Amos and Teddy

 

This is a story about Amos Hill, of Tyrone, and his visit with a well-known figure while waiting to catch a train in Washington, D.C. in the early 1900s.  The story was written by one Alderman Gleason.

Ame, as he was known, was a “hale fellow well met.” He made some money by farming and invested it wisely in oil land and oil stocks.

The great event of his life was when he and a friend were returning from a visit to his oil holdings in the south. They learned that they would have a long wait between trains in Washington.  

Ame said, “Let’s call on the President.” It was agreed and they made their way to the White House. They went to the door and a guard inquired as to their errand. Ame said, “Tell Teddy that a couple of old sod-busters from Wayne would like to see him.” It was but a short time when President Roosevelt came to the door with both hands outstretched and his characteristic “dee-lighted boys, come right in."” When they were inside, he continued, “I suppose you boys would like to see where I live,” and he personally conducted them through the White House.

After they made the rounds, they came back to his office and started a visit which came to be, according to Ame, a story-telling contest. “I thought I was pretty good,” Ame said, “but do the best I could, Teddy would top me every time.” I suppose that office rang with laughter.

The moments passed and too soon it was time to hurry to the station. The president accompanied them to the door, extended his hand, saying, “Boys, I don't know when I have enjoyed an afternoon more and if you are in Washington again while I am president, I shall consider it an insult if you don’t call on me.” Ame always ended the story by saying, “I am a Democrat and he is a Republican, but if he comes up for office, I'll vote for him. He is a real man.”

This story is from A History of Tyrone compiled by Gary Schrickel and revised in 2020.  The revised edition is now available in the Gift Shop at the Schuyler County Historical Society for $20, plus $8 for shipping.

The Odessa Common School and High School

 

To the left is a photo of the Odessa Common School taken in 1878.  It once stood in what is the parking lot of the current OMCS high school in Odessa.  By 1907, the small common school had become too small and a new school was built to replace it.  That building is shown below.  If you look closely, you will see there is something familiar about the two buildings.  When the new school was built in 1907, the old common school was raised up and a new story was put beneath it, adding four more rooms  The new school included a  two-year high school by 1910, and it became four-year in 1912.  The high school shown below was torn down when the current building was erected in 1938.  It was not until 1959 that the district merged with the Montour Falls schools.

The photo above shows the bell that once announced the start of the school day from the cupola of the common school.  It was cast in Seneca Falls in 1841.

The Arnot Forest Totem Pole

The photo above shows the Arnot Forest Totem Pole around 1940.

     The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) once had a camp in the Arnot Forest near Cayuta during the Great Depression.  The camp belonged to Cornell University and the university allowed the CCC to make use of the site.  Located within the camp was a totem pole from an Alaskan native village, and the young men in the CCC camp created a strange ritual involving the totem pole.

     In 1899, a wealthy railroad magnate named Edward Harriman took his family and a number of scientists on a cruise along southeastern Alaska.  On board were two Cornell professors, Louis Feurtes, an ornithological artist, and Bernard Fernow, a forester.  The Harriman expedition heard of an abandoned Tlingit village and decided to investigate it.  The party did not realize that abandonment of the village was only a temporary measure by the indigenous people, so they decided to help themselves to the “abandoned” souvenirs. They grabbed blankets, tools, and masks found in the village.  There were also several totem poles.  Some of the passengers balked at taking something as large as a totem pole, but Fernow showed them how to do it, and soon they were cruising away with most of the totem poles on the deck of their ship.

     One of the totem poles ended up at Cornell University.  After being displayed in a couple different locations on campus it ended up at the Arnot Forest location.  The Arnot Forest area was gifted to Cornell in 1927.  A lodge was built there and the totem pole was installed in front of it.  When the site became a CCC camp, the CCC workers spruced up the aging totem pole by painting it.  They eventually created a ritual around the totem pole as a means to haze new recruits.  The new recruits would be awakened at three in the morning, given a lighted candle to carry, and marched to the totem pole.  There they were instructed to knell down around it and bump their foreheads on the ground.

     The totem pole remained at the site until the 1970s.  Over the years the weather and wind took its toll on the decaying relic.  A windstorm in the late 1970s toppled the totem pole and it broke into pieces.  The remnants were gathered up and stored in a warehouse at Cornell.  In 2001, the fragmented totem pole finally went home again  when it was returned to the Tlingits in Alaska.  It is unfortunate that the totem pole had to be reduced to a crumbling mess before the right thing was finally done.  I don’t imagine that the Tlingits knell around it and bump their heads on the ground, but I am sure they are glad to have it back.

For a more thorough telling of the story of the totem pole check out this website:

http://gleach.com/totem.html

The Mysterious "Citizen-Soldier"

     In the vault at the Montour Falls Library is an old photo of a monument that has been a mystery for a long time.  The monument is a Civil War monument called “The Citizen-Soldier,” dedicated to the men of Montour Falls who served in the war.  Written below the photo is a note that says this was a monument at Gettysburg.  The problem is—there is no such monument at Gettysburg.  So where was the monument?  As I researched this further I discovered that the monument was intended to be placed in a park to be created in Montour Falls in front of the waterfall, but it never arrived.  The reason was that its donor, Halsey Ives, a distinguished citizen from Montour Falls, who helped form and lead the St. Louis Art Museum in Missouri, suddenly died in 1911, and his estate did not leave enough money to ship the statue to Montour Falls.

