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1994.EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
OF BUFFALO
By MRS. JULIA F. SNOWEARLY RECOLLECTIONS
OF BUFFALO
READ BEFORE THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
MAY 19, I908.1
By MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
Being only a “snapper up of unconsidered trifles,” and
no historian, merely a story-teller, and not much of that, I
give no dates; only suggestions of period.
One of the first things which I remember was a balloon
ascension from Niagara Square. The family of my father,
James Miller, including my very small self and some
“friends,” saw it from the roof of my father’s house.2 It
stood on the corner of Main and Mohawk streets, now oc-
cupied by Hens & Kelly’s department store. It was
a two-and-one-half story brick house, a good one for the
time. The roof had a low brick wall all around it to pro-
tect its visitors, and as there were no houses between it and
Niagara Square, the view was uninterrupted (please bear
this point in mind) .
The day was fine and warm, and the rest of the party
much interested in what they were to see. I only enjoyed
being up so high, and feeling the wind and sun, and the
1.	Also read before the Twentieth Century Club of Buffalo, March 11,
1908. This explains certain allusions in the text.
2.	For a picture of this house see Buffalo Historical Society Publications,
vol. XVI, p. 308.
129130
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
sense of life and freedom. When the thing really went up,
I thought it was a house blown away, which seems natural
enough, after all. But my real enjoyment of the situation
came afterward, and for several days I stole off, opened the
roof door, and greatly appreciated being “up so high” with
no one to watch me.
At last I was missed; my haunt discovered; a sound
admonition followed, also the padlocking of the roof door.
This was my first great deprivation. Years afterward I
was again on the roof, but it wasn’t interesting. There were
houses, or something in the way.
From those same garret windows (I had the attic for a
play-room) I could look far up Delaware avenue, nearly
to Tupper street, and see the domed roof of Doctor John-
son’s cottage, afterward the dwelling of the Buffalo Semi-
nary, and which is still standing, as it was rebuilt after its
fire. I stood at that garret window and saw it burn, and
watched the domed metal roof fall in with a wonderful
shower of colored fire and sparks. (And, excepting this
one, for many years there were almost no houses on Dela-
ware street below Allen.)
But long before this calamity happened, it was my
greatest privilege to be allowed to walk up there with my
sister Harriet (afterward Mrs. R. G. Snow), who was a
great friend of Frances Lord, one of the Johnson and
Lord family, and while the girls chatted, I was privileged
to roam the beautiful garden, look into the fish pond, and
long for a glimpse of the shy little deer, said to be enclosed
in a forbidden thicket. I have never since seen anything
more charming, and it has been a keen regret of my life
that this delightful little park could not have been kept as
one of the pretty breathing places of the city, especially
as it was of some historic interest, having been the resi-RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
131
dence of the first mayor of the young city, Doctor Ebenezer
Johnson.
4‘What fools these mortals be !”
Early Buffalo was, as all know, laid out on grand
lines by Joseph Ellicott, assisted, it is said, by L’Enfant, the
designer of the city of Washington, D. C. Buffalo men
combined these spacious and splendid plans and the im-
portant location of the city at the junction of Lake Erie,
Niagara River, and Buffalo Creek, lured speculators and
promised them great fortunes from corner lots, and, indeed,
all land investments. They came, they saw, they speculated
on the possibilities, and merrily spent all that they expected
to make, when, like a flash, came the collapse of 1837, and
the financial ruin was assisted and completed by the for-
geries of Benjamin Rathbun. It was a city of dreams and
had a rude awakening. None escaped, some were crushed,
all injured, all suffered.
But most of them were plain people, and after they got
over the shock of finding that they were not millionaires
after all, they went to work, saved the wreckage, and the
town survived.
Then two more things happened, and of national as well
as local importance. A great revival of religion swept over
the country in the early forties (and earlier), like that of
the days of Huss and Luther, of Latimer, and of the Wes-
leys. Men had felt the want of something more and better
than money in the past few years, and knew themselves,
actually as well as technically, sinners in need of divine help.
Finney and Burchard preached, the people prayed, churches,
halls, school houses were filled, and meetings held in private
houses; converts were swept into churches of all denomina-
tions, as if by a rising flood. In time it passed, but the great
revival will be remembered in the history of the churches by132
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
their increased number and renewed spiritual life. And so,
the way cleared for the great temperance movement under
John B. Gough, in the forties, and once more the crowds
gathered to hear the great apostle of temperance. I am not
sure, but I think that it was nearly coeval with the great
Father Mathew temperance crusade in Ireland.1 It went
like wildfire over the country. Even sweet cider was ban-
ished from a mince pie, and to offer a glass of wine was a
crime. New Year’s tables banished the decanters, and the
spirits, if allowed at all, were kept on the medicine shelf.
These three important events transformed Buffalo from
a city of speculators and bankrupts, a town of spendthrifts
and high livers, of merry, thoughtless (but most agreeable)
men and women, to a serious, respectable, and rather slow
and staid community.
Immigration began to increase; work was plenty, even
if wages were low, and the town grew slowly but steadily.
The Erie Canal acted with the lake commerce, and in time
railroads were built and connected all over the country. But
never again (scarcely even now) was the town to feel the
careless joyousness of its early days of speculation, when
all went after the Golden Fleece, and were themselves so
thoroughly fleeced. We were never an ■“unco guid” com-
munity, but we were the better, as a town, for those days of
reformation, and never again went wild as before this date.
And it is of this Buffalo that I have my earliest recollections.
In those early days, as now, there were fierce gales blow-
ing sometimes down Lake Erie, and as the stone storm pier
was not what it is at present, and there was no breakwater
to check the force of the waves, they swept up over the flats
and low-lying land below Exchange street and thereabouts.
i. Theobald Mathew, known as “Father Mathew,” the Irish temperance
reformer, began his temperance crusade in 1838. He made a tour in the United
States, 1849-51. The temperance wcrk of John B. Gough began in 1842.RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
133
I remember one of two or three such gales, but not its date.1
The wind had blown two days and two nights, and the
waters had come up over the “flats” to Michigan street, and
nearly to Seneca. The poor little shanties, which studded
that district, were blown down and swept away. Many
people were drowned and many more were made homeless.
With the third morning the gale subsided, and the rescue
work went on. The drowned people were carried to the
Court House (this was a very pretty colonial building),
standing behind Lafayette Park, on the spot where now the
Public Library stands. There was much excitement about
town. The rescued but homeless ones were brought to the
“market” (a fair-sized brick building standing on Mohawk
street, corner of Pearl, site now occupied by the older build-
ing of the Y. M. C. A.) and were quartered in its basement.
This edifice had also a strong room, called the “Watch
House,” for drunk and disorderly persons under arrest, and
this being opposite the rear of our home, afforded many
interesting points of observation. I was not allowed to see
the drowned people (although some of my little mates
were), but as a compensation I was permitted to carry one
of the baskets of comforts to the rescued party. One
woman, aged nearly one hundred, had been pulled out of the
window of a floating house, and was wailing in a corner
over what she had lost, and there were children of my own
age, and people of all ages. I was very sorry for them, and
it was long before I connected the disappearance of certain
favorite garments—notably my little blue silk hood—
with my mother’s and sister’s benevolence, to my own sincere
regret. There were many great gales, but this was my first
knowledge of the awful power of wind and water.
