October 1991

About this Issue

Note from the Editors

Robert Koch's article about early publications in Rochester begins this issue. Dr. Koch was professor and chair of Language and Literature at R.I.T. from 1950 to 1970, and Dean of Liberal and Applied Studies at the Univ. of Rochester from 1970 to 1982. Professor Koch is a regular contributor who lives in Pittsford, New York.

Bill Kauffman contributes New York vs. New York, which he and the Rockford Institute have generously allowed us to reprint from the January issue of Chronicles. Excerpts from this article appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Bill Kauffman has written articles for a number of national magazines, and is author of a novel, Every Man A King, that was published in 1989 by Soho Press/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He is one of four authors of a new book to be out soon, Homemade: Home Production in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.

Bill Treichler presents a tribute to Alfred G. Hilbert who died in Elmira on September 2, 1991. Mr. Hilbert was for many years a student and lecturer of the history of Chemung County, and of the Southern Tier area. Several of his lectures have been reprinted here and more will follow. Next month we will feature his tribute to food-plant gifts we have to thank the Indians for.

The reminiscences of John McMath are continued in this issue. Mr. McMath succeeded his father in the grape buying and vineyard supplies selling business around Penn Yan.

Read of a hair-raising and ear-splitting dynamiting experience Ed Harris had with his first boss Fred Hines breaking up a mammoth boulder on a hill near Mendon years ago. This story is from Ed's book Harpending's Corners.

The final installment of Rufus Rockwell Wilson's article about Robert Ingersoll from the Elmira Telegram of March 1890. Professor Herbert Wisbey, Jr. contributes a biographical sketch of Rufus Rockwell Wilson, who wrote the Ingersoll piece. Dr. Wisbey's fields of special interest are American religious and social history, especially Utopian communities such as the Shakers. He is author of The Sodus Shaker Community published in 1982.

Chapter 47, The English Sportsman, from Caroline Kirkland's A New Home concludes this issue. On their long excursion of the neighboring Michigan countryside Mr. and Mrs. Clavers with their family come across an Englishman bagging birds until he has lost his way and is getting badly sunburned. His charming, good conversation sets Mrs. Clavers yearning for intellectual talk.

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