Research

On This Day: January 24, 1935
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Can of Banner Extra Dry Premium Beer, brewed, canned and packed by George F. Stein Brewery Inc., Buffalo, NY

On this day (OTD) in 1935, the first can of beer was sold in Richmond, Virginia by the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company; 91% of the consumers approved of the canned beer and as they say, the rest is history.  Historically, Buffalo has always been an alcoholic-beverage-loving city – just take a look at the Google maps Buffalo Drinking Map from 1828 to present day that Amy Miller, from our Library, created.   We have numerous beer bottles in our Collection that were used by many of the local brewers throughout Buffalo’s history, but in celebration of the ‘beer can’ theme today, we scanned through our database, Past Perfect, to see what we could find.

Donated in 2011 by Mr. Phillip DiFrancisco, this can of Banner Extra Dry Premium Beer was brewed, canned and packed by George F. Stein Brewery Inc..  The owner of the brewery, Mr. George F. Stein, was born in Germany in 1865, learning how to brew in Bavarian breweries until 1885, when we moved to Buffalo, N.Y. as an employee at the Lang brewery.  He would go on to work for the International brewery and the Clinton Star brewery before starting the Germania Brewing Company (located at Broadway and Bailey avenue) from 1892-1909 with his father-in-law, Conrad Hammer.

bannercan_backFrom 1909 until 1918, Stein operated Stein’s Ale Brewery in Medina but returned to Buffalo as the brewmaster of the Binz brewery at 797-807 Broadway Ave.  In 1920, Prohibition closed all breweries but Stein purchased the Broadway Ave. building in 1928 and began manufacturing liquid malt, concentrated malt and syrups to sell to bakeries as the Broadway Blending Company.  When beer was legalized in 1933, Stein began to brew beer again at the George F. Stein Brewery Inc. until his death in 1938.

After 25 years of successful business, the George F. Stein Brewery Inc. was purchased by the Leisy Brewing Company (Cleveland, OH) and closed shortly thereafter.

What is WorldCat and Why Do We Love It?

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“The majority of information lies outside the Internet.”
– Jens Redmer, Director of Google Book Search, quoted at Slippery Brick, January 2007

“What’s on the web is extremely ephemeral. Very little of it was written before 1995.”
– Brewster Kahle, creator of the Internet Wayback   Machine, quoted in Newsweek, March 29, 2004 p. 58.

Anyone with an interest in the past soon realizes that Google does not represent the sum total of all recorded human knowledge.  The Buffalo History Museum has been collecting paper-based history for 150 years now, amassing library collections that include 23,000 books, 2,000 manuscript collections, 200,000 pictures & photographs, 7,000 postcards, 7,000 microfilms, 10,000 maps, plans, drawings, and posters, hundreds of reel-to-reel audio recordings, hundreds of periodicals, and uncounted thousands of pamphlets, brochures, newspaper clippings, and other paper-based ephemera.

So, considering that people have been storing information on paper for about 1000 years and the internet is only about 20 years old, how do you figure out what is out there for research purposes if it isn’t digitized and optimized for search engines?

Enter WorldCat.org, which you can think of as Google for the offline world.  It is one free giant online card CATalog for the WORLD’s libraries.  The Research Library has been computerizing its bibliographic records for almost 30 years and has contributed over 25,000 of them to WorldCat, which now boasts one billion records of items found in the libraries all over the planet. Those same 25,000 bibliographic records are also searchable in our in-house catalog, FRANK (Find Resources And New Knowledge).

If you look up Lauren Belfer in FRANK, you discover that the Research Library owns her popular Buffalo novel, City of Light.  If you look her up as an author in WorldCat, you discover that there are 21 entries for her, including Swedish, Italian, and French translations of City of Light.  Click on any one title to see which libraries own copies.

When a book actually is online in full text, catalogers can build a link into their bibliographic records, enabling you to read it at your computer.  But only a tiny percentage of books, newspapers, etc. have been scanned.  Your WorldCat search results will usually show you records of undigitized books, maps, newspapers, periodicals, recordings, letters, and diaries that reside in library collections and must be viewed in person.  In other words, the past is not online.