This building, the old Market, was fairly well built of
i. The reference is probably to the gale and flood of Oot. 18, 1844.134
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
brick, and on its roof was a fire alarm bell, of the most
appalling power of sound and of most dolorous expression.
It was afterward transferred to a bell tower, but has since
disappeared. When the first bang! bang! bang! bang!
started, it felt to me as if each stroke drove an icicle of fear
into my heart. I never got used to it. These were the days
of volunteer firemen, and the reward of seven years of
volunteer service was exemption from jury or military
service. We had an engine house on Genesee street, just in
its rear, and an engine and hose cart, and at the first sound
the volunteers left house and home, bride and bairn, helmet
on head, buckling the fire belt, and rushing for the engines.
The householder tried to find out where the fire was, and
looked to his own leather fire buckets, two of which were
required to be kept in readiness by every householder. As
all the firemen were volunteers, neighbors, friends, and men
of our own families, we lived in fire companies, and we
heard constantly of fires. But, after all, fires were not as
numerous or as destructive as might have been expected in
a small town, mostly of wood and with a limited water
supply. Every one was careful of their own fires. My
mother greatly feared fire, and I never went to bed without
a charge about fire and light, and directions to keep ready
my warm gown and shoes (not slippers), and where to go
if we were burned out, and full instructions what to save,
and to be sure to use the pillow cases to carry away valu-
ables. It wasn’t a bad idea either, to give us the little fire
drill, especially as we never had a fire,
I should have mentioned that the Market building was
afterward used as an arsenal and State armory; for many
years the flag floated from it on legal holidays. I made a
drawing of it, flag and all, of which I was very proud.
The location of my father’s house, on the corner of MainRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
135
and Mohawk streets (now Hens & Kelly’s department
store, as I have said), was most advantageous as a post of
observation for sightseeing. The popularity of the family
was immense, on occasion of Fourth of July celebrations,
firemen’s parades, election parades, and torchlight proces-
sions, and, best of all, the “caravans,” which was what we
called the parades of menageries and circuses; often two or
three elephants and camels and cages and horses and ponies
and spangled riders. We sometimes went to see “this un-
rivalled collection of wild animals,” and once I rode in a
howdah on the elephant’s back, which nearly frightened the
life out of me as I stepped on his warm, soft head, and I
fear unto death the sight of an elephant to this day.
The large lot now occupied by the Garden Theater, and
formerly by the rink, corner Pearl and Niagara, was a
favorite ground for circuses and animal shows. At one
time I lived on Church street with Doctor and Mrs. R. G.
Snow (my sister Harriet), and their house went back nearly
to that lot. We could get glimpses of the performance at
night, when lamps were lighted, and hear music, and often
frightful animal noises. One hot night a sharp thunder and
wind storm came on and the tent blew down, and some of
the cages were upset with a great noise and confusion.
When things were put to rights and the storm over, it was
found that the elephant and camel were missing. It isn’t
easy to really lose an elephant. The two had philandered
off together, and the elephant had pushed down a fence and
they were peacefully eating cabbages together in a poor
man’s garden near where the City Hall now stands, and the
circus men gave him a fifty-dollar bill, which cured his
fright, fences, and cabbages all at once.
I really think that Buffalo has always had a real genius
for processions and parades, even to the year just passed,136
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
when I consider that of the McKinley day and Old Home
week. The possession of that garden and fence, and five
front windows and front door of our house was better than
any reserved box in a theater. It was a liberal education
to see those “passing shows.”
Another privilege of the location was being near the
“park,” as we called the grassy plot, now Lafayette Square,
where stands the Soldiers’ Monument. It was only a fenced
square, but with many fine trees, some of these of forest
growth, and sometimes the grass was cut, not often. On
one occasion it was used as the camping ground for “Com-
pany D, City Guards.” The tents had been going up all day
in neat, white rows, and in regular streets. My parents and
sisters were invited to visit the “camp,” and as the whole
family went, they took the “child” along. It was a fine,
warm, moonlight evening, I remember. The party was met
at the gate by Lieutenant Thomas C. Welch, who, I think,
must have been the officer of the day. Do you realize what
an elegant being is a handsome young officer in full uni-
form? And to have the privilege of speaking to him, of
really being under his charge, and be in no danger of his
sharp sword, nor of the bright bayonet of the sentry! Ah!
What bliss!
The little park had a history of its own. Under those
trees the citizens were addressed by many and most distin-
guished men, and among them were John Quincy Adams,
Martin Van Buren, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster.
Many were the times of reading the Declaration of Inde-
pendence and of Fourth of July orations, and more import-
ant occasions than I can remember, and always the bursts of
martial music, the strains of “Hail! Columbia!” and “The
Star-Spangled Banner,” and the pert little tattoo of “Yankee
Doodle” with the drum and fife.RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
137
Niagara Square was a most important locality, sur-
rounded by its border of fine dwellings, and nestling in
verdure of fine old trees. And now look at it! ! !
What a pity it is that they graded these squares and cut
down the best trees! It will take a century to replace them.
Pity that those who needlessly cut down a fine tree could not
be shut up till another grows to the same size!
And speaking of trees, there was a time when the artistic
and commercial value of trees was so highly appreciated
that there was formed a society calling themselves “The
Tree Planters/’ of which my brother-in-law, Mr. Man-
chester, was a prominent member. They pledged them-
selves to see that 1,000 trees were yearly planted in Buffalo,
and as the society existed twenty years, those 20,000 trees
made Buffalo the city of foliage that it is today; and down
with the caterpillars which destroy them, and the builders
who do not protect them!
There were then many groups of good houses but no
exclusively fashionable streets. Swan, Seneca, South and
North Division, and a few on Eagle and even Church, many
on Washington and Mohawk. And it was about this time
that Delaware avenue was laid out upon its present plan,
and which has made it the most beautiful street I ever saw,
in any part of the world. It was planned with ample drives,
wide sidewalks, and four rows of fine trees with broad
grassy spaces between them. My brother-in-law, Judge
Albert Baker, being an alderman at that time, greatly assisted
in the adoption of the plan for this splendid boulevard, and
as the daughters of these two men—Mr. Manchester and
Judge Baker—are present today,1 I think that their chil-
dren may be glad that the memories of their fathers are
still kept green in this excellent fashion.
1. Twentieth Century Club, March n, 1908.138
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
It has been said often that Buffalo never was a real city;
that there was nothing metropolitan about it; that it was
only a big village. Well, it isn’t a metropolis. We don’t
really need many metropolii, and a great village isn’t the
worst thing it can be. Buffalo began by having. all its
dwellings, both small and great, detached, and in gardens
&nd lawns, and, as the fashion seemed good to us, we kept
on. The few “blocks” were not popular. The Keeler
Block on Swan, and Kissam on Mohawk, the Darrow on
Washington; were expensive, inconvenient, and unlighted.