     Ives had commissioned a well-known sculptor named George Julian Zolnay to create the statue.  Zolnay, known as the “sculptor of the Confederacy” for the many Confederate monuments he made, used some rather unusual license in making the monument.  At the top of the monument can be seen the bust of a man.  Incredibly, when I began investigating other works by Zolnay, I recognized a similarity with another statue.  Zolnay’s statue in Nashville, Tennessee dedicated to Sam Davis, a Confederate hero executed as a spy by Union forces, has the same head as the statue Zolnay planned for Montour Falls.  Zolnay put the bust of a Confederate hero on top of a monument intended to celebrate Union soldiers from Montour Falls!

     The monument never made it to Montour Falls, but it did exist at one point as attested by the photograph.  The monument was subsequently dismantled.  The bust of the man still exists in the archives of the St. Louis Art Museum.  When I contacted them they showed me a picture of it, and it was simply labeled as “the head of a man.”  What happened to the rest of the statue is unknown.  I can only wonder that if Ives had lived longer and the statue had been shipped, what would have happened when the citizens of Montour Falls discovered that their statue memorializing their Union patriots was topped by a Confederate hero?  Zolnay’s deceit would have been—busted.
(left click on the photo above to see a larger image)

Gibson, the Glen Guide

     In the 1880s, visitors to Watkins who wanted to see the famous glen often had a most unusual guide.  A dog.  His name was Gibson, a large furry fellow who for nearly twelve years gladly showed the tourists through the glen, as long as they rewarded him with his favorite treat: ice cream.  Gibson was described as a “remarkable animal” with “almost human intelligence.”

     Gibson made his home at the Jefferson Hotel in Watkins, which once stood at the corner of Franklin and Fourth Streets.  He innately knew who was a tourist, and would make his presence known by walking up to them to touch his nose to their hand or touch them with his paw.  He would never take local people to the glen, only the tourists.  All one had to say was, “Gibson, I want to go to the glen,” and their canine guide was ready to go.  He would lead them to the glen on foot or hop in their carriage and ride sitting upright on the seat with them.  Once at the glen, Gibson would lead his charges along the pathways to show them the spectacle of the glen.  If they began to take a wrong path, Gibson would stop and sit, until they came back to him so he could get them on the correct route once again.  If a path was somewhat dangerous, he was known to grasp their clothing in his mouth and pull them the right way.  He would even pause at certain spots as if to get the tourist to enjoy the natural beauty before them.

     Once Gibson began his guided tour, he did not abandon his escorts.  He was not distracted by other people, or even by other dogs—he kept to his mission.  If the people wanted to stop into a place to have a meal or shop, Gibson would lay down outside and wait for them.

     Gibson was very protective of his escorts, and he seemed to exhibit some class consciousness.  He was known to growl at workingmen who came near dressed in shabby clothes and was even known to spring on them to make them move away as he gallantly protected his tourists.  He also was not fond of salesmen, who he instinctively ignored.  But Gibson was gentle as a lamb around the tourists, especially the ladies who gleefully pet and pampered him.

     Many were saddened in December 1888 when they learned that Gibson had died at the Jefferson House.  I hope that those of us who walk the glen today will remember how Gibson’s paws once joyfully tread the same path, regaling in his favorite job.  And have some ice cream at the end of the journey in memory of Gibson.

1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic

Watkins Glen

Montour Falls

Watkins Glen

The articles above, taken from the Watkins Express and the Montour Falls Free Press in the fall of 1918 and spring of 1919, show that the current corona virus threat is nothing new.  We have traveled this path before.  The Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919 struck during World War I.  It was called the Spanish Influenza, but historians and scientists now believe it originated in army camps here in the United States and then spread overseas by way of military troops ships with very deadly consequences.  The articles reveal that some of the same precautions being taken today to deal with the Covid-19 virus were also done in 1918 and 1919, such as closing schools and re-purposing buildings to use as hospitals.  During the WWI crisis, Americans also moved about wearing masks to limit contracting or spreading the virus, meetings were cancelled, and businesses closed.  Local papers in 1918 and 1919 were filled with articles about people who had contracted the flu, and there were a number of local citizens who died from it.  Here's hoping that by working together we can all help avoid making our present pandemic as harmful as the Spanish Influenza of WWI.

The Great Walking Contest of 1879

 

One of the first spectator sports in America arrived in Watkins Glen in April 1879.  Pedestrianism, or Walking Matches, were all the rage in the late 1870s.  There were two walking matches hosted by Watkins Glen.  The first was held in the Freer Opera House at the corner of Franklin Street and Fourth Street (the present day site of Jerlando's Restaurant--see photo above).  The men who competed in the match tested their endurance to earn cash prizes.  First place received $100, the equivalent today of about $2,000.  The race began on Tuesday, April 8 and ended on Saturday.  The winner, Thomas Griffin, walked over 245 miles on the third floor of the Opera House.  Contestants took short breaks to sleep and rest at their trainer's instruction.  Local people came and watched as bands played music and refreshments were served.  Gamblers bet on different aspects of the contest-- who would cover the most miles the first day? who would be the first to drop out? who would win?  It is hard to imagine that those men walked around and around and around the top floor of the Opera House covering the equivalent of walking entirely around Seneca Lake everyday.  People back then found this all very exciting.  A second walking match took place in Watkins Glen in June 1879, and it was held under a tent on Fourth Street, where the current Watkins Sporting Goods is.  In that contest, the winner walked in circles under the tent to complete 323 miles.  It makes one wonder what people 100 years from now will look back at our own times and shake their heads in amazement as they contemplate: what could have made people do that? 

Left click on the newspaper article above to see a larger version of it.