In the Library, we use WorldCat to figure out who owns something when we do not.  WorldCat showed us that the internal business records of the Bethlehem Steel Company (over 200 linear feet!), including the Lackawanna plant, are held by the Hagley Museum in Wilmington, Delaware.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to look in WorldCat for an early short story by Lauren Belfer.  Once you find it, you will discover that it is set in Buffalo and is readable online in full text.  Happy hunting, everyone!

Cynthia Van Ness, MLS
Director of Library & Archives

*This article was featured in the Winter 2012-2013 issue of “The Album”

The Apostolic Clock and its many Mysteries

What has an Apostles train that parades every 30 minutes, shows the moon phases, the location of the sun in the sky, and tells you the day and month all at once? Our Apostolic Clock!
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(If you aren’t familiar with the clock, you can read more about it here and here)

If you are familiar with any of our social media platforms (Instagram, twitter, Facebook), you would have seen that the Apostolic Clock has taken up residence in the entryway of the museum and has resumed enchanting guests with its parade of Apostles.  However, you might not have known about some of its mysteries!

Did you know that…

  • The clock has three different parts that have to be wound at different times? The Apostles parade every 30 minutes so they wind down the fastest; they have to be re-wound every 2 days – if they aren’t, they become stuck 1/3 of the way on parade!
  • Originally, the Apostles paraded on the hour, but it was altered to parade every 30 minutes at the request of museum staff. Marv DeBoy who worked on the clock with Mr. Albert Bull from 1974 onwards, made the modifications.
  • Today, the Apostles come out of a set of doors that opens inward. The doors used to be glued together and opened outward as a single door.
  • All of the Apostles are hand carved and painted wooden figures. While very similar, they differ slightly in the position of their hands, the clothing arrangement and colour and hairstyle.
  • At the top of the clock, there are mysterious metal fixtures that seem to have no purpose. Fred Robjent and Chris Tahk, our wonderful volunteers who have helped maintain the clock for years, have not yet found a purpose for them! Do you know what they are for?
  • There is a hole on the left side that may or may not have been for a light switch. What the light may have illuminated is a still a mystery.
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    • The face of the clock has two larger dials that have painted tin plates of scenery (one even has a castle!) that move independently of each other to mimic moon phases and the movement of the sun.

     

    • The moon dial completes a single revolution ever 91 days and is propelled by a lead weight (which is unusual in design and construction[1])

     

    • The dial with the sun completes a revolution every 24 hours (for 24 hours in a day). What is very interesting though is that the tin plate is mounted on vertical guides – these move the horizon up and down to reflect the winter solstice (at the highest point) and the summer solstice (at the lowest point)!

     

    • The 8-inch terrestrial globe at the bottom of the clock rotates once every 24 hours and is very fragile! It has been conserved at the State University College at Buffalo Art Conservation Department twice: once in 2002 and then in 2008.  In 2008, wooden dowels were attached inside to help give the globe more structure.  Below are some great ‘After Treatment’ images from its last visit to the Art Conservation Department.

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    Now that you know a little more about our clock, you should come for a visit and see how many of these you can spot!  Have you seen any other mysteries about the clock? We’d love to hear any answers or theories – even more mysteries!

Britt Call,
THE GREG D. TRANTER COLLECTION MANAGER

 

[1] P41. HAGANS, Orville R. “The Myles Hughes Apostolic Clock.” Watch & Clock Review 50.8 (August 1983): 40-43.

Education & Educators at The Buffalo History Museum

Hello!  My name is Doreen Dell and I am the education assistant at The Buffalo History Museum. As teacher for 50 years, my position at the Museum perfectly aligns with my passion and expertise as an educator and history lover. Additionally, I get to work with teachers and students all over Western New York, a privilege I have always enjoyed. I’m excited about this coming October and looking forward to meeting educators who are not only seeking to share Western New York history with their students, but to share ideas with Museum staff and colleagues. Through our new after-school event, Teachers’ Night Out, we hope to help teachers unwind from a day of teaching and socialize over the Museum’s offerings.