A Buffalonian must have light and air. Gardens were a
passion, and existed even on the business streets. When I
was a very small child I was taken to see a lovely rose gar-
den surrounding a fine residence, corner of Exchange and
Main streets, opposite Mansion hotel. It was the home of
Mons. Alphonse I e Couteulx. Soon after, the space being
needed for business buildings, the garden was obliterated,
and my father and I were made happy by a load of its
rose bushes, which I loved and tended till our garden shared
the same fate.
There were many gardens on Main street, extending
from the one I have mentioned, far, far uptown. One fine
one wTas on the corner of Main and Eagle, where Miller’s
offices are (or were a year ago). It was owned by Mr. Bela
D. Coe, who removed to York street, then the city limit,
now Porter avenue, southeast corner of Niagara street,
where he lived many years, in that fine old stone mansion.
The premises have long been the home of Mr. Porter
Thompson. McArthur (prince of confectioners and incar-
nation of Santa Claus) purchased the Main and Eagle street
property, and built a pavilion for entertainments in its pretty
garden, which he surrounded with booths and colored lamps.
Many interesting entertainments took place there, for weRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
139
had no large fine hall then. General Tom Thumb held his
receptions there, and I saw him. He was a pleasant little
fellow and no fool either, and if he was a dwarf, he was
the most famous one in the world. The Horticultural So-
ciety held their monthly summer exhibitions there. The
flowers were fine and some of the girls were pretty, and they
were occasions of social value and attraction, and flowers
were sold at auction, for the benefit of the Horticultural
Society for improvement of gardens. Up town was our own,
sweet, old-fashioned garden, where grew every lovely old-
fashioned flower which could take care of itself with our
unskilled attendance. Our fruit, too, deserved mention.
The boys knew it, but they didn’t mention it. I never saw
such cherries except on a lady’s hat, nor such plums: Green
Gage, Reine Claude, red egg plums, and white magnum
bonum plums, just resting on top of a common-sized
tumbler. Somehow, I don’t care much now for cherries or
plums.
Just here I want to say a word for the birds in the old
garden, for we did have singing birds before the sparrow
invasion. My father, loving all living things, was always
putting up boxes and little houses for wrens. For martins,
a little house just under the eaves.
We had swallows—both barn and chimney swallows—
and wrens, and song sparrows, and bluebirds, and bluejays,
and the cedar bird with its pointed feather cap and tip of
red wax on its wing, and orchard orioles, and red-wing
blackbird (one year a Baltimore oriole), and yellow birds,
and woodpeckers, and humming birds, and maybe others.
Robins did not come to Buffalo till about the fifties. I used
to wish I could see a robin, having heard of the English
robin, and when I saw the big awkward, greedy thrush, with
an orange breast and unmelodious chirp I was much disap-140
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
pointed, and have always been. He is an imposter, and
only a homesick Englishman could let him masquerade as
the pretty robin redbreast, which really is a finch. Some-
times owls visited us and hawks, too, but all fled before the
ugly and ubiquitous sparrow.
There was another pretty garden, belonging to really our
nearest neighbors, Judge Thomas C. Love; site now occu-
pied by new Y. M. C. A. building. This was the early home
of Mrs. Walter Cary and her sisters and brother. It was
taken down many, many years ago, and the cellar left vacant.
My father one day met Judge Love and asked him why he
waited so long before building. “The real reason is, Miller,
that my plans are really incompatible with their execution.
I want large rooms and plenty of them, and I am deter-
mined not to have a large house under any circumstances.”
And so the house was not built, but children skated on the
ice in the vacant cellar for years, till the lot was sold. John
S. Noyes built a residence there which he sold afterward
to Philip Becker, the mayor at that time, and it is now
occupied by the new Y. M. C. A.
The little triangle opposite is now improved and planted
and grassed, and Doctor Irving Snow did it, a year or two
ago—and you’d wonder at the amount of red tape which
hindered it, although he paid all expenses out of his own
pocket.
Also, there were orchards up Main street. One on the
corner of Allen and Main (and covering the very ground
where we stand today—Twentieth Century Club), good
apples, too. Some of the trees are hidden away in the
gardens and yards now. It was owned by Mr. William
Smith. I think that some of his sons or heirs still own
portions of this land. Just above Mr. Smith’s garden and
orchard was the regimental barracks and drill ground, andRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
141
Col. Bankhead occupied the house (then fronting toward
Main street), now the home of Mr. Ansley Wilcox, where
President Roosevelt took the oath of office on the death of
President McKinley. It was a great treat to walk up Main
street holding my father’s hand and see the drills, and it is
said that the officers were socially very popular. The
Wilcox house is all now remaining of that military occu-
pation.
There was a good orchard, too, on the corner of Broad-
way (then Batavia street) and Washington, where the
Buffalo Savings Bank and Grosvenor Library used to stand,
opposite Public Library. Good apples, and great fun run-
ning and sliding down hill. It was first owned and occupied
by M. Lester Brace, once our sheriff. Misses Hills’ school
was afterward in this house.1 The grounds above North
street, then the city limit on the north, was occupied largely
by nurseries of fruit trees and shrubs, by Mr. William
Hodge and Mr. John Bryant and his three sons. No, not
any other Bryant. There are four distinct and unrelated
families of the name in Buffalo. The Bryant nurseries
reached nearly to Cold Spring, a long walk for me in those
days. And there were many lovely gardens all over town.
Mr. and Mrs. Ebenezer Day had a fine one on Main street
where Hoddick’s art store stands. Every sweet and scented
thing grew there, and many were the fragrant loads- given
me by the generous owners. I think Mr. David F. Day
learned his love of botany from his mother’s garden. There
was a fine one on Niagara street, too, around the Root
mansion, a colonial house of some pretension, and it is said
that one of the first May parties for which Buffalo was
i. The house referred to was built about 1818 by Jonas Harrison, Collector
of Customs for the District of Niagara, 1813 to about 1819. It was owned and
occupied by Sheldon Thompson, 1830-1851. After that date the Misses Hills
occupied it for their school until 1865, when it was torn down. See Buffalo
Historical Society Publications, vol. XVI, pp. 364-5.142
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
afterward famous, was held there on its portico, draped and
furnished as a throne, and Miss Harriet Day was queen.
But that was long before my time; I am talking of gardens
just now.
In the very earliest days of Buffalo, as soon as possible
after the beginning of its rebuilding, after the invasion of
British and Indians, stood on the corner of Mohawk and
Delaware a plain wood house in a lovely garden, where
things really grew and blossomed. The family were among
those who fled from the burning village with one, the oldest
child. They came back, rebuilt a home, and many children
were born to them. The best-known son was Cyrenius
Bristol, chemist and druggist, maker of the famous extract
of sarsaparilla, well known to our childhood. The young
men and girls of this family were life-long friends of my
family. I saw the sole surviving daughter and member last
week. She is ninety-one years old; the smallest lady living,
much less than five feet in height, and still, now as always
and ever, the very embodiment of sweetness, neatness, and
love, “and of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Miss Elizabeth Bristol must be, I think, the oldest native-
born woman of the city of Buffalo, and of a continuous resi-
dence. Continuous! I should think so! I often take her
to drive, and it occurred to me, one day last September,
before taking her to the Park, to ask her where she would
like to go. “If I could go down the whole of Main street;
I haven’t been down in twenty-five years !”
