Helen Lauckarn

Helen Lauckarn by Anita Messina

 Helen Lauckarn and her husband Paul moved to Port Byron in 1951. Paul found employment at Columbia Rope Company, and they rented the upstairs apartment in one of the two houses located on the plot now used by Savannah bank. From that vantage point the young couple could watch the changing village. Businesses came. Businesses left.

Helen grew up on a crop farm in Cato. Her dad bragged that “Helen could manage a team of horses better than any hired hand.” She wasn’t bad at handling a tobacco crop either. Helen’s father, Talbot Streeter (Everyone called him “Tal.”) grew his tobacco seeds in a sock that he kept damp until the seeds sprouted. When sturdy sprouts grew to strong seedlings Helen planted them in the field. She knows all about cutting tobacco and hanging the leaves in the barn to dry. She spent Christmas vacation stripping and bundling fragrant leaves, which her father then trucked to the train station in Baldwinsville where tobacco buyers made their purchases. But each year “Tal” held back one bundle to make his own top-quality cigars.

When she was 18 Helen forged her way to independence. The bright 1942 graduate of Cato-Meridian High School was hired to work in the accounting department at Pass and Seymour. While she was there she heard about a new-fangled contraption that added, multiplied, subtracted and divided. No pencils needed. No erasers either. That contraption was called a comptometer. Its 90 some-odd keys needed agile fingertips and a quick mathematical mind. It’s safe to say Helen had both. She learned quickly and before she could take the final exam attesting to her proficiency, Allied Chemical in Solvay hired her for their payroll department.

 Ethel Blake’s home at 132 Main Street was up for sale in 1965, and Helen and Paul became the new owners of the beautiful Folk Victorian house. The front gable holds an exquisite example of an intricate jigsaw cut design that many passers-by pause to admire. Paul had 11 happy years there until he passed away, in 1976. He was 60 years old. Helen lives there still. There they raised four daughters—Mellony, Sharon, Nancy and Anne. Anne shows boxes and albums full of photographs that chronicle years filled with history and happy times. While the house rocked with glee, Helen watched continuing changes in the village.

Lucy’s ice cream store thrived on Utica Street where the thrift shop is now. The present hardware store was Carr’s Hardware back then. Beautician Dorothy Walker had her beauty parlor across the street. Out back was Lucien Martens warehouse where 10-year-old Mellony filled her red wagon with celery culls and sold them for five or ten cents, depending on the size of the bunch and how sales were going. Ken Tripp had a TV repair store next door. And a World War II memorial now stands where Mr. Kilmer once sold lumber building supplies and gas. Helen marvels at so many changes that have happened in these fleeting years. Marshall’s grocery store where she once shopped is here no longer. The folks who operated the store remember Helen as a sensible shopper who made her family meals and desserts from scratch. To this day she continues to monitor village activity, not out and about so much, but from the vantage point of her beautiful front window in the house that is still referred to as the Blake house.

Ted Wilt

TED WILT’S RECOLLECTIONS
by Anita Messina

Ted Wilt lives in a white house on a pristine lot on Green Street here in Port Byron. He and his wife Lola have lived there for most of their 70-year marriage. The large lot once held an old mill that had been in the family for decades. An old bell sat on top. That very bell now stands on the lawn between the Owasco Outlet and Ted’s home.

Childhood Days

“I’ve lived in Port Byron all my life. My two brothers, two sisters and I lived two houses up from where I live now. My grandmother was a practical nurse, and she delivered all us kids. My grandfather Frank Emmons – ‘Big Frank’ people called him -- was village constable and part-time locktender. He was a big, strong, burly man. When he was a little kid he got a pair of boxing gloves and got pretty good at throwing a punch.