Mark your calendar: Teachers’ Night Out will be held on Wednesday, October 12 from 4 – 6 pm at The Buffalo History Museum.

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Buffalo Bliss photo studio located in the Street of Shops

Teachers will have multiple opportunities to learn about the resources available while exchanging ideas with other teachers. Featured are tours on varied topics that will suit a number of lesson plans: We have World War I posters, Paper Bullets: The Posters That Sold the War, in our State Court. You can see Inside Tim Russert’s Office: If it’s Sunday, it’s “Meet the Press” exhibit. The John R. Oishei Native American Gallery exhibit features the history of the Haudenosaunee. In The John R. Oishei Pioneer Gallery, you can learn about Buffalo Creek from 1806 to the burning of Buffalo. The Neighbors exhibit highlights those who came to Buffalo and made the city what it is today. In the Victorian Street of Shops, early businesses are featured on a cobble stone lane. The Bliss photo studio is popular with youngsters and funsters who like to dress up and take selfies for social media sharing. thumb_img_2507_1024My personal favorites are the newly developed history kits, proven to be an effective teaching tool that students will love; the Native American Kit and the Pioneer Kit have artifacts, reproductions, mini posters and an activity book and are available to rent for your classroom. These kits have been met with rave reviews. You will also have the opportunity to try your luck at identifying an artifact from the early 1800s as you examine our Artifact Detective Program that can be presented at your school.

In addition to the program tours and learning tools to explore, our research library will be open so that you can learn how to obtain primary source materials.

Other participating cultural organizations include: The Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum, Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village, Steel Plant Museum of Western New York, Old Fort Niagara, and the Niagara Frontier Council for the Social Studies.

Did I mention there will be prizes and a happy hour? One of my favorite parts of my job is working with teachers to integrate our resources into their programs. Drop in for a minute or stay as long as we’re open; I look forward to meeting you and your classroom needs.

ICONS: Grant “Home Run” Johnson

Grant_(Home_Run)_JohnsonAfrican-American Grant Johnson began his career as a fleet, power-hitting shortstop with the integrated semi-pro home town Findlay Sluggers, one of the fastest nines in the Hancock County, Ohio area. Able to hold their own against visiting Major League clubs, in October 1893 Johnson led his club to a 5 to 4 victory over the visiting National League Cincinnati team, hitting two home runs against the Majors’ top hurler, 35 game winner Tony Mullane.  In the following year, Johnson is reputed to have struck 60 home runs for his squad, thus earning his nickname of “Home Run.” The Sluggers of 1894 also boasted the venerable baseball skills of John “Bud” Fowler–perhaps the black baseball pioneer–at second base. In 1895, with the tragic onset of segregated baseball, Fowler and Johnson relocated to Adrian, Michigan, where they formed the formidable traveling Page Fence Giants.

These Giants claimed the honor of being the best club in black baseball in 1896. By 1899 they had migrated to Chicago, claiming a second championship in 1901 as the Columbia Giants. Johnson next moved to the New York City-based Cuban X-Giants, helping to lead them to a championship over the Philadelphia Giants in 1903. In 1905 Johnson, now the shortstop with the Philadelphia Giants, helped lead that club to an Eastern championship.  He also picked up a reputation as a fine spot starter as a pitcher, winning six games in 1905.

Off the field, Johnson was one of the men who helped to form the National Association of Colored Professional Clubs of the United States and Cuba, predating the formation of the great Negro National Leagues of the 1920s and 1930s. Returning to New York City, Johnson managed/captained his Brooklyn Royal Giants to consecutive championships in 1908 and 1909. In 1909, Johnson also took time out to get married in Florida while on route to Cuba winter ball.

