what will be later known as the William Simon Brewery. William Darry is accused of murdering his wife of three months. Six days before her death, her husband clubbed her with an ax handle. he will be hanged on December 1, 1854 crying out loud not to be killed for the murder of his wife. Buffalo's William Fargo partners with Henry Wells and founds what would later be known as Wells, Fargo & Co. The Metropolitan Theatre, later in 1868 changed to the Academy of Music, joins the roster of the city's theatrical stages in 1852 and will stand for 103 years.
The Buffalo and Attica Railroad, Attica to Rochester Railroad, and the New York and Erie Railroad combined to complete a rail system linking Buffalo to New York City. Grand Island: Buckhorn and Beaver Islands were made into the town of Grand Island Buildings erected:
|
| 1853 |
1853 - Online Buffalo City Directories - LINKS (BuffaloResearch.com) The City Charter is changed and the mayor would no longer serve as a member of the the city's Common Council. In addition, the mayor's term in office would run for two years instead of one. Eli Cook is the city's first mayor to be elected by the public under the new Charter. The city limits are expanded from four and one-half square miles in 1832, to forty-two square miles. The expansion includes the annexation of Black Rock.
The number of wards is increased from 5 (in 1832) to 13. Many new streets
are created and named, in custom, for prominent residents of the area.
For example, Laurel Street is surveyed and renamed Barker Street, for
Judge Zenas Barker. Buildings erected: |
|
1854 |
1854 - Online Buffalo City Directories - LINKS (BuffaloResearch.com) The Erie County Savings Bank is established largely by the influence and efforts of William A. Bird (1797 -1878) and he was unanimously chosen its first President by the directors and continued to hold the position so long as he lived. There were those who opposed the organization of the bank, believing that there was no necessity for it, that the field was already amply occupied. The result has shown, that while other savings banks have been prosperous, the one managed by Mr. Bird has outstripped them all in the amount of business transacted as well as in its accumulations, having more deposits than all others combined. Politically Mr. Bird is an Anti-masonic Whig. He is one of the bitterest foes of masonry to be found In Western New York. Mr. Bird’s name will been given to a public street, and a prominent avenue in Buffalo as well as to an Island in the harbor.
The cholera epidemic in Buffalo is the worst to date. One physician writes in his journal: "260 people died here this week. The panic is indescribable." Buildings erected: |
|
1855 |
1855 -
Online Buffalo City Directories - LINKS (BuffaloResearch.com)
The growth of of the city's population in the middle of the nineteenth century is truly spectacular, more than doubling between 1845 (29,773) and 1855 (74,214). Over 60% are foreign born (mostly Catholic): 31,00 are German, 18,000 Irish, both of which live in their own separate enclaves the Germans on the East Side, the Irish in the First Ward (the south side of the city near the terminus of the Erie canal and the city's growing railroad network). The Germans come to Buffalo already skilled and most of Buffalo's skilled workers are German - shoemakers, masons, tailors, musicians, blacksmiths, boilermakers , butchers, upholsterers, painters, tinsmiths, stonecutters, clock makers, bakers, cigar-makers - and many of them are quite well educated. The desire to perpetuate the German language is a critical element in the cultural cohesiveness of the German community. The Irish are unskilled and come to Buffalo having built the Erie Canal. Most of the grain elevator workers are Irish. By mid-century the seven hundred-odd black people living in Buffalo have two churches and a separate, segregated public school for their children. And while many black men worked as common laborers and most black women as domestics, there is a considerable large number of skilled workmen in the city's East Side black community. Indeed, the job descriptions of many of them that are noted in the censuses of the mid-nineteenth century read like a handbook of trades. There are barbers, carpenters, hack drivers, masons, chefs, hotel keepers, and musicians. Two of the barbers - one named D. Paul Brown, the other named James Whitfield - achieve considerable local success as authors. Brown's play about slavery is performed in the Eagle Street Theatre in 1845 (black audiences sat upstairs), and James Whitfield's antislavery poems, with such rhetorical titles as "How long O Gracious God, how long shall power lord it over Right?" are privately published. Blacks were often used as strikebreakers, and virtually every one of the fairly regular work stoppages of Irish dock workers was broken by black strikebreakers. While the rise of large, increasingly national railroad systems that now link Buffalo with new York, Philadelphia, Erie, and Cleveland do irreparable damage to the Erie Canal, they pose no threat to to the city's commercial position as port of transshipment - the largest inland port, in fact, in the US. |
