Spring 2000

About the Spring 2000 Issue

Note from the Editors

Beginning in this issue is A Biography of John Magee by Gary M. Emerson. Magee's exploits in the War of 1812, his early, rapid political rise, and the fortune he acquired along with many adulating tales made him an area folk hero. Gary Emerson scrupulously documents the admirable and less commendatory aspects of Magee's career. Gary lives in Odessa, New York.

Richard Palmer's third installment to his Remembering the Genesee Valley Canal series is in this issue. It contains a detailed account by a German observer who carefully recorded the lengths of the segments of the canal, and the overall rise and fall of the waterway, even the capacities of the reservoirs. Richard Palmer lives in Tully, New York.

Daniel J. Mordell, who lives in Binghamton, supplied a map of the Genesee Valley Canal for the article.

Read David Minor's latest addition to his Life of a Salesman and imagine how Charles Williamson would have thrived today, well, he wouldn't be allowed to freewheel now as he did then: building his own roads, facing down foreign obstructionists, and buying slaves. But his vision, enthusiasm, energy and support of the energetic would succeed spectacularly.

David Minor's synopses of the events of the years 1803 and 1804 from his New York Timeline is also in this issue. He lives in Pittsford and provides research services for authors and scholars.

Pages extolling the Genesee Country were provided by John and Phyllis Martin who live in Corning from a supplement to the 1799 Universal Geography. Williamson, likely, had much to do with writing and disseminating these promotions.

Blue Highways, another chapter in Thomas Cornell's series retracing Sullivan's route through Pennsylvania is in this issue. Secondary highways are usually marked with blue lines on maps. Tom found that following Sullivan often took him along blue-lined roadways.

This issue contains the account of the return voyage of the Nancy including a copy of a page from the ship's log, found as a scrapbook and restored by author Robert Anderson.

The last of Abigail Hackett's diary is in this issue with entries for the months of March, May and June, 1867. George Dickey, who edited the diary, says that final pages appear to have been torn from the original diary.

Donovan Shilling's descriptions of the visits by members of the New Society of the Genesee, March 23, 2000, to Sainte Marie Among the Iroquois, a living-history museum in Liverpool, and to the Erie Canal Museum Weighlock Building in downtown Syracuse concludes this issue.

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