Equally a star in Cuban baseball, Johnson’s teams won championships in the 1908/09 and in 1911/12 seasons, with Johnson captaining the latter squad.  In a 1910 series in Cuba against the Detroit Tigers, he hit big league pitching for a .412 average, outslugging Ty Cobb.  And in other exhibition games against other Major Leaguers throughout his career, he was noted for his prowess by none other than Walter Johnson, victor of 417 Major League games for the American League Washington Senators.

The early years of the 1910s found Johnson penciled in at second base first for the Leland Giants and then for the New York Lincoln Giants, making way for the younger John Henry Lloyd (Hall of Fame) at shortstop. The Lincolns claimed the Eastern Independent Clubs championship trophy in 1913, Johnson leading the team in hitting with a .452 average–at age 41.

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Deleware diamond, 1927.

After 20 years in the top tiers of black baseball competition, 1915 found Johnson, now 43, in Buffalo, New York, managing and shortstopping the semi-pro Pittsburgh Colored Stars of Buffalo. He would continue his affiliation with Buffalo until his death in 1963, leading the Colored Stars for many years as both shortstop and, later, second baseman, playing with friend and Hall of Fame outfielder Pete Hill on Hill’s Colored Elks, and continuing to face off—and hold his own—against Major Leaguers, including Babe Ruth in 1920.   Developing young new black baseball talent was Johnson’s gift to his players, and for this phase of his career he garnered the nickname “Dad.” He was a man of fine reputation, a non-drinker, non-smoker and an excellent role model for his young charges, still taking the diamond at age 61 in semi-pro appearances.

 

Re-integration of Organized Baseball in Buffalo did not come until 1946 with the appearance of Jackie Robinson in a Montreal Royals (International League) uniform on May 19, 1946 at Offermann Stadium, but in truth the first men with the courage to integrate Buffalo baseball were Home Run Johnson and his teammate John Emory, playing in the Buffalo Municipal Baseball League for the white semi-pro Phoebe Snows of Lackawanna against the white Buffalo Oakdales on Diamond No. 2 in Delaware Park on June 24, 1917.

Of significant note for Buffalo’s cultural history are Johnson’s off-field accomplishments as a gifted singer.  Blessed with a beautiful baritone voice that first found outlet in his AME church in Findlay, Johnson and other ballplayers exercised their vocal skills on barnstorming trips, later finding his voice with the Buffalo Clef singing group and as a founding member of the Buffalo Choral Society. The latter group recognized him for his contributions at a gathering in 1958, by which time he had become a resident of the Erie County Home for the Blind.

Grant Johnson died on September 4, 1963 in Buffalo, New York.  He is buried in Lakeside Cemetery in Hamburg, New York, Section 3, Row 22, Grave 27. A headstone and plaque was placed on June 24, 2014, made possible by:  Lakeside Cemetery, Benefactors of the Forest Lawn Heritage Foundation, the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project and Friends of Buffalo Baseball History.

Howard W. Henry, Jr.
Founder of Friends of Buffalo Baseball History
hwhjr98@gmail.com  

*          *          *          *          *

Seamheads.com research as of 2014 credits Johnson with a 15-year Negro League batting average of .336.

Thanks to Gary Ashwill for review and additions/corrections to this article, and to Jeremy Krock for guidance in the grave marker project.

 

How to connect with Buffalo history from the comfort of your home

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When you can’t use our books in person, you can sometimes connect online.  Every Buffalo researcher should get to know these online book sites. 

Google Books: https://books.google.com
We LIVE at Google Books. For historical researchers, Google Books is the most important part of the Google empire. For several years, Google has partnered with several major libraries, including Harvard, Cornell, and the New York Public Library, to digitize millions of books and periodicals.  The results are full-text searchable for names of individuals, places, specific phrases, businesses, organizations, events, anything you’d look for the regular Google home page.  Fortunately for us, many of the participating libraries happened to collect books on Buffalo. 

Your search results will have 4 levels of access:
1. Full text: the entire book is online
2. Preview: you can read multi-page excerpts but not the entire book
3. Snippet: you see only the paragraph or sentence containing your search term(s)
4. No preview: the book is not online, usually because the sole surviving copies are owned by one of the many libraries (like us) who are not part of the Google Books project.