“Pretty often he got called to the Erie House to settle a brawl. Canallers drank a lot – not just men, some women did too – and my grandfather was called to head over there quick to settle a scuffle. Mr. Kerns who owned the grocery store at the lock near the Erie House, would come to get him. My grandfather would jump in his horse and buggy and head there to take care of things. People would warn one another: ‘Don’t cause trouble in Port Byron 'cause Big Frank will haul you off to jail or worse yet put you on the trolley and take you to the prison in Auburn.’

“He must have been quite a man. I wish I had known him. He died two years before I was born. My grandmother kept his 45 revolver, belt full of bullets and his billy club hanging just where he left them. She’d say to us kids, ‘Don’t you ever, ever, ever go near there.’ He had some kind of accident and hurt his leg. Gangrene set in. They amputated and he wore a wooden leg. When he died my grandmother kept that too.”

“My mother’s name was Ethel Emmons. I was named after my paternal grandfather Delvin Wilt and my mother’s maiden name, Emmons so my real name is Delvin Emmons Wilt.”

How in the world did a young man with such a handsome name come to be called Ted? He admits, not a little sheepishly, that his nickname was part of a good-natured tease that his father perpetuated, and it was all because of a little boy’s strong attachment to his Teddy bear. Just before it was time to enter grade school he remembers his father’s repeated urgings, “Now Teddy, you don’t want to be going to school with your Teddy bear. You’re a big boy now, and big boys don’t carry Teddy bears to school.”

“I loved my Teddy bear, but I was too ashamed to bring him to school so on the first day of school I left him at home. That was a sad day. My mother took me to school. First I had to leave my Teddy bear. Then my mother left me. I cried and cried. I remember the teacher – Josie Green – patting me on the head and saying, ‘You’re going to be okay. You’ll be fine.’ I got over it in two days, made friends and had a good time in school.”

Kindergarten reminiscences trigger Ted’s memories of his and Lola’s two children, Kathy and Nelson. “I remember when we took Kathy to college. She just stood there watching me drive away, and I kept looking back and waving until I couldn’t see her anymore. She was always wanting to come home. Every two weeks she wanted to come home. I said to her, ‘I don’t think you need to come home so often.’ She said, ‘You don’t have to come for me. I’ll take the train.’ Nelson was different. He just went off. No problem. Looking back I remember it was kind of hard when they were both away from home.”

Ted remembers school being just “ordinary” during the years between kindergarten and 7^th grade and then there was Louie – Louis Hancock.ancock.H Just saying the name causes Ted to break out laughing. He never would say why Louie’s name provoked such mirth.

“School was crowded when I was in 7^th grade. We didn’t have enough desks, we needed three more but there wasn’t room to put three more desks. So the principal, Mr. Gates, chose three of us to move into the high school for the homeroom period. He said he chose us three because we were more mature and could handle a high school homeroom. The high school kids didn’t like it one bit having three 7^th graders there. But eventually it all worked out. I learned a lot of things I hadn’t oughta, and after a while we all got along good. I can’t remember the name of the girl who went to the high school with us. The other boy was Louie Hancock.” Ted again broke into hearty chuckles. But again, he wouldn’t say why. He would only say, “Louie was sort of troublesome. Life was a big, happy joke to him. Oh, he wasn’t real bad, but he wasn’t real good either.”

Grandfather Delvin Wilt

“My grandfather built this house here on Green Street. He came from a family of millers in Germany. He and his brother decided to come to America, and they first settled in the Adirondacks but then they came down here and bought the old mill on Railroad Road. When that first mill burned down, they built a second one and then they found the old mill here on Green Street and bought it. They changed over from being a lumber mill to being a feed mill because I guess they saw a good business opportunity selling feed for the canal mules.

”Most houses had a few chickens, a cow, a pig or two, and people would come to the mill for feed or I would deliver it after school. One of the places I delivered to was the house right across the street from here. An old lady lived there and also an old guy named Aaron Quimby, a homemade optometrist. He had about 200 glasses on the wall. When I went over he’d want me to try on a pair of glasses. But I didn’t need glasses. He didn’t have any schooling to be an optometrist, not that I know of anyway. He was just a homemade optometrist.

