Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned using Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell's replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. The production of this volume was supported in part by the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials and the Xerox Corporation. Digital file copyright by Cornell University Library 1994.HENRY A. RICHMOND A TRIBUTE BY HENRY R. HOWLANDHENRY A. RICHMONDHENRY A. RICHMOND A Tribute Read at a Meeting op the Buffalo Historical Society, Tuesday Evening, March 30, 1915 BY HENRY R. HOWLAND On the morning of the 10th of May, 1913, in the Cali- fornia Hospital at Los Angeles, California, there came the end of earthly life to one of-Buffalo’s best known citizens, who for 53 years had lived with its life and grown with its growth; who was peculiarly identified with all that the span of more than half a century had done for the higher civic development of the city that he loved. For 23. of those years he was a member of the Buffalo Historical Society and for 18 years one of its board of managers. That alone would seem a fitting reason for such a memorial record as this; a more cogent reason still is the fact that the story of his life is the story of an active, generous, heart-whole participation in almost every public- spirited effort that; has made the Buffalo of today in so many ways a greater, better city than wias the Buffalo to which he came as a young man in 1860. Henry Augustus Richmond was bom August 3, 1840, at Salina, Onondaga County, N. Y., now a part of the city of 139140 HENBY A. BICHMOND Syracuse, and was the second son of Dean Richmond, the well-known financier and leader in industrial and political affairs in the state and the nation, who at his death was the second president of the New York Central Railroad. When Henry was a child four years old, his parents moved to Attica, N. Y., and later to Biatavia, where his (boyhood was spent. His education was received at the public and private schools there and at Geneva, his delicate health preventing him from enjoying the opportunities of a college career which he much desired, the loss of which he never ceased to regret, though in later years many college-taught men might have envied him for his rich stores of knowledge and the clear grasp of his mind trained by constant reading and study, aided by a remarkably tenacious memory. When 20 years old, in the winter of 1860-61, he came to Buffalo and with his cousin, Jewett M. Richmond, who had then retired from the various firms in Syracuse, Salina, Chicago and Buffalo, which had been engaged in salt pro- ducing, formed a partnership under the name of J. M. Rich- mond & Co., carrying on the grain commission, forwarding, storage and elevating business which continued for over 20 years, after which he embarked in the lithographing busi- ness in the firm of Clay & Richmond and later, the Rich- mond Lithographing Company, in which he continued until 1888. When in 1866 or 1867 the project of building the Buffalo, New York & Philadelphia Railroad was started, he was one of its supporters, and held the office of vice- president of that company until 1873. The Buffalo of 1861 to which Henry Richmond came in his twenty-first year, was a thriving little city of 81,000 souls, its population having doubled in the decade since 1850. It had weathered the great financial panic of 1857, railroads were extending their lines, canal improvements were being made and though the years of the great Civil War brought sorrow and distress, they forced the grain ofHENRY A. RICHMOND 141 the Northwest into Buffalo through the Great Lakes, which had formerly been going into the South by way of the Mis- sissippi, and thus added greatly to the making of the city. Those were the days of the Central Wharf, when most of Buffalo’s leading merchants were “on the dock,” and for many years the grain-storing and forwarding business was the principal industry of the town; yet it was not until 1863 that the first telegraph wires were connected with the Board of Trade on Central Wharf. The first street-ear line in Buffalo was opened in June, 1860, and ran from the dock up Main street as far as Edward street and a month later .as far as Cold Spring; and it was not until 1864 that a second line was opened on Genesee street. The streets were paved with Medina sandstone, and it was not until 1878 that the first asphalt pavement in Buffalo was laid on Delaware avenue from Virginia to North street. The most fashionable residences were on Swan street. There were no clubs or club houses, and in their absence Bloomer’s restaurant on the lower side of Eagle, street, between Main and Pearl, was the evening rendezvous for the fathers of those who in these days gather at the Buffalo, the Saturn,, the University or the Ellieott Clubs in their delightful sur- roundings. Once, when in a reminiscent mood, Henry Richmond said: “My father once told me to stand by two things so long as I lived—the public schools and the free libraries. I have been actively engaged in the work of both of these since that time and expect to continue so until the end.” In the year of his coming to Buffalo his first affiliations were with two institutions which have been potent factors in Buffalo’s educational development. The Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences was then in its infancy, and Henry Richmond at once became an interested member and for more than 40 years served it faithfully as one of its board of managers, living to see its sphere of influence enlarged142 HENRY A. RICHMOND until