Other useful features: you can bookmark your finds in a feature called My Library and share your lists.  You can download entire free books in PDF and read them offline.  Because Google is a business, you can also purchase newly released e-books for your e-reader.

Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/texts
Archive.org is the not-for-profit alternative to Google Books.  It presently has 8.8 million volumes online and all are free and full text.  Their library partners include the Library of Congress, the University of Toronto, and Columbia University.

To search it, click on the magnifying glass icon in the black navigation band across the top of your screen. Archive.org lags behind Google Books in its full text searchability for a specific name, phrase, or term.  However, anyone can upload a text to Archive.org.  Download options include formats designed for screen-readers used by people with vision loss.

HathiTrust: https://www.hathitrust.org
HathiTrust is a consortium of a hundred academic and research libraries around the world who are digitizing books.  It presently has 13.8 million volumes online. About 40% are available for free in full text.  To download a book that is still protected by copyright, you have to be affiliated with a member institution.  At present, the closest participating institution is the University of Rochester.

Like Google Books, HathiTtrust offers you the option of searching the full-text of everything for a name or phrase.  You can create collections (bookmark your finds) and share them.  You can also limit your search to books that are online in full text.

Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org
The Gutenberg Project is the grand-daddy of all online book sites, founded in 1971 before any of us had ever heard the words Internet, Browser, or Digitize.  It presently offers over 50,000 books, all of which are online for free in full text with several downloading options.  Gutenberg is full-text searchable, as well as browsable by author, title, and subject.  Unfortunately, the Buffalo content here is minimal.

FRANK, our online catalog: http://tinyurl.com/frank-catalog
Naturally, we cannot omit our largest in-house digital project, our online catalog.  It lists over 27,000 distinct books, manuscripts  & microfilms in the Research Library collection.  We are continually cataloging new and old stuff.  When we learn about free online versions of works that we own in hard copy, we build links into the bibliographic record.  Try searching for a person, place, thing, business, church, organization, event, and maybe one of your results will lead you to a full-text, online version.

Cynthia Van Ness, MLS
Director of Library & Archives

*This article was featured in the Spring 2016 issue of “The Album”

The Greg D. Tranter Collection Manager, the Buffalo Bills Collection and what to expect in the Future
BRC at desk. JUNE blog
Here I am surrounded by my current project – working my way through the collection of die-cast model cars, busses, trucks and airplanes.

A little more than a month ago, I accepted my current role as the Greg D. Tranter Collection Manager at The Buffalo History Museum.  You may say that I am in training to become the ‘resident Buffalo Bills expert.’  I am responsible for the cataloguing – what we call ‘accessioning’ – of the Buffalo Bills collection donated by Greg D. Tranter that was announced to the public at the end of April 2016.

 

GDT at desk. JUNE Blog

Greg is pictured at the desk where he does most of his preliminary work before sending the objects to us at the museum.

It isn’t just any “Buffalo Bills collection” though – in its entirety, it includes 100,000 artifacts and archival objects and it has been reported on heavily here in Buffalo and even as far as Boston.  The Sports Collectors Daily described the collection as “jaw-dropping” – I would agree, wholeheartedly.  For a Bills fan, it is jaw-dropping for the singular reason that it is an enormous collection celebrating our football team.  It celebrates the good, the bad and the ugly, depending on how you wish to interpret certain events: wide-right, anyone?  For me, it is jaw-dropping because of the complete and exhaustive collecting undertaken by Greg: for example, the collection includes every single program ever produced since the very first game in 1960; he isn’t missing a single one!  If a series of Christmas Ornaments was produced, Greg collected every one of them so that there would be a complete grouping.