“My Grandfather Wilt took me to the Baptist Church. My friends asked me, ‘What do you do at your church?’ I told them we just have Sunday school and church. They told me at the Methodist Church they had a party every month. They’d play games and have hot chocolate and ice cream so I began to go to the Methodist Church. Then my family became members there in 1934.”

Village Grocers

“My grandmother would send me to the store with a grocery list and the exact amount of money I would need to buy what she had on her list. She had her money exact to the penny because back then prices didn’t change as often as they do now. I didn’t dare buy anything that wasn’t on her list. While I was waiting for the grocer to put up the list I’d stand by a barrel of salt herring. Oh, I loved those things. I don’t know why, but I sure did love them. The grocer always said, ‘Teddy, go ahead. You can take one.’ That was a treat. Then when I got home my grandmother always gave me a penny or two.”

Ted thinks back to the years when Port Byron was a busy commerce center with many businesses and many grocers plying their wares. “I went to all those groceries depending what was on the list to buy because they all carried different stuff. In 1943, 1945 Mr. Elliott had a meat market. He was a butcher. He had some baked goods and some canned goods. Then there was Sam Thomas on the corner of Main and Rochester. Gary Parson on Main Street. Sam Davis on Main Street. On Rochester across from the gas station, where apartments are now, there was Clyde Miller. Herb Marshall had a store and Gary Emerson.

“My grandmother baked from scratch and she would only use Rumford Baking Powder, and I had to go to the store that carried that baking powder.

“Things were a lot different then. Wynne Longyear ran the garages where the Pit Stop is now. In the back of this property where I live now there was a blacksmith shop and a harness shop. My driveway was a dirt road that went up to the canal.”

Port Byron’s Dearly Loved Milkman

Ted developed a strong work ethic starting when he was 10 or 12, cutting lawns. He never had ideas of being a milkman. Fascinated with steam engines, he spent most of his time hanging around the West Shore rail station.

“A line of 80 or 90 freight cars came in every day with lumber, coal and grain, and they’d leave with hay and mincemeat from the mincemeat factory here in town. I spent a lot of time there at the railroad wishing I could be a train engineer.”

That wasn’t in the cards. Instead Ted became a milkman, starting his delivery service in 1945. Through the village and ½-mile beyond in any direction he delivered milk, cheese and eggs. He spread his route out to Montezuma when the demand for milk delivery built up there.

He put in a long day. After delivering he would go back afternoons, when he knew people would be home from work and try to collect any money that hadn’t been dropped in the bottles earlier in the day.

“The people who payed by the month were faithful payers, but sometimes people who paid by the week were not so good. I’d have to go back later in the day if the week’s payment wasn’t tucked in the milk bottle, especially often going back to people who lived in the section where all the trailers were. It was hard to catch up with them. They’d come into town quick and leave quick.”

He started his route at 6 a.m. seven days a week for five years, ending his work day around 6 p.m.

During the war when people couldn’t buy refrigeration some still used ice boxes and needed to have their milk delivered fresh each day. When refrigerators finally replaced all the ice boxes he was able to deliver every other day. Working smart, he split his route into two loops and worked shorter days. In a few far out country places he delivered only two times a week.

He said, “Some days the cream at the top was a little less than usual. People would say, ‘What are you doing, putting water in it?’ I didn’t have anything to do with the volume of cream. That was up to the cow. Then too if the pasteurization temperature got any higher than 145 degrees, that would cut down on the amount of cream that rose to the top.

“People could still go to a farm to buy raw milk. When I was a kid I went to a farm and got a gallon pail full of raw milk. Then my mother decided maybe that wasn’t a safe thing to be drinking so we switched to just drinking pasteurized.

