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Adam Haverling
and Zenas L. Parker
Incidents in the Lives of Two Men
Who Lived Long Ago in Bath, New York
by
Mrs. Marie B. Cornell
Adam Haverling removed from Pennsylvania to Bath in 1809 and lived there
until his death in 1890. He once drove a two-horse carriage on a journey
to New Jersey where he observed the fine schools in that area. Upon his
return home he sponsored such a school. He gave the land for the site
of the new buildings. It became known as Haverling Academy. Today it is
the Haverling Central School.
Zenas L. Parker was another early comer to Bath. He was called "Professor
Parker." In my time, when I was a pupil in the 9th and 10th grades,
1909-1911, at the Campbell Union School both pupils and parents called
the
principal "Professor" or "Prof." It did not mean that he had received
a degree although he might have.
Many years prior to my time Professor Parker was head of an elementary
school in the early village of Corning. The school building was small.
It stood on trhe south side of what is now First Street, up some distance
on the side of the hill where Court House Park is today. The village had
not yet been united with the village of Knoxville which stood opposite
on the north side of the Chemung River. (On March 20, 1890, Governor David
B. Hill, an Elmiran, signed into law a bill creating the city of Corning
including the incorporated village of Corning and the unincorporated village
of Knoxville with a total population of 8583.)
By 1893 Professor Parker had served a period of time as principal of
Haverling Academy in Bath. He was known locally as a writer of poetry.
In June, 1893, he comtributed to the centennial celebration a twenty-page
poem, not divided into stanzas, a rhyming account of men of Bath and their
accomplishments from April 1793, to June, 1893.
A copy of this poem may be found on pages 75 - 95 in The Bath Centennial,
1893, Nora Hull, Editor.
(Mrs. Cornell wrote the introduction to the 1975 republication of Guy
H. McMaster's History of the Settlement of Steuben County, N.Y. She
also
planned the front and back of the title page of that . She is remembered
fondly in many of the articles written by her grandson, Thomas Cornell.
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