Subj Card. JUNE blogSo, what’s happening with it?
The accessioning process for the tens of thousands of artifacts is going to take years and the steps we take to register an object can be time consuming, especially if it a multi-piece object (like a Tailgating themed pick-up truck with tailgating accessories – a grill, a couple of coolers, etc).  Every single object goes through our cataloguing process which includes a number of steps.  Once the white cotton gloves have been put on, an object is carefully handled and described: we take note of any labeling on the object or packaging, the condition it is in (we look for any scratches but also remark if it’s in excellent condition), and then we measure (for storage and display) and take photographs.  Every object is assigned a unique identifying number, what we call an Object ID; once the number has been assigned, we input all of the data into our cataloguing system, Past Perfect.  The end result is a Subject Card that gets added to our vertical files that are housed in filing cabinets (like the one in the photo to the right).  This allows us to have two points of reference; the new system of Past Perfect and the old catalogue-card system.

The final step in the process is to find a “home” for the object in our storage. We store everything in acid free boxes that are organized by classification.  This is done for the long-term preservation of an object but also to ensure easier discovery for future Collections staff.

Stein. JUNE blogOkay, so there is still a lot of work to be done. Can we still see the Collection even though it isn’t on display?
Absolutely!  We have lots of projects on the go to ensure that we are sharing the collection with you.  Over the next year, we’ll be putting together a virtual exhibit that will be accessible on our website (www.buffalohistory.org); it will include a variety of objects and related information, in addition to some oral histories shared by the donor, Greg.  Like the accessioning process, that will take time.  In the meantime, I plan to do a few more blog posts since I could talk forever about the parts of the collection that fascinate me (like the Art Baker jersey or the O.J. Simpson “See-Action” football board game and the “Bermuda Triangle” poster with Fred Smerlas, Jim Haslett and Shane Nelson)!  More immediate though, is our sharing on social media; if you don’t follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and you would like to see more of the Greg D. Tranter Buffalo Bills Collection, you should! We would love to hear your thoughts, memories and stories about an object we share – maybe you even have the same thing at home.

So, to end, I offer three things about myself:

  • I was convinced that the entire collection could fill the field at Ralph Wilson Stadium… but I have been assured that it probably can’t
  • The red standing buffalo logo is my favorite of all of the logos (it’s also Greg Tranter’s favorite logo!)
  • Of the few hundred objects I have accessioned thus far, this stein is my favorite object. It has a raised scene of a football game, complete with a quarterback and referees and an oversized logo at the front.

Go Bills!

Britt Call,
The Greg D. Tranter Collection Manager

Related Links:

Sports Collectors Daily – https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/jaw-dropping-buffalo-bills-collection-donated-museum/

Link to: My Collecting Passion: https://buffalohistorymuseum.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/my-collecting-passion/

142 years old and still in service: Buffalo’s oldest bridge
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International Railroad Bridge, opened in 1873.

Thousands of Thruway drivers pass it around the clock with a quick glance at best. It has been in service for over 51,000 days, built before the invention of the automobile, airplane, and Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone.  It shares a birth year with the first typewriter to have a QWERTY keyboard. It opened for business in 1873 during Ulysses Grant’s administration as the International Railroad Bridge.

The need for a rail crossing between Buffalo and Fort Erie became evident after the Suspension Bridge opened in Niagara Falls (1854) and the area was soon overwhelmed by rail traffic. Negotiations between the State of New York and the Dominion Parliament began in 1857 but were interrupted by the Civil War. Finally, in 1870, Congress and Parliament agreed on terms and budgeted $1,500,000 for the project. The International Bridge Company, formed by the Grand Trunk Railroad, was awarded a charter to design and construct the bridge. The Gzowski-MacPherson Company won the contract and began work, supervised by Polish-Canadian engineer Sir Casimir Gzowski (1813-1898).

Gzowski must have been a gifted child, because he entered the Military Engineering College at Kremnitz at age 9. As a young man, he took part in Polish uprisings against the Russian forces. Exiled to New York after the defeat of these efforts, Gzowski learned English, studied law, and eventually settled in Toronto, where he supervised public works on roads and harbors in Ontario and Montreal and developed an interest in rail engineering.