It chanced to be the day (and a fine one) when decora-
tions were out for the coming Old Home week, and I never
saw any one enjoy anything more, for our dear little friend
is no recluse. Her little parlor (now 175 Fargo avenue) is
almost daily visited by old friends, and they are some of the
best people of Buffalo, too. (I could tell some delightfulRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO. 143
Cranford-y stories, but I won’t. I’ve sworn not to be per-
sonal this morning.) But her window was full of most
flourishing house plants, and it seemed that they grew as
they could grow for no one else.
Speaking of May parties, before I go any further I must
speak of this peculiar institution of an earlier Buffalo. It
began long before I was born, and the first one I saw was
from the altitude of my father’s shoulder. I do not clearly
remember it, but it was in a garden, and a throne of ever-
greens on the grass, and little girls in white and crowns of
flowers on their heads, and was said to be in the grounds of
Judge Bennett on Eagle street, now Bennett Park, I think.
But one that I do remember was given by Miss Porter’s
school. I am going to talk of schools by and by. This is
about the May party. The girls of Miss Porter’s school
elected, as their Queen of May, Miss Mary Wells, daughter
of Henry Wells, of Wells-Fargo Express Company, the man
who built and endowed Wells College at Aurora, Cayuga
county, N. Y., where were sent some Buffalo girls, notably
Frances Folsom, afterward Mrs. Cleveland.
This May party was held in Johnson’s Park, of which I
have spoken before. The throne was reared on the grass
and built of evergreens, under the fine old trees, some of
them still standing. The queen mother, who crowned the
queen, was Miss Cornelia Daly. The scepter was presented
by “Flora,” the cake by the grand chamberlain, I think Mr.
Rumsey, and a great number of flower girls and attendants,
and a procession including all the school girls and a few of
their friends by invitation and as guests, in white and
wreaths, of course, all reciting more or less poetry, or sing-
ing in chorus.
I was not a member of Miss Porter’s school at this time,
but was a guest by invitation. Never have I seen anything144
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
lovelier or sweeter than Queen Mary' and her court. The
day was fine and warm and an exceptionally pleasant one;
our May weather is and was so uncertain that when it
became common to hold these parties in June they went into
disuse. For they could not be the real thing, after all, in
June, could they? Although the practice struggled on spas-
modically for years and was kept up in the public schools
much longer than in other ways.
Afterward, when I was a pupil of Miss Porter’s school,
a friendship grew up between Miss Mary Wells, the lovely
May Queen, and her devoted servant and lover, who speaks
to you today, which lasted most of our lives. The Wells
family went to Aurora, Cayuga county, to live, where Mary
soon married, and lived long and died, as she had lived, a
most sweet lady.
Speaking of schools (now I have got my work cut out!),
Buffalo has had her own troubles with schools in the past.
I hope they are over. The public schools in early days were
small and poor in teaching and attendance. There were a
good many small schools of from a dozen to twenty or thirty
pupils, taught by ladies more or less well calculated for their
work. Some pretty good, some rather funny. Boys and
girls went together, a sort of infant school (not kinder-
garten, by any means), for. the children were not encour-
aged to play much, and they really learned some things. I
don’t remember the names of many of these teachers. One
was Miss Dana, near St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Miss Cotton,
Mrs. Dean, and Miss Brush, and I forget the rest, all but
the one where I went. It was so different from any one
else I must tell you of it presently.
At this period of Buffalo’s history a strong Franco-
American flavor prevailed; and at dates corresponding to
the many European revolutions and attempts at such, cameRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
145
multitudes of accomplished exiles, French, Polish, Russian,
and a few Germans. Some succeeded in bringing money to
invest, as in the case of Mons. Louis Etienne Le Couteulx
de Caumont and his two sons, William and Alphonse, and
their wives. Others escaped only with life and accomplish-
ments, others with life, capable hands, and no accomplish-
ments. As there was a taste for languages in some of my
family, we came to know some of them. Leopold and
Eugene Dovillier taught French and drawing, and, I think,
music as well, and superbly, too. A fascinating Pole, one
Wingerski, taught dancing. Zuboff, a Russian, music; and
there were others. There was Victor Tiphaine, wines, etc.,
etc., and the Damainvilles, Miss .Marie Damainville, mu-
sician, and o*ur well-beloved teacher, Mons. Malhoubie,—
whom you must remember. Some went into business—
wines, millinery, or music. Some married and settled here.
Some went home when it was safe to do so, and we
knew them no more. It was always easy to get a fine
teacher of any and all accomplishments. What we really
needed was a good, sensible, English school, with a good,
sensible American teacher, and not so much nonsense
about it.
For a few years there was a school for young ladies
taught by Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Williams, in the old Daly
house on Pearl street, a fine residence in the rear of
Sweeney’s department store. The school was a rather pre-
tentious, dressy affair, and made much of its French teach-
ing, I remember hearing said. But it died, I don’t know
how, and a new school was opened in its rooms, taught by
Miss Sarah Porter, sister of Noah Porter, LL. D., and
president of Yale College. It was largely under the patron-
age of the First Presbyterian Church, although not at all
sectarian. Later it was moved to Eagle street, in a house146
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
afterward Bloomer’s restaurant, and still later occupied by
Gething & Co., tailors. Miss Porter was assisted by her
sister, Miss Elizabeth Porter, and by Miss Mary Norton,
afterward Mrs. Mary Thompson, and well known to most
of us; also her sister, Miss Elizabeth Norton. This was
the staff. There were two departments and four teachers,
and forty or more young girls from ten to eighteen. Miss
Porter was a very good teacher and had the best possible
influence on her girls in every way. Miss Norton taught
mathematics, and being younger than some of her pupils,
whom she had known all her life, I am afraid she had a hard
time. In later years I knew her well, and loved her much
all the rest of her life. Miss Porter taught about four years
in all, maybe more. When she had the offer of the Farm-
ington school, she promptly accepted it, and left us in the
middle of the school year, which was a pity. I have said
this much, for the fame of the Farmington school so far
overshadowed the Buffalo school that I have been solemnly
assured that she never taught here. But she did, and some
of us are alive to tell of it, and, perhaps, are present on this
occasion.
There were, of course, other private schools. The Misses
Langdon, the Misses Hills, and later the Buffalo Seminary,
of which we all know, and also boys’ schools—Mr. Briggs,
the Heathcote, etc., later on.
But at the time of Miss Porter’s departure, there were
no very good private schools, and there was a high tide in
favor of public schools and free education—Horace Mann,
and all that sort of thing.
Mr. Fillmore was identified with that movement. A step
was taken in the direction of higher education, co-educa-
tion, and all that, and a third department of the public
schools was inaugurated on the third floor of Public SchoolRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
147
No. 7, on South Division street near Ellicott. It was a step
toward t’he high school. Mr. Hadley and Miss Radley were
the teachers. Everybody sent his children there, all sorts
and almost all ages, until nearly two hundred were enrolled.