it had become in its work for the people and the schools one of the great educational factors of our city. It was in this first year of his residence here that he joined, the Young Men’s Association, that virile organization to which we all belonged, which first began its work as a Li- brary Association in 1836 and continued it with zeal until by its contract with the city in 1897 it became the splendid Public Library of today. It was a fine thing for our Buffalo that its leading young men interested themselves as they did in those old days, when our annual election for officers and curators was a matter of as great public interest as any Presidential elec- tion could have been; when the good-natured electioneering brought everybody to the polls, and the successful candi- dates with becoming pride, accepted office as a trust and wrought valiantly to surpass all efforts of their predecessors. Henry Richmond served often on its board of manage- ment, was its vice-president in 1864, and in 1869 was its presi- dent, signalizing his term of office by raising a special fund for the purchase of books, increasing the library from 16,000 to 25,000 volumes. He too was most active in that splendid effort by which a building fund of $117,000 was raised in 1882, by means of which the old Court House property was bought and the present Library building erected 'and form- ally opened in 1887. Thesplendidwork of the Buff alo Historical Society deeply interested Henry Richmond from the time when he first became one of its members in 1890. Five years later he was elected as one of its board of managers, an office in which he continued until his death, always attending its board meetings and earnestly sustaining all of its high endeavors, rejoicing greatly when at the close of the Pan-American Exposition the Society came into its heritage in the posses- sion of the beautiful building which it so proudly occupies. He was an earnest and discriminating lover of art; his ownHENBY A. BICHMOND 143 home was filled with well-chosen paintings 'by famous artists and with objects of beauty gathered by him in his travels, and for some 30 years he was a member of the Fine Arts Academy of Buffalo and often one of its board of managers. He loved the fellowship of his fellowmen and was a club man in the best sense of the term. When the Buffalo Club was organized in 1867 he became one of its charter members; in his bachelor life it became almost a second home to him, where he might drop in at any time and meet the men of affairs in whose conversation and companionship he found a healthful pleasure and profit. Later, too, when the old City Club in 1877 opened its doors on Washington street, he became one of its members, as was also the case when the Saturn Club began its career in 1885, and many were the happy evenings when, around its cheerful winter fire, a score of us would gather and listen to our friend as he told of past experiences, or, in stormy civic days, in his earnest manner, laid down the law to us as he saw it in matters relating to our growing city’s needs and possibilities. He had a keen sense of humor which always made him an agreeable companion, and in his fond- ness for disputation, loving as he did a hard hitter and always ready to give as good as he received, he never forgot that the other man in an argument was entitled to his own views and to just as strong an expression of them, and was deserving of the kindly respect that he always gave to honest conviction. In politics he was, or thought that he was, an old-line Jeffersonian Democrat, as his father had been before him, and he always cherished and often quoted the precepts he had learned from that man of large affairs and commanding influence; but of politics as the game is played he knew as little as he cared. Always independent in thought and action, he was abso- lutely free from political ambition; he had no friends to144 HENMY A. BICHMOND put in office, nothing to ask for himself, and the only public office which he ever held came to him unsought and was. accepted because he believed that a public office was a public trust and that it was his duty to uphold that great principle' by his own earnest endeavors. He greatly disliked notoriety, and though prolific in suggestions he never desired to see his name in print. He had clear convictions and he expressed them firmly though never aggressively; as the Buffalo Express said of him after his death: “His ideas were not always practical; you might not feel that you were wrong if Henry Richmond was against you, but it confirmed your impression that you were right if you found Henry Richmond fighting on the same side; for you knew that he was utterly disinterested and perfectly high-minded.9 9 He was at all times sturdily independent, believing in local affairs that the best man should be elected regardless- of party affiliations and carrying his independence into the larger issues of the state and the nation. One example of this out of many at the time when he succeeded his father as a member of the Democratic State Committee, was his. opposition to Tammany and his hatred of Boss Tweed, and when he spoke from conviction he was boldly outspoken— “If this be Democracy,77 said he, “I am no Democrat; I would rather see the party defeated by 200,000: thian to win on such an issue. ’ ’ Henry Richmond was one of the first to seek to overthrow the old Marcy-Jacksonian doctrine in politics that “ to the victor belong the spoils,’’ for when in 1881 the National Civil Service Reform League was organized with George William Curtis at its head, he