When Gzowski began work on the International Bridge, a crossing at this point was considered impossible. The currents of the Niagara River were too swift and treacherous, the water levels too unpredictable, the ice build-up too heavy, and the storms too intense. Gzowski was almost 60 when he took on the challenge.

In spite of construction challenges and setbacks, the 1.11 mile bridge opened on November 3, 1873 without the loss of any lives. It quickly became one of the busiest international crossing points in North America. In 1890, Gzowski was knighted by Queen Victoria.

While the bridge mostly carried freight trains, until 1934 it also carried one daily passenger car. It had wooden plank sidewalks until 1900, when the trusses were fully redesigned and replaced. Its busiest day was July 10, 1916, when 264 trains crossed. Today it serves 15 trains per day and is a handsome, sturdy reminder of 19th century engineering prowess.

Read more about it:
https://archive.org/details/cihm_05136
Gzowski, Casimir Stanislaus
Description of the International Bridge: Constructed over the Niagara River, near Fort Erie, Canada, and Buffalo, U.S. of America
Toronto: Copp, Clark & Co., 1873

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The international railroad bridge, Fort Erie to Buffalo, 1873-1973 and Colonel Casimir S. Gzowski
Buffalo, NY : Published by Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario, Engineering Institute of Canada, N.Y. State Society of Professional Engineers, Erie-Niagara Section, American Society of Civil Engineers, Buffalo Section, ©1973


Cynthia Van Ness, MLS
Director of Library & Archives

*This article was featured in The Buffalo History Museum‘s Fall 2015 issue of The Album.

Abraham Lincoln and Buffalo, NY
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The Lincoln statue was originally located in the State Court, it was commissioned by the Lincoln Birthday Association, founded by, and in honor of Buffalonian Julius E. Francis. (Charles H. Niehaus, Sculptor; 1902)

“Tens of thousands shall inhabit this country where only thousands inhabit it now.”

President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived at Buffalo’s Exchange Street Station on the evening of Saturday, February 16, 1861, while journeying to Washington for his inauguration. Today the site is occupied by a modern Amtrak station.

Lincoln was met by former President Millard Fillmore and an enormous, enthusiastic crowd. By some estimates, 75,000 citizens swarmed downtown Buffalo to get a glimpse of the new president.

After making his way through the crowds to the American Hotel, Mr. Lincoln appeared on the balcony and was welcomed by the acting chief magistrate. The site of the American Hotel is now occupied by the Main Place Mall. 

Readers may be interested to know what he said to Buffalo on that day: “MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW CITIZENS:—I am here to thank you briefly for this grand reception given to me not personally, but as the representative of our great and beloved country. Your worthy Mayor has been pleased to mention in his address to me, the fortunate and agreeable journey which I have had from home—only it is rather a circuitous route to the Federal Capitol. I am very happy that he was enabled, in truth, to congratulate myself and company on that fact.

It is true, we have had nothing thus far to mar the pleasure of the trip. We have not been met alone by those who assisted in giving the election to me; I say not alone, but by the whole population of the country through which we have passed. This is as it should be. Had the election fallen to any other of the distinguished candidates instead of myself, under the peculiar circumstances, to say the least, it would have been proper for all citizens to have greeted him as you now greet me. It is an evidence of the devotion of the whole people to the Constitution, the Union, and the perpetuity of the liberties of this country. I am unwilling, on any occasion, that I should be so meanly thought of as to have it supposed for a moment that these demonstrations are tendered to me personally. They are tendered to the country, to the institutions of the country, and to the perpetuity of the liberties of the country for which these institutions were made and created.

Your worthy mayor has thought fit to express the hope that I may be able to relieve the country from the present, or, I should say, the threatened difficulties. I am sure I bring a heart true to the work. For the ability to perform it, I trust in that Supreme Being who has never forsaken this favored land, through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent people. Without that assistance I should surely fail; with it I cannot fail.