The two teachers did their best, but they had their hands
full. Some of us did learn, but very soon my wise parents
decided that headaches and rapid growth made such a
crowded school undesirable, and I was taken out. Not un-
profitably, either, for I learned to keep house, to cook, to
sew, and to read aloud, and in the situation (for life) which
I ultimately accepted, these accomplishments were all re-
quired. Speaking of public schools, I am going to tell a real
story about them. Among our good neighbors, from my
earliest knowledge, were Hon. Millard Fillmore and family.
My parents knew them, my elder sisters were well ac-
quainted with them, and also their younger brothers and
sisters. They had a daughter of my own age, and a son
some years older. I knew Abbie Fillmore and loved her
better than any girl I ever knew. And so, it chanced when
we were little girls, that we talked about what we would do
when we were grown up. Mr. Fillmore had been a Member
of Congress for several terms and‘was called a rising man,
and as I have said, he was interested in public schools, and,
no doubt, there had been talk about it in the family before
Abbie, and this is what she said:
“When I am grown up I am going to be a teacher. I'd
rather do it than anything else."
“But, when you're grown up, they won't let you."
“Why not?"
“Because my father says that your father is going to be
President some day. The President's daughter mustn't
teach school."
“Oh pshaw ! He won’t be President, and I will teach."148
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
“Well, if you teach school, I am coming to school to you,
even if I am ever so old, or even married.”
“And if my father is President, I’ll invite you to visit me
at the White House.”
There was, indeed, but little prospect of either event, but
we solemnly promised, as children do.
And the odd part of it, both promises were kept, and this
was the way of it. She was sent away to Mr. and Mrs.
Sedgwick’s school at Lenox, Mass, for several years, and
while Mr. Fillmore was State (New York State) comp-
troller she entered and graduated from the State Normal
School at Albany. Afterward, complying with the require-
ment of at least one term of teaching from a State normal
graduate, a place was made for her in the third department,
Public School No. io, it being the second and the newest and
best of the third departments, and at once I entered the
school, for she insisted on my doing so, as she had done her
part.
She taught but one term, but I kept on to the end of the
year and ended up with typhoid fever. I never went back
to school. Meanwhile, Mr. Fillmore was elected Vice-presi-
dent, and the President, General Taylor, died, and Mr.
Fillmore became President, and in the last year of his presi-
dency my invitation came, and I made my visit at the White
House. Thus it came about that each of us lived in her own
chateau d’Espagne.
She was far too young for a teacher in French and
rhetoric, which she did teach to boys and girls older than
herself. A very good French class, too. So this obstinate
little girl obtained and kept the place, and it has never been
vacant since, and hers was the first class in a foreign lan-
guage taught in a public school in Buffalo. The vacancy
caused by Miss Fillmore’s resignation was filled by my sister,RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
149
Harriet Miller, until her marriage to Doctor R. G. Snow,
in 1854.
That school, third department, Public School No. 10, was
a very peculiar school, and the principal, Ephraim Cook,
was a very peculiar man. He did teach well, however, and
in his own way, lecturing much, questioning little, with
little method, no discipline, and no restraint. He was espe-
cially good at chemistry and book-keeping. We did learn
some things, and had as good a time as we wanted, much
like a country academy. I made some life-long friendships
and, on the whole, we got into much less mischief than
might have been expected, showing that American boys and
girls can be trusted. In the spring, the big boys all went to
work, mostly as book-keepers and clerks on the docks, and
in the Great Lakes trade, the important industry of that
time, and all earned a living before they were twenty, and
if one of them went to college, I never knew it. Most of
the girls married young and happily and “settled down” into
excellent wives and mothers. You knew some of us, for a
few of us are still living.
I have often wondered if there was ever as queer a little
school as the one I was first sent to. It was under the care
of Mrs. Nancy L. Brodhead, a prim, sweet, ladylike New
England woman. It was kept in an old-fashioned, plain
little wooden house, on Washington street, near Huron. She
had the best heart and the best intentions in the world. We
learned a little and learned no harm. Boys and girls to-
gether, of course. Some were learning the alphabet, and to
read, and you could have a book and study anything you
could hear oL Some very good families were represented.
Four or five little Sidways (Mr. Franklin Sidway, Senior,
was one), four or five Clintons, and others. Those who
could read, read every day, spelled twice a day, and did150
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
sums, or recited the multiplication table in concert, and had
American history and geography. The little chaps, learning
the alphabet, were often overcome by this tax on their intel-
lects, and they took naps on the benches and sometimes
rolled off on the floor.
We had a writing lesson every day, and I ought to write
a better hand, for she wrote beautifully. Once a week we
had little compositions and once a week needlework and
drawing or water-color painting, and every day we had
American history and English grammar. From 9 to 12,
from 2 to 4, no recess, no vacations, except a week in spring
for housecleaning. One grind, the year round. The little
house had school in the parlor, and had a sitting room with
a dark bedroom in the rear of it, where once (when seized
with a dreadful headache) I was put to bed, and kept till it
was over. A kitchen (where nothing was ever doing or out
of place, all being done before breakfast) and a garret bed-
room. Mr. Brodhead sat still in the little back room, never
going out, never working, always reading and teaching his
big boy, who never went to school or played with us, and
here and thus did this sweet, bright woman live and work
for forty years. Her husband died, her son became an
excellent teacher of languages in the high school, and with
classes in English (for Germans), German, French, Greek
and Latin. I do not think she ever went into a neighbor’s
house or any house, but once to my mother’s to tea; some-
times to church; with no friends, no associates, no amuse-
ments, for all of which there was no need, for / would not
be put off, and she might have had many and better friends
than I. It was only New England independence and re-
serve, for she was sweet to the very last. Finally, the land
under the old house being required for rebuilding, they
moved. She fell ill, and greatly desired my son, who wasRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
151
beginning to practice medicine, to attend her, which he
faithfully did. She died in my arms, aged much past eighty.
And her son lived alone and died alone in the house some
years later. Now, wasn’t this a pitiful waste of splendid
material? For if ever there was a city full of the true
Christ spirit of neighborliness, it was Buffalo, then, later,
and always.
This was in part a necessity. We must be neighborly to
live at all. For in those days there were no nurses, except
for confinement cases, no trained nurses at all, no hospitals;
possibly a pest-house, for the rare cases of small-pox, and
if a neighbor were ill, the neighbors assisted the family in
caring for the sick. The doctors knew much then of nurs-
ing, and instructed one in caring for the sick, and cooking
for them, and gave directions for the care of the sick, and
very frequently the sick recovered. The neighbors cared
for the dead, and the undertaker did only his unavoidable
work. And with those who sorrowed and suffered, the
neighbor was always present. My mother and sisters and I
have done for our neighbors, all and everything that could
be done, by one person for another. We shared in simple
ways whatever we had with the needy (even with our
friends, and with the “ninety and nine which went not
astray”). Nowadays, these are often neglected for the case
of the interesting and sinful hundredth man. Now it is not
so in all cities, towns, and villages. To be sure our popula-
tion was largely homogeneous. There were but few Ger-
mans or Irish or foreigners of any kind in the earliest days
of Buffalo.
My mother was one of the quietest, most unassuming
women I ever knew, but she was always sent for in case of
sudden illness or accident, when intelligence, fortitude, and
good sense, with self-possession were needed to help in152
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
emergencies. Being a solitary child, so much the youngest
as to lack companionship in my own family, I was much
with my mother, and often assisted at her clinics. Some-
times I helped carry a basket, sometimes I just crept along,
quietly, satisfied not to be sent back, if discovered, and
being discreet, I was ignored and trusted. In this way I was
present at two cases of fits, two run-overs, one apoplexy, and
one of a bean in the windpipe; most of them before I had
ever even gone to school. In that last case, when I found
that the knife was required, I fled. I think sometimes with
great admiration of my quiet little mother, holding in her
kind, strong arms, the screaming, choking, struggling child
(whose mother wasn’t of the slightest use) while the swollen
bean was taken from the windpipe, and the child restored to
life and strength. And she lived, and to be rather an old
lady, too.
And there were no anaesthetics in those times either, no
antiseptics, nor much of anything but fortitude, and more
or less experience. I don’t remember that my mother talked
much of it, not very much about anything, for that matter.
She only “did her duty as a neighbor.” Some of my sisters
were like her in these ways, doing neighborly work, not yet
forgotten. All was given and taken in the spirit of Christian
love. And further, we shared blessings and pleasures, as
well as help and comfort. More than once I have known
neighbors to. buy, fit up, and present the deeds of a house
and home to certain aged friends and their children, who
might otherwise have come to want, perhaps the dreaded
and dreadful Poor House, which would have been our great
shame.
This unassuming care for poor and needy friends has
always been characteristic of Buffalo, and of such is the
kingdom of heaven.RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
153
I have thought that the command to love one's neighbor
as one's self and also to love one's enemies and do good to
those who despitefully use you is much simplified by being a
thoroughly good neighbor. For such will not be likely to
have enemies, and if any one despitefully uses one, the other
neighbors will rise as an army with banners, and defend
these good neighbors. I've seen it.
Another quality I have noticed—a rare and sweet trait
in communities. I wonder if any of you have noticed it, for
not every town is this way.
We have had our trials and our tragedies, and those
great, great sorrows that come to all towns, and to many
persons. And we had also the gift of golden silence, where
speech might wound; of forgetfulness, when memory
might injure; of faithful, loyal love and good will, and dis-
cretion, and faith, which suffers long and is kind. I have
seen much of this, too. I hope our dear city may never
lose these sweet characteristics with its increasing size and
wealth.
In time, as the city grew in size and numbers, the need
and the opportunity of organized charity became. evident.
Wc had had an orphan asylum for many years. We began
a hospital, and in the days of the Civil War it was enlarged
and improved. We undertook to train nurses for all sorts
of illness. We organized in the later sixties the Home for
the Friendless, which, starting without debt, and never,
never having had a debt or a quarrel among its managers,
became the mother of the Ladies' Hospital Association, the
Ingleside Home, the Women's Christian Association, and
the Women's Union, and other work arising from its sugges-
tions and needs of the city. I don't want to get started
about the Home for the Friendless, for I have been on its
board from its first year, and when I get going about it, I154
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
am much more eloquent than interesting. Besides, I have
told it all before. And as all the charities were managed
by women of all denominations, sectarian feeling is almost
dead among us.
Schools were not our only means of education. We had
always excellent newspapers; the Commercial Advertiser
founded in the thirties by Hezekiah Salisbury and Bradford
Manchester, was and is the best daily I know of, in its un-
varying quality day after day, year after year, for many
decades. “Age can not wither nor custom stale” its valu-
able and interesting qualities. We have other good papers,
but the Commercial was our first love—well, that makes a
difference, you know.
Although we lacked much, we had great privileges. We
had no art gallery, and we might never have had one, had
it not been for the faithful and unwearying work of our
dear old friend Mr. Sellstedt; but we had the Young Men’s
Association, once the Buffalo Library Association, and after
fifty or more years the old name has come back to it. But
the Young Men’s Association was a library, a lyceum, an
art gallery (two or three pictures in the library rooms) and
the Society of Natural Sciences, consisting of some choice
corals and a few minerals on a shelf. At first it was lodged
in rooms on South Division street (Ellicott Square now),
and was in charge of Phineas Sargent, librarian, a man
born for the occasion. I used often to go to the library with
the seniors of the family, and be lifted up on the table while
selections of books were made and to hear kindly words
from the odd little librarian. And it must not be forgotten
that in the forties and fifties Harperys and the Atlantic
magazines were started, that Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer,
Reade, Holmes, Read, Hawthorne, Carlyle, Emerson, and
Tennyson, Browning, Whittier, and Longfellow, and all theRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
155
shining host were writing, and that we were a city of
readers, of talkers, of friends and visitors, men, women, and
children of us. We had our large and convenient St. James’
Hall, and our splendid union station was many years newer
in those days.
Another educational privilege was Steele’s book store;
where was there ever such another? There the faithful
among men gathered to read, to talk and discuss ideas and
plans and projects, and at rare intervals to buy a book.
Best of all (besides the library) was the lecture course of
the Young Men’s Association. In its yearly election, the
best and most prominent citizens contended, and the office
of president was only second to president of the United
States of America. The governor of the State wasn’t near
it. The course of lectures, one every week, lasted from
November to April, sometimes. Now and then one of our
own men gave something of their own, and there were extra
courses, ofj course. One of anatomy and physiology by
Doctor Flint (the elder), one of chemistry by Prof. Hadley
of Rochester, whose son was professor of chemistry at the
Medical College, of Buffalo. Prof. Agassiz gave one or
two courses; the literary course included Henry Ward
Beecher, Emerson, Holmes, Bayard Taylor, Park Benja-
min, Whipple, Starr King, George William Curtis, and
others. We also had, later on, readings from Dickens and
Thackeray, Fanny Kemble, and Charlotte Cushman.
They were attended by crowds—such crowds! and in
rooms, the theater, and even the churches at times. They
began at 7.30 and were over at 9, and there was time after-
ward for a home visit to talk it over, or an adjournment to
French Paul’s, or to McArthur’s, or Van Kleek’s, for coffee,
oysters, or ice cream, and as early in the evening as that, no
chaperones were needed (or wanted). There were no156
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
fashion notes in next morning’s paper, to tell of our little
parties, and even if the neighbors did know of it, what of
it? The combination of a fine lecture and Paul’s coffee and
cakes was as delightful as a theater party and the Iroquois
now, and happened much oftener. We did have a theater
on Eagle street, a fine one, too, for hearing; small, but
sufficient, and good in every part. In these days appeared
Forrest, McCready, the elder Booth, Charlotte Cushman,
Hackett, and others. I used to hear the seniors speak of
them. And about the time that I might have known more
of it and them, Lola Montez dropped her unfortunate cig-
arette into a pile of rubbish and the Eagle street theater went
up in flames. So, after all, we really depended most on the
Young Men’s Association. Sometimes we had the great
privilege of meeting the distinguished lecturer, to be intro-
duced, and even shake his illustrious hand. Of one of these
great occasions I will tell a little story:
Doctor Bryant Burwell (father of Doctor George Bur-
well and grandfather of Doctor Glenny) was our family
physician, and lived on the corner of Franklin and Mohawk
in a fine house (still standing).1 Doctor and Mrs. Burwell
were very kind and hospitable to the young folks in the
neighborhood. The Fillmore, Hall, Haven, Scott, Stuart,
and Mayhew families, and many others, were our Franklin
street neighbors at that time, and as Doctor Burwell was to
entertain as his guest Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes, who
was to lecture before the Y. M. A., the people of these
families were invited to meet him at “tea”—(not tea and
wafers, but a good tea, with oysters and tea biscuit, sliced
cold tongue, and coffee and preserves, and cake), and after-
ward the party, with sundry additions of our special attend-
ants, adjourned to the lecture hall. This one was in the
i. Taken down, January, 1913.RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
157
rear of the American Hotel (now Adam, Meldrum & An-
derson Co. department store), and was reached from Main
street by a long, narrow passage. We all sat together in one
group directly in front of the lecturer, and the subject was,
“Lectures and Lecturers.”
“Lecture audiences,” said Doctor Holmes, “invariably
contain four persons—the sympathizing listener, the resist-
ing listener, the man who goes to sleep, and the man who
goes out.”
Precisely at this moment a man came hurriedly in and
whispered anxiously into Doctor Burwell’s ear, who nodded
rapidly, and instantly, as if it were the prompter’s cue, went
out. Most of the audience knew that Doctor Burwell was
Doctor Holmes’ entertainer, and all recognized the aptness
of the illustration, and loud and long applause and laughter
followed, in which Doctor Holmes heartily joined. We had
just quieted down when the full force of the joke struck
Hon. Mr. Albert H. Tracy, who burst into one of his big,
rare laughs. Then all went off again, and it was long before
quiet was restored. We laughed very easily in those days.
After the lecture was over, Mr. Fillmore, who was
present, invited the party, including Doctor Holmes, to
adjourn to his house, adding, I remember, Mr and Mrs. E.
C. Sprague, and other friends from the audience. After a
pleasant little visit, as we were about to depart, Doctor
Burwell returned, looking tired enough.
“I owe you an apology, Doctor. It was a case of neces-
sity; you know how it is yourself. I am sure I must have
missed something very brilliant, for I heard the applause
after I got into the street.” Then, of course, we all laughed
again, and explained, and—
“My dear,” said Mrs. Burwell, “we were laughing at
you. You were the man who went out ”158
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
It was from the windows of Doctor Burwell's house that
a group of us young people watched a procession headed by
Mr. Fillmore, in a carriage with Louis Kossuth, the Hun-
garian patriot, as he made welcome the illustrious exile
after the struggle for liberty with Austrian tyranny.«
Those were dark days for the Hungarians. But most
was obtained later for which they had struggled, in fact, if
not in name. And very proud we were of our illustrious
fellow-citizen and his guest, as we waved handkerchiefs,
and received their courteous salutes.
Speaking of social life, we had from my very earliest
recollections the charming custom of New Year's calls. I
don't know when it began, but it came from our Dutch
friends in New York. Christmas got but scant notice,
except with very little children, and their stockings, but New
Year's day was for all. It was a jolly custom and died
hard. In my infancy and early childhood it was at its best.
We lived in this house (and not at its best, either, but the
only picture I have, which I show you),1 in which all five
of us sisters were married. I was much the youngest of
five sisters, four being grown up and two about to be
married. My sisters' fiances, and their friends came in
crowds. Everybody knew everyone; and all the society
was good society. The town was full of young men who
were full of energy and hope, and my father's parlor was
full from morning till night on this happy New Year.
There was a great log fire burning in the large fireplace with
its bright brasses. The windows were hung with heavy red
curtains from great poles and rings, and the red carpet
completely covered the floor. The fire had burned all night
to insure a warm room and the table had been prepared the
evening before. It was covered with the best linen, and the
i. The picture exhibited by Mrs. Snow when she read this paper is repro-
duced on page 308, vol. XVI of these Publications.RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
159
best china and glass were displayed. A cold roast turkey,
piles of small buttered "‘light biscuit,” and, I think, a boiled
ham, big frosted cakes and bowls of doughnuts, and a pitcher
of cider, and unlimited coffee from the rosebud china cups.
Then there were nuts, raisins, and “mottoes,” small candy
drops of all hues wrapped in colored, fringed tissue paper,
and enclosing also a couplet of most sentimental poetry.
There were also for elders, decanters of Madeira, and many
glasses. I remember well many of the guests, having my
own favorites among those who ""noticed the little sister.”
I think none are living now of those guests. There were
many over a hundred visitors, and next day the other girls
came over to interview my sisters or brag of their successes.
Of course, after the great temperance movement, and
after the marriages and departure of my elder sisters, it did
not seem so brilliant to us. But it survived to very recent
years, and died hard. New Year’s receptions now are very
different in all ways, being large affairs, and perhaps in
clubs, associations, or very large residences, etc. I do not
expect calls any more, but maybe some one of the faithful
may stray in, and I always put a loaf of frosted cake, and
plates on the table, in the library corner, or at least a dish
of bonbons, and the ghosts come back, in high stocks and
tight overcoats, and the sleighbells jingle outside. ""Happy
New Year!” they call out. ""Cold but seasonable. No, thank
you! two hundred calls on my list—not sitting down any-
where !”
""The compliments of the season, Madam!” from the
older men.
""Jolly custom, this; hope it will never go out. See our
friends once a year at least!”
""Yes, certainly; I remember your coffee from year to
year. Won’t you eat a philopena with me? (This is a160
MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
double almond, and at next meeting the first one to cry out
“philopena!” is entitled to a gift from the other, not to be
declined under any circumstances.)
“What a lot of snow we’ve brought in! Never mind,
New Year’s conies only once a year! Happy New Year!”
The bells give a thrilling jingle—the ghosts are gone;
and there is a gas fire in the grate with artificial coal, and
the cake isn’t even cut!—and—I wish there was a resur-
rection !
We had a pleasant custom, now extinct, in the sixties,
“The Old Settlers’ Festival.” It was organized to raise
money for the sick and wounded soldiers in the Civil War,
and the Sanitary and Christian Commission, by Mrs. John
C. Lord, Miss Lucy Lord, Mrs. Phelps, and many other
prominent and influential women and men who had lived
here a long time, or their parents had, and who had loved
Buffalo.
The festival lasted four days and the organization held
together about ten years.
There was a grand tea party in St. James’ Hall, Eagle
street, site of the Iroquois Hotel, seating hundreds of guests
in old-fashioned dresses, caps and kerchiefs, canes and
crutches, high stocks, and even ruffled shirts, and we younger
women served tables with immense success and jollity.
There was a “Singing School,” “Choir Practice,” “Spelling
Down,” a husking bee, quilting bee, and a New England
kitchen, presided over by Mrs. Lord and Miss Lucy, who
enacted an improvised play of simple country life in the
character of a farmer’s wife and her help, and wonderfully
well done, too.
Once there was an evening of tableaux. One represent-
ing the burning of Buffalo, and the flying people, the
refugees. It was too realistic, and was not repeated. ItRECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
161
lacked perspective. It was too near home, for some of the
refugees or their families were present. And then a ball.
Such a ball! Every old-fashioned or antique costume came
out. The fiddlers played reels and jigs and “money musk,”
and “Fisher’s hornpipe,” and the dancing was dancing. How
pretty some of the girls were in mother’s or grandmother’s
dresses, high combs, and puffs, and rolled hair!
That, too, died. Those who did most, died or grew
indifferent. So accounts were settled. Properties were
stored away in Doctor Lord’s attic, and the remaining funds
distributed among the needy and respectable old citizens,
“the ninety and nine which went not astray.”
Prominent in this festival were the descendants of Mrs.
Margaret St. John, widow of Gamaliel St. John, the heroine
of the burning .of Buffalo. She was the owner of the only
house spared by the British, and owed it to her courage and
policy in cooking an excellent dinner for the British officer.
(I forget his name—we do not forget hers.)
This house stood next to my father’s homestead lot, now
occupied, as I have said, by Hens & Kelly’s department store,
and the site of her house is covered by Hanan’s shoe store.1
It has been said that it was where H. A. Meldrum’s store
now stands. That also, I think, was her property, but it
was a small tavern and was burned. The cellar was vacant
and grass-grown for years and years, and I have played in
it, and dug caves in it, and I knew all about it.
Before I was born, the St. John family removed from
that house; the numerous daughters were all married. But
Mrs. St. John sometimes visited my mother, and I remember
her stern, strong face, exactly like her portrait in the His-
torical Society. Her daughters were Mrs. Thomas Foote,
i. No. 476 Main street. The Niagara Frontier Landmarks Association, to
mark the site of the St. John house, placed a tablet at No. 460 Main street. Its
removal to 476, or thereabouts, would bring it closer to the site of the house.MRS. JULIA F. SNOW
162
Mrs. Parnell Sidway, Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Bemis, Mrs. Skin-
ner, and I think one married Judge Wilkeson—(his first
wife)—and two sons, Doctor John St. John, and Orson St.
John. You know some of these descendants, especially
Frank Sidway’s family, who have always resided here; also
Doctor Barnard Bartow, grandson of Mrs. Bemis.
You are tired of all this twaddle, or I’d tell you of my
first party in the Sidway house on Hudson and Tenth
streets, the old Barker house1 (quite a grand one), and how
I wore a new white frock and blue ribbons, and it being a
distance, and the guests small, the carriage was sent for us.
After I was grown up, I went to other parties in that house,
but, of course, they could not compare with this one. For
we did have parties and visits and friends—most delightful
ones, too, then—although by no means every day and all
the time.
Sometimes some of the dear young people ask me this
question: “Didn’t you have better times than we do, more
fun ?” “Mother says she did.”
Well, your mothers and I were young, and youth is the
great factor in a good time, and youth is a good time, of
itself.
It was very different. We had no clubs, no art gallery,
and societies, no park, few drives, no daylight festivities, no
gas, no bath-rooms, no great water supply, only candles and
lamps, occasional balls and sleigh rides. All very occasional,
once a week or once a fortnight in winter; few picnics;—
no trolleys, no street cars, nor omnibuses, few and very
expensive hacks, and very few private carriages. We had
much to do and we did it. No telegraphs, no telephones, no
ocean cables, no magazines but Knickerbocker and Graham's
and Godey's Ladies' Book, although the day was dawning
i. See vol. XVI of these Publications, pp. 441-454.RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
163
for magazines and the best of them, too. Housework,
housekeeping, care of sick, old folks and young children
(of the kitchen girls, very many were raw from emigrant
ships), dressmaking at home with or without help, garden-
ing, care of silver (a little of it), but much brass, and we
were busy most of the day. But when all was done, and the
tea was over, and the sweet summer twilight or cozy, com-
fortable winter evening came on, we each put on a pretty
dress, and brushed and braided or curled our hair and re-
ceived our evening visitors, sometimes many, sometimes few,
or, best of all, only one. We made it a point not to be tired,
not to own that we were ever really busy, only that we had
a few pleasant little things to do (which was true, if one
only thought so). In the evening we assumed an attitude
of absolute leisure. Perhaps we overdid it, but it avoided
pressure and fidgets, and made for serenity and repose, the
attitude of the period. And we certainly did have many
friends and good times. And after all, it worked pretty
well. Women may be judged as generals are, by results and
successes, and judging by the women I see before me, their
mothers brought them up pretty well after all, or maybe it
was their grandmothers.
But what privileges you have! To begin with, the
charming clubs, the beautiful parks (the garden went out
with the invention of the lawn mower; and much prettier
are the velvet lawns than our straggling hardly kept gar-
dens!) Your beautiful homes, your delightful luncheons
and beautiful, delightful teas in broad daylight, not to men-
tion dinners, and better trained service, more variety and
better dishes, and, except in rare cases, better average cook-
ing, fruits and vegetables from all the world, all the year
’round, good schools and well-educated daughters and sons,
music of the best and as often as you like. (We only had164 RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY BUFFALO.
a concert or two in a year. To be sure, we had Jenny Lind,
Patti, Strakosch, and Ole Bull.) Pictures and exhibitions
all the time, and, as I said before, we might never have had
them, had it not been for our beloved friend Mr. Sellstedt
and his untiring and almost life-long work.
Most of your houses are better planned, and home and
travel alike attractive and ready for you, happier and easier
for everyone.
This is all better, if you let it be so. The simple life does
not altogether consist in self deprivation, in inconvenience,
in heroic “doing without.” It is in the mental attitude of
content, of industry, of self-respect, refinement, honest,
straightforward dealing with others, of loving attention to
important trifles, in care and consideration for one's own
family and close friends, and even strangers. In short, by
whatever name it be called, it amounts to the same thing.
Call it the Simple Life, the New Thought, this or that, or
the New Church, etc.; it can be called anything, but for all
soul growth, all pure and worthy life, there has never been
any improvement upon the theory and practice of the Ser-
mon on the Mount.
In one respect I see gain. It is in the love, kindness,
and attention paid to us, the seniors. Our mothers did not
have half so good times as we do—as we have today, and
especially is your consideration shown in your interest and
patience in listening so long to my old stories.
Note. —The allusion on page 156 to the burning of the Eagle-street theater
should perhaps have a word of comment. The story that Lola Montez, Countess of
Landsfeld, caused the fire with her cigarette, has long had vogue, but so far as the
present compiler is aware, it lacks proof. She had been playing there, was dis-
pleased with her reception — in fact, got very angry about it, claiming she was
insulted,—-and after the performance, May 10, 1852, had her wardrobe and ^effects
removed from the house. Early the next morning, the theater burned down. The
fire is said to have been due to faulty structural conditions and the dilapidated state
of the heating arrangements. Lola Montez gave a performance the next evening
in the Museum, a small hall on Washington street. The Buffalo papers of the time
make no mention of the cigarette story.