“Webster Dairy, where I picked up my bottled milk, bought their milk from 20 or 30 dairy farms: Jones Farm, Mr. Fairbanks on Halsey Road, the Pangborn Farm. That farm was where the school property is now. The farms weren’t as big as they are now so they had to go to more places to fill the supply they needed.”

Ted owned his own bottles and had “Wilt Dairy” printed on them. He’d bring his empties over to Webster Dairy in Auburn. They washed them and filled his next order.

“People used to use the empty bottles for all kinds of things. Sometimes I picked up a really dirty bottle, one filled with motor oil for example, and I’d wash it before taking it to Webster for a good washing and sterilizing. To settle their accounts people would drop what they owed into an empty bottle set out for pick up. In winter the money would freeze in the bottle, and I’d have to wait for it to thaw before getting my money out. I’d be sure to give those bottles a good washing because there’s nothing dirtier than money.”

Webster Dairy became Hogan-Souhan, about the time milk put up in cartons. Ted didn’t own the cartons then, he just got fresh ones with his new order, but “Wilt’s Dairy” was still on each carton.

“I took over Mr. Batson’s route. Milk cost 30 cents back then. Heavy cream was expensive. One woman bought heavy cream three times a week. She entertained a lot and made fancy desserts.”

A visit with Ted is an enriching experience, learning from his memory shares, warming in his kindly sense of humor, balanced by his sense of fair appraisal. If Port Byron had a royal lineage, Ted would be its most venerable baron.

Octagon Cabins, Part Two

Way back in 2014, I wrote a short post about the Octagon Cabins. These were small waiting rooms that were built for flag stops along the Rochester, Syracuse and Eastern. The "bible" of all study on the RS&E, written by Gordon and McFarlane, describes the stops as such; "The standard shelter was a work of art, very possibly unequaled on any other electric line outside of the Beebe Syndicate (the owners of the line). They were built in a true octagon shape, every joint being a miter. They were 10 feet square and 14 feet high with 8 foot ceilings inside. Each building was erected on one corner of a 16 by 20 foot yellow pine platform. The framing of the shelter was hemlock and the finish both inside and out was chestnut. Each shelter had a hardwood floor and oak seats with a capacity of 8 to 10 people. All buildings were electrically lighted and under the seats three electric car heaters were provided to keep the passengers comfortable even in the most strenuous winter weather. Each shelter cost $400 (about $7600 in 2015 money)" He also wrote (in 1961) that many of the shelters could still be seen west of Port Byron.

Because of the post, I was contacted by someone in Harrisburg, PA who said he had purchased photos of the cabins at a house sale. The collection has 29 images of various quality covering the cabins, the store, and family members. As a collection on a single subject, it is one of the most complete I have seen for a local topic and gives us a fairly complete look at the cabins and the business.

The signs show that this business was owned by FD Thrush, and wife Zella. Is this a photo of the two of them?

We also have many of showing the woman with a dog that appears in many other photos. Is this Mrs. Zella Thrush?

As I wrote in 2014, Thrush sold the business sometime in the 1940's (see below for update). He worked at the Smith-Corona factory in Cortland, starting there around 1943. Maybe Zella ran the cabin business while he worked elsewhere.

Sometime in the 1960's the cabins were removed. So far, I have not been able to find any record of them in that time period.

These cabins tell a story about a period of time, after the rise of the automobile and the demise of the trolley. They show what life was like before the building of the Interstate Highway system that would take people away from the small villages and rural roads. Route 31, Route 20, Route 5; all had small motels and hotels that served the traveling public. But with the building of the Thruway in the 1950's, this period came to an end

And an update- After writing the above post, I spent the better part of the next day searching for more info. I kept running up against the name of Samuel Harnden. I had through that Sam purchased the cabins later, but than Clara McIver wrote and said that the cabins were always owned by Harnden. And then I rediscovered this article that Cheryl Longyear had given me.

Although there is no paper noted, and I cannot find this on Fulton History, it does say April