When we speak of the threatened difficulties to the country, it is natural that it should be expected that something should be said by myself with regard to particular measures. Upon more mature reflection, however, I think,—and others will agree with me—that, when it is considered that these difficulties are without precedent, and never have been acted upon by any individual situated as I am, it is most proper that I should wait and see the developments, and get all the light possible, so that, when I do speak authoritatively, I may be as near right as possible. When I shall speak authoritatively, I hope to say nothing inconsistent with the Constitution, the Union, the rights of all the States, of each State, and of each section of the country, and not to disappoint the reasonable expectations of those who have confided to me their votes.

In this connection, allow me to say that you, as a portion of the great American people, need only to maintain your composure, stand up to your sober convictions of right, to your obligations to the Constitution, and act in accordance with those sober convictions, and the clouds which now arise in the horizon will be dispelled, and we shall have a bright and glorious future; and, when this generation shall have passed away, tens of thousands shall inhabit this country where only thousands inhabit it now. I do not propose to address you at length. I have no voice for it. Allow me again to thank you for this magnificent reception, and bid you farewell.”

Source:
Crosby, Frank
Life of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States: Containing His Early History and Political Career; Together with the Speeches, Messages, Proclamations and Other Official Documents Illustrative of His Eventful Administration, pp. 75-77. Philadelphia, PA: J.E. Potter, 1865.

Crosby’s book is online in full text at Google Books. Paragraphs were added for the purpose of this article.

Cynthia Van Ness, MLS
Director of Library & Archives

*This article was featured in The Buffalo History Museum‘s Spring 2015 issue of The Album.

** For more Lincoln love join the Buffalo Civil War Roundtable as they celebrate President Lincoln’s Birthday. There will be a short program and a Lincoln orator. Join uniformed re-enactors as they perform a rifle salute on the Portico. Local authors will be present and there will also be activities for the whole family. Sunday, February 14, 2016 from 12-2pm. FREE. More info at buffalohistory.org.

Buffalo Newspaper Custom Search Engine

People_are_reading_newspaper_on_the_street

One of our most frequently asked questions is “Can I search old Buffalo newspapers online?” The answer is, “It depends.” Some newspapers have been digitized at some websites, which we talk about below. But all of the major Buffalo newspapers starting with our first paper, the Buffalo Gazette, founded in 1811, are not online in any comprehensive or systematic way. We hope to make an announcement soon about a newspaper digitization plan.

Until then, there are multiple online newspaper sites with random chunks of this or that newspaper, so we decided to make our own search engine to make it easier to access them. We focused on sites likely to have Buffalo articles and sites indexed by Google.

When we had several that fit the bill, we set up a custom search engine called Buffalo Newspapers.

With this single search box, you can simultaneously drill into these newspaper sites and use all of the Google operators you’ve gotten used to, like quotation marks to find a phrase, or the –(minus symbol) to leave out a word. Four of the sites are free, but two have a paywall or require a paid membership. At the pay sites, you may get the first paragraph free, which will help you decide if it is worth purchasing the entire article.

 

What’s Under the Hood:

Name of Site Comments Coverage begins Coverage ends Fee or Free Indexed by Google
Buffalo News The Buffalo News does not permit Google to index its archives, but it has a reseller, Highbeam.com, who does 1998 present $ Yes, through Highbeam.com
Chronicling America This is where the Library of Congress is gradually digitizing the nation’s newspapers Colonial Era 1922 Free Yes
FultonHistory.com Scanned microfilms from around upstate NY, with imperfect OCR[i] 1795 2007 Free Yes
New York Times The NYT used to pay attention to Buffalo. When you open a link from the NYT, look for the tiny link to download a PDF 1851 1980 Free Yes
Newspapers.com Operated by Ancestry.com, presently has 61 newspapers from around New York State 1797 1977 $ Yes
NYShistoricnewspapers.org  This is a collaborative effort to   host digitized newspapers from around New York State Colonial Era 1922 in most cases Free Yes

[i] OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, the software that enables a computer to “read” printed pages and make them full-text searchable

If you like this search engine, we invite you to embed it at your blog or website. Please contact us in the Library to request the code: library@buffalohistory.org.

Cynthia Van Ness
Director of Library and Archives