|
1856 |
Pascal Pratt, Buffalo's
leading iron maker, and tannery tycoon Bronson Rumsey
found the Manufacturers & Traders Bank (photo) for the specific
purpose of making credit available to Buffalo's manufacturing community. Rumsey purchases part of the Dr. Ebenezer Johnson estate. By 1865, he will have built Rumsey Park. Frederick P. Stevens Home, Delaware Avenue, corner of Barker Street. Mr. Stevens, mayor of Buffalo, 1856-57. Resided here for many years. Later it was the home of Joseph P. Dudley. Now replaced by a later mansion. "Ship Building at Buffalo," reprinted from the December 28, 1856 Detroit Free Press |
|
1857 |
Frederick
Law Olmsted is appointed Superintendent of
Central Park, New York City. Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Efforts to remove Senecas from their lands culminated in the Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838, by the terms of which the four remaining reservations -- Buffalo Creek, Tonawanda, Cattaraugus, and Allegany -- were sold and provisions were made for the Senecas to remove to Kansas. The corrupt proceedings were protested, however, and a new treaty of Buffalo Creek was signed in 1842. The new agreement stipulated the sale of Buffalo Creek and Tonawanda, but retained Allegany and Cattaraugus. As a result of the Buffalo Creek treaties, some Senecas moved to Kansas Most did not, however, and of those who did, all but two returned. Senecas of Tonawanda, who had not been present at the treaty proceedings in 1842, objected. By a treaty signed in 1857, they bought back most of their reservation with money set aside for their removal from Kansas. The Tonawanda Senecas maintain their government by hereditary chiefs, practice the Longhouse religion, perform traditional calendric rituals, and have medicine societies (a tradition separate from the Longhouse religion) for preventative and curative practices. |
|
1858 |
Millard
Fillmore marries Caroline Carmichael McIntosh
(1831-1881). His first wife, Abigail Powers (1798-1853), had died five
years earlier. In this century, Niagara Square has served as the city's governmental center. But l00 years ago, it was the premier residential address for prominent Buffalonians. The wealthy vied to build their mansions in the heart of the city, not in today's remote suburbs. One of the mansions on Niagara Square was built for James Hollister, about 1850. In 1858(?), Millard Fillmore buys the house, deciding that his home at 180 Franklin is not grand enough for an ex-President. John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Commodore Perry are among the famous Fillmore guests. Fillmore will live here until his death in 1874. 1858-end of century Cicero Hamlin establishes one of the nation's premier trotting tracks in what is now known as Hamlin Park historic district. At one of them, billed and widely promoted by Hamlin as the "Kentucky Derby of the North," 40,000 people descend on the park. Olmsted's final plan for the City's park system paid homage to Hamlin's Park. For it was here, at the northeastern end of the Driving Park, near Agassiz Circle, that Humboldt Parkway arched elegantly on its gentle flow southward and eastward from Forest Lawn to The Parade. Buildings erected: |
|
1859 |
Myron
P. Bush House, northwest corner Delaware Avenue and Summer Street,
is erected 1859-60. Torn down, 1903, for construction of the F. H. Goodyear mansion. Grover Cleveland admitted to the bar. Buildings erected:
|
|
1860 |
Less than 5% of the work force works in manufacturing (as compared to 10% in Rochester and Syracuse). Industries that do exist produce strictly for the local market The Erie Canal is becoming obsolete because of railroad competition. Too slow, too expensive, and frozen-over during the winter months Clarendon Hotel fire, Main and S. Division Streets, took place November 9, 1860. A serious disaster, with great financial loss and several lives sacrificed. Buffalo's population: 42,261; Erie County's: 141,971.
See Dug's Dive for article about a probable underground railroad depot. |
|
1861 |
Civil
War 1861-1865: President-elect Abraham Lincoln visits Buffalo on Feb. 16 as part of his trip to Washington DC to accept the presidency of the United States. Lincoln stayed at the American Hotel on Main Street between Eagle and Court. Importance of the Civil War for Buffalo: The WASP elite benefited from the Civil War. Not only were they able to avoid service in the military (some of the W ASP elite did, however, choose to serve as officers in local militia companies), but they profited enormously as a result. Buffalo grew and prospered greatly during the war. The population continued its rapid increase - from 81,029 in 1860 to 94,210 five years later - and its lake-oriented economy boomed, as other commercial arteries and outlets like the Mississippi River and New Orleans were closed to raw materials from the Midwest. By the end of the war, Buffalo's position as the leading inland port in the United States was more firmly fixed than ever. - Source: Mark Goldman, "High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York." Pub. by State U. of New York Press, Albany, 1983, |
| 1862 |
William G. Fargo is elected
mayor (a three-year term). Fargo was the poor boy, working when he was
13 years old, who started from scratch and made it big. He had come to
Buffalo in 1843 at age 25. In 1852 he and Henry Wells,
organized Wells, Fargo & Co., an express line linking New York and
San Francisco that had overland stagecoaches into the West before the
railroads were built and ran the Pony Express before there was a
communication system. Fargo was vice president. He also was a founder
of the American Express Co. Civil War: The first iron
boat, the Monitor, an innovative and very important
landmark in both naval history as well as the War Between the States,
the savior of Hampton Roads in March 1862, was assembled from parts
built across the north in order to save time. In Buffalo, the
Niagara Steam Forge Works manufactured the turret's port stoppers,
the flaps on the turret which opened when the cannon was to
be fired.
100th New York
Volunteer Infantry: Organized at Fort Porter, Buffalo, New York,
January 7, 1862, Colonel James M. Brown in command, departs for active
service March 7, 1862, numbering 960 men, rank and file, participates
in the Peninsular Campaign with heavy losses, among them Colonel Brown
killed at Fair Oaks, Virginia May 31, 1862, regiment adopted July 29,
1862 by Buffalo Board of Trade who recruited and sent to regiment 956
men, Colonel George B. Dandy U.S. Army takes command in August 1862 at
the fall of Petersburg, April 2, 1865, Major James H. Dandy in command
is killed while planting the colors on Fort Gregg, the regiment was
mustered out of service at Richmond, Virginia, August 28, 1865.
--Source: Chris Andrle, 100th New York
Volunteer Infantry The Buffalo Historical Society is founded. Millard Fillmore serves as its first president. The Buffalo Academy of Fine Arts is founded. |
|
1863 |
1863
Buffalo Map: "Bird's Eye View of the City of
Buffalo, NY" - 1863 There are eleven miles of double-track street railways, with sixty elegant horse-drawn cars serving Buffalo and the suburbs. Civil War 1861-1865: Edward Payson Chapin: Buffalo attorney Edward Payson Chapin is killed in battle. On the day he dies, he is appointed brigadier general. Chapin Parkway will be named after him.
Race relations
during the Civil War: The draft and the bounty system (See 1862
above) provoke intense reactions among the city's immigrants,
particularly among the unskilled laborers, who are most vulnerable to
the system. Buildings erected: |
|
1864 |
Buffalo
Starch Factory is representative of manufacturing firms that
experiences growth and prosperity in mid-19th-century Buffalo.
Established in 1864, it ranks third in the world production by 1877 and
has a widespread reputation for quality. Pure water is a requisite for
production of starch and the Buffalo Starch Factory is located on the
banks of the Niagara River, and thereby accessible to the Erie Canal. Civil War 1861-1865: Black Rock born Brigadier General Daniel Davidson Bidwell is mortally wounded in action October 19, 1864, at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia. He is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery, where there is also a memorial shaft dedicated to him. Bidwell Parkway and the equestrian statue in Colonial Circle are also dedicated to his memory.
|
| 1865 |
President Lincoln's funeral train stops in Buffalo on April 27 en route to Springfield, Illinois, for burial.
Buffalo's population: 94,210; Erie County's: 155,773.
|
See also:
