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1901
A Hammondsport Odyssey
by
July
"Shocking Suffering"
The temperatures were at their highest points in history, provoking "shocking
suffering in the tenement districts." Street-level thermometers in New
York City were reading over a hundred. There was no air conditioning,
and many housing blocks still didn't have electricity, even assuming that
the largely-immigrant urban poor could have afforded fans. Inside their
close-packed homes, temperatures were even higher.
In eight days, 808 people died from the heat in that city. Hospital ice
plants struggled to keep up, and 150 policemen went down. "Grippe" spread
wildly through the horse population, shattering the city's transportation
net and piling the streets with corpses and effluvium. A man died from
heat in Schenectady and another in Jamestown. Attendance plummeted at
the Pan-Am Exposition in Buffalo. In Hammondsport, Jacob Frey collapsed
while working on his lawn. D. H. Talmadge, pressed by the heat, went so
far as to try out a new concept previously untested in Hammondsport: the
horse hat. The Herald surveyed Talmadge's blind dray horse and
reported that the hat, "while not handsome, perhaps, is apparently immensely
comfortable." Glenn Curtiss wasn't the only forward-looking innovator
in town.
Mosquitoes were very common around Hammondsport, following a year of
wet weather and high water. The Bath Soldiers' Home was coping with flooding.
Ithaca, on the other hand, was coping with a plague of frogs. These were
so thick and so numerous that they were invading houses, wrecking gardens,
and impeding the street railway. "It is thought that the frogs came down
during the heavy rains of Saturday," the Herald reported on July
10. But the paper allowed that they could have come up from the swamps,
or that the many pools formed in the very wet season might have permitted
tadpoles to breed.
Henry Eckel profited from odd behavior in the animal kingdom, when he
excited the community by capturing a swarm of bees atop a maple in Hammondsport's
Pulteney Park: these turned out to be a very expensive Italian strain.
But glaziers were still sold out after hail storms in late June, some
of which dropped stones over 8" in diameter. The American Wine Press recommended
breaking up approaching hail storms by firing cannon.
Our new possession of the Philippines passed from military government
under General Arthur MacArthur to civil government under William Howard
Taft on the Fourth of July—a transition that General MacArthur managed
largely to ignore. Anti-imperalist William Jennings Bryan revealed that
he had declined a $100,000 campaign contribution from Filipino independence
leader Emilio Aguinaldo during the previous year's Presidential election.
But if things were looking up for people in the Philippines, they were
looking down for people in the "Indian Territory," that huge reservation
that now comprises most of the state of Oklahoma. President McKinley opened
the remainder of the territory to white settlement by proclamation.
Lackawanna Railroad workers went out on strike, while the Erie switched
from soft coal to hard coal on its passenger lines. The Kanona and Prattsburgh's
Engine #1 arrived at the B&H yard on Hammondsport waterfront for general
repairs. New timetables went into effect July 1; New York City mail, including
the morning papers, pulled into Hammondsport Depot at 12:30. A group of
225 retail grocers from New York City stopped over on their way to the
Pan-Am riding a Lackawanna special, they arrived in Hammondsport the afternoon
of Sunday, July 3, then took the Mary Bell to Grove Spring and
visited the Urbana Wine Company. Mary Bell carried 1400 people
on the Fourth of July.
Hammondsport business was lively in July. Floyd Jenkins bought the tools
and business of retiring barber Albert Beekman. George Cramer of Hornellsville
bought the village blacksmith business from F. O. Arland. Lyon the Jeweler,
deciding to concentrate on his main line, knocked down his stock of clocks,
watches, bicycles, silverware, glass, and stationery for $7000 at auction.
Goodrich Dry Good had a sale of ladies' shoes at 98 cents a pair, while
Lown's in Penn Yan had a three-day sale of muslin underwear. Cohn's in
Bath suggested beating the heat by taking off your woolens and arraying
yourself in summer clothes—flannel suits at $5, linen suits at $3,
straw hats for $1. If you wanted to make a bit of an impression, one dollar
would also fetch you a "Swell White Duck Vest."
July 1 timetables showed five three-hour trips daily from Hammondsport
to Penn Yan by steamer. The B&H made six 30-minute runs from Hammondsport
to Bath, although either trip could be extended by flag- or whistle-stops.
The stagecoach from Pulteney arrived in Hammondsport at 11 am daily, beginning
its return trip at half-past noon. The stage would still be running as
late as World War I.
A Close-Up Look at Glenn Curtiss's First Motorcycle
Curtiss left no particular record of his trip to the Pan-Am in the week
of June 23. He accompanied Frank Smith and Arthur Stanton, presumably
in taking advantage of excursion rates on either the Erie or the DL&W.
Surely they made at least one overnight, perhaps staying at a boarding
house or hotel, or taking a room in one of the many private homes that
were cashing in on the spectacular attraction. Perhaps they stayed with
Glenn's old cycling buddy Tank Waters, who was practicing nursing in Buffalo,
or with some other friend or relative. The Herald sardonically
reported that many Buffalo residents were receiving the attention of acquaintances
from whom they hadn't heard in years.
We don't know whether the three friends crossed paths with Geronimo,
who visited in the same week, or what they may have thought of the Scottish
Games. We can only wonder whether they took in one of the many concerts
during Saengerfest Days, or whom they might have known among the quarter-million
visitors jamming the fair each week. We don't know if any of them were
Oddfellows (Curtiss wasn't), and so might have joined their lodge brothers
in a special day on June 26. But we can be morally certain that Glenn
Curtiss visited the Machinery and Transportation Building. His own mechanical
bent would have driven him there, but it was also the showcase for the
latest innovations in his various businesses.
William Ayres and Son of Philadelphia presented horse blankets, as did
L. C. Chase and Company of Boston. William Hengerer and G. N. Pierce,
both of Buffalo, each showed off their latest in bicycles, as did National
Cycle of Bay City, Michigan—one of Glenn's suppliers. Buffalo Metal
Goods offered bicycle fittings. Emery Tire, Pennsylvania Rubber, Revere
Rubber, Fisk Rubber, and Goodyear all had tires, while the brashly-named
Twentieth-Century Company provided vehicle lamps.
This showcase of products probably made part of the visit a business
trip, but the restless Mr. Curtiss surely looked over the seven makers
of horse-drawn vehicles, the four boat builders, and the fifteen companies
selling automobiles. And 69th on an alphabetical list of 78 exhibitors,
at location A-21, hard by the Pierce bicycles, he would have found "Thomas
Motor Company, Buffalo, N. Y. Motor cycles, etc."
The Motor cycle was a Thomas Auto-Bi. Thomas had a 175-pound model with
1.5 hp engine retailing for $200, and a 110-pound 2.25 hp racer at $250.
Introduced the previous year, Edwin R. Thomas's brainchild, backed by
strong capitalization that allowed swift manufacture and delivery, was
running away with the business it had essentially originated.
Almost immediately after Curtiss got home from the Pan-Am, he sent to
Thomas for a mail-order engine. What he got for his money disgusted him.
The engine was rough-cast, needing milling to finish it. There was no
carburetor. There were no instructions. But he grimly set about making
things good. Lena's uncle Frank Neff ran the wire-hood factory down at
the waterfront, and Glenn delivered the single-cylinder motor to him for
finish milling. The carburetor he created from a tomato can, and as for
instructions, he just got along without them.
When he finished hooking up the engine to a bicycle frame, he had an
audience. Even if he hadn't, a crowd would have been magnetized by the
shocking, unprecedented racket of the tiny engine. There's a persistent
local story that Glenn Curtiss ran his first motorcycle down the street
and into the lake, having forgotten brakes. Other tales say that he ran
into a tree instead of the lake, or had to pedal back from outside town
because he ran out of gas. All three stories are untrue—even as
a boy, Curtiss was famed for meticulous planning. At any rate, Curtiss
clearly considered his first motorcycle as a simple experiment, to see
whether he could actually do it. Now ready to get serious, he wrote again
to Thomas ordering the biggest engine they had.
Curtiss was then 23 years old. He had a 20-year-old wife, a sickly son,
and an ailing grandmother who was losing her sight. He carried on his
bicycle business, including branch stores in Bath and Corning, and even
launched into manufacturing with a firm in Addison. He certainly kept
up the harness business, which got the lion's share of his advertising
money in the Herald. He collected 60-cent fees for bicycle sidepath
tags. He sold sewing machines, seemingly ran an apple press, and presumably
continued, or at least rented out, Grandma Curtiss's 7-crew vineyard operation.
Since Zimmer's lines were spreading rapidly through town, it's likely
that any demand for his acetylene light was dwindling rapidly.
After proving to himself that he could actually make a working motorcycle,
Curtiss ordered the biggest engine castings Thomas had (56 pounds, 3 hp,
designed for three- and four-wheelers) and created a more practical machine.
Once again he had to go through the process of milling at the wire-hood
factory. And he soon had a powerful, if still rather crude, vehicle, capable
of handling the hills around Keuka Lake. By this time he decided that
he could do better than the Thomas company when it came to power plants.
He sketched out what he wanted, and took the designs to the Kirkham foundry
in Taggert's, half-way between Hammondsport and Bath. In Mr. Kirkham's
little operation, some time late in 1901, the first Curtiss engine (soon
trademarked "Hercules") came to be. In January 1902, Glenn Curtiss was
in the motorcycle business.
August
End of a Long Hot Summer
July was the hottest month on record up to 1901, and August burned in
almost as bad. Even funerals were being scheduled for the early morning
or the evening, when "heat is much less trying." Retail store owners in
Rochester gave their clerks a half-holiday on Saturdays while the heat
lasted. The Hammondsport Herald suggested that this practice
be adopted by other businesses, including printing plants.
Influenza was spreading among horses, and rattlesnakes over four feet
long were being killed in Addison. The New York State apple crop was estimated
as being only about ¼ of the normal harvest, while growers near Naples
figured that they wouldn't even get enough plums, cherries, pears, or
peaches for home use. The long hot summer took its toll on human relations,
as well. Three Negroes, including two women, were lynched for murder in
Carrolton, Mississippi. A Negro man was lynched in Smithville, Tennessee.
A Negro man was burned for assault near Savannah, Georgia. And 6000 people
watched the lynching of a Negro man, accused of murder, near Chattanooga,
Tennessee.
The thoughts of children were probably fixed on another topic altogether;
as August progressed, school drew nearer. F. D. Stellar of Hammondsport
took over the school supplies line from Lyon the Jeweler. The trustees
at Pleasant Valley School appointed Leslie C. Baker of Branchport and
Jennie Relyea of Hammondsport as teachers, while steel ceilings were placed
at Hammondsport High School. One of the features that set HHS apart from
other schools was the teacher training class, a one-year post-graduate
program that prepared its students for teaching positions. Miss Mary Franklin,
an experienced Normal School graduate, had charge of the class.
Entering students had to be at least 17 years of age, and any one of
four different credentials would be accepted for admission in those days
when there was very little standardization among schools. Candidates were
expected to be well versed in arithmetic, composition, geography, orthography,
penmanship, physiology, hygiene, American history, and civil government.
The school would furnish most of their books, conducting the class in
"one of the finest rooms in the new building…well equipped with
apparatus and pedagogical books." The training class's connection with
the main school also gave students an excellent opportunity for observation
and practice teaching in the grades. "Graduates from our training class,"
the paper assured readers, "find no difficulty in securing good positions
and thus far have made a good record as teachers."
Even back in those days, summer meant traveling. The Corning baseball
team traveled to Canisteo, where they beat the local team 19-15 before
a crowd of 1200 spectators, meantime raising $207.15 for the Canisteo
library. Bath & Hammondsport Railroad Pan-Am specials left from the lakeside
depot Monday and Wednesday mornings at 5:30. Travelers caught the Delaware,
Lackawanna & Western at the DL&W depot in Bath, where they got a four-day
round-trip ticket to Buffalo for $2.95. Glenn Curtiss and Art Stanton
had already been to the Pan-American Exposition. They spent Sunday, August
11, along with Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Curtiss, and baby Carlton Curtiss, visiting
friends in Rock Stream. There were 1502 inmates at the Soldiers' and Sailors'
Home in Bath. Perhaps some of them planned a trip to Cleveland in September
for the national encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic.
As August ended, coal was selling for $5.50 a ton at the Hammondsport
yard, and half a dollar less in Bath. The Herald glumly reported
that there was no telling when price increases would stop for "this indispensable
article." Apparently things were cooling off at last.
September
A Pretty Fair Month
Hammondsport School was closed. On the streets and in the Square, scarcely
a sound was heard. Shops stood idle, almost empty, and in some cases were
even closed. In vain did the retailers peer wistfully through their plate-glass
windows, hoping for a glimpse of potential customers. Hammondsport was
empty. Everyone had gone to the Bath Fair.
The fair was at the end of September in those days, and was so popular
that school was indeed called off for Thursday and Friday of fair week,
when the B&H groaned from carrying all those eager Hammondsporters down
the line. Not only did the fair provide entertainment in a world with
no TV, no radio, only a few hand-cranked gramophones, and only occasional
movies; it was also an important educational showcase for agricultural
products and techniques. Steuben County, like many rural counties, was
still primarily agricultural in those days. The State Fair in Syracuse
ran from the 9th through the 14th; admission cost a quarter. September
11 was Carrie Nation Day at the Yates County Fair in Penn Yan.
There was another fair still going on in Buffalo at the time, of course—The
Pan-American Exposition, or, as we would now call it, the world's fair.
Mr. and Mrs. C. G. Wheeler visited the Pan-Am from Catawba, as did Rua
Gay and Elmer J. Orr of Rheims, not to mention Victor and Julia Masson
of Hammondsport and a whole excursion from Steuben County Grange. The
fair's publicity director, former Hammondsporter Marc Bennitt, suavely
recommended that visitors plan to stay at least two weeks, "to enjoy more
fully this rare opportunity for pleasure and study…. No one who
can possibly raise the money to visit the Exposition should for a moment
think of denying himself this signal advantage."
Admission was 50 cents, including all the grounds, the exhibit buildings,
and the Stadium, where visitors could see athletic events, livestock shows,
and vehicle parades. Midway concessions ranged from a dime to half a dollar.
Fifty cents would get you comfortable lodgings, while accommodations closer
to the Pan-Am ran as high as a dollar a night. Marc estimated daily expenses
in Buffalo at no more than $2.50 "for those who want the best." One visitor
apparently decided to defray his costs by stealing the Mexican Liberty
Bell.
Harvest was on the minds of many people. Delaware grapes were selling
at $50 a ton, while potatoes got 65 to 75 cents a bushel, and peaches
$1.50 a basket. Apple buyers paid $3.12½ to pick their own. Amos Roberts
of Addison stated that "he never knew how uncertain things were until
he invested in a vineyard."
The baseball season was winding up, although "rowdies" from Penn Yan
made an unfortunate presence in a game at Kinglsey Flats. Out on the lake,
a tramp named Peter Gunning assaulted William Maxfield, an African-American
fireman aboard steamer Halsey. When Gunning pulled a pistol,
"Max" knocked him down with the flat of an axe. Gunning was subdued, trussed
up, bustled off the boat in Penn Yan, and sent to Monroe County prison
for four months. There was also considerable excitement at Sub Rosa landing,
where a wharf collapsed and dunked 20 people waiting for a steamer, apparently
without serious harm. More sedate excitement prevailed at Keuka College,
which had just met its goal of raising $25,000, thereby qualifying for
a $50,000 challenge grant from the Ball brothers, canning-jar magnates
of Muncie, Indiana.
The plate glass for the new Opera House arrived damaged, which threatened
to hold up the opening of the facility, but J. S. Hubbs's new residence
was proceeding on schedule. The Bath Fish Hatchery shipped 40,000 trout
to Seneca Lake, while the Soldiers' Home started its switch from female
nurses to male nurses. Mrs. James Shannon of Mount Washington, whose husband
had been killed by lightning in June, received her full $2000 from his
life insurance policy with the Knights of the Maccabees Royal Tent #72
in Bath. Scientific American informed its readers that if you
wore rubbers in a thunderstorm, and refrained from touching anything,
you have nothing to fear. Do you think that would have helped Mr. Shannon?
A Close-Up Look at The Death of the President
William McKinley was a gentle man and a gentleman, diligent rather than
brilliant, soft-spoken, well-liked. He had entered the Civil War as a
private at 18 and left it as a major at 22, after fighting gallantly at
Antietam, Winchester, Kernstown, and a host of other actions under Rutherford
B. Hayes. As a captain in one battle he had directly ordered a recalcitrant
general to put his division into motion, and the general had obeyed.
After climbing the ranks of Republican politics, McKinley was elected
President in 1896, defeating William Jennings Bryan, whose reform proposals,
plus support for organized labor and small farmers, terrified the big-money
men by then controlling The Party of Lincoln. McKinley conducted a "front-porch"
campaign; while Bryan stumped the nation, the Republican candidate treated
friendly delegations to set speeches at his home.
In 1898 America fought its "splendid little war" with Spain, taking
over Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, some smaller islands, and (temporarily)
Cuba, besides picking up Hawaii on the side. Northern and Southern soldiers
fought together, winning an empire in three months by spectacular victories
and almost no loss of life. Orators enthused that the wounds of the Civil
War had been healed, and McKinley beat Bryan in their 1900 rematch.
The national healing was, of course, a partial reconciliation of whites,
made possible only at the expense of black Americans, including those
who had fought alongside Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill. Bryan, by the
way, had raised his own regiment of volunteers, which was assigned to
guard Tampa for the duration of the war. McKinley may have been a gentleman,
but he was no fool. Bryan would get no chance to do anything remotely
heroic.
McKinley's second inauguration was the last for a Civil War President.
Roosevelt, his energetic young VP who had been given the second spot to
keep him "on the shelf," had been a small boy when he watched Lincoln's
funeral procession.
McKinley loved world's fairs, and eagerly visited the 1901 Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo. On September 5 he made a speech to 50,000 visitors,
proclaiming that America's era of isolation was over. On the next day
he visited Niagara Falls, attended a luncheon along with his semi-invalid
wife, then returned to the fair over the objections of his secretary,
George Cortelyou, who worried about his safety. "No one would want to
hurt me," scoffed McKinley, who was determined to shake hands with visitors.
Cortelyou stationed police who overlooked a bland young man with his right
hand wrapped in a bandage. As the ever-courteous McKinley stretched out
his left hand, Leon Czolgosz shot him twice with a revolver concealed
in the bandages. Stumbling back, the President whispered to Cortelyou,
"My wife—be careful how you tell her." His next words, as police
and spectators piled on the assailant, were, "Don't let them hurt him."
One of the bullets had gone deep, and doctors, ignoring an x-ray machine
displayed at the fair, couldn't find it. But they had high hopes, so Roosevelt
and the cabinet, who had raced to McKinley's side, dispersed several days
later. On September 13, doctors recognized gangrene. Word was flashed
to Roosevelt, vacationing in the Adirondacks (blackflies and all) 12 miles
from a telephone. When the driver rushing TR to the train balked at hurrying
horses along a narrow mountain road in the dark, Teddy took the reins
himself and galloped on. But McKinley died, faintly singing "Nearer, My
God to Thee," before Roosevelt arrived to be sworn in as the youngest
President America has ever had. Judge Hazel, who administered the oath,
would later rule against both Henry Ford and Glenn Curtiss in acrimonious
patent disputes.
One of Roosevelt's first acts was to declare Thursday, Sept. 19, a day
of mourning. Schools and businesses closed, although Hammondsport Post
Office stayed open to 11:00 because the morning mail arrived so late.
The Presbyterian Church held a memorial service Sunday night, but St.
James Episcopal waited until Thursday, with McKinley's brother Masons
attending in a body. Hammondsport's G. A. R. Post passed a resolution
honoring its fallen comrade. The loss was traumatic to Americans who had
already endured the assassinations of Lincoln (1865) and Garfield (1881).
The equivalent for us would be having had Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan,
and George W. Bush killed. Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham, endured
the agony of being on hand for all three assassinations.
Czolgosz, an anarchist, had shot McKinley simply because he headed the
government. Emma Goldman and other outspoken anarchists were clapped into
jail, then truculently released when it became clear that Czolgosz had
acted alone. The law moved swiftly back then. Czolgosz's trial opened
September 24. He was electrocuted within the month, and quickly forgotten.
Attention turned to the vibrant, not to say hyperactive, new President,
who quickly scandalized the nation by inviting Booker T. Washington to
lunch at the Executive Mansion. A United States Senator screeched that
the South would have to lynch a thousand Negroes to force them back into
their place. McKinley's friend and campaign manager, Mark Hanna, steamed,
"Now that cowboy is in the White House!" Teddy Roosevelt would set the
standard for 20th-century presidents; his activist example would not be
lost on Teddy's niece, Miss Eleanor Roosevelt, nor on their distant cousin
Franklin, who was in 1901 a student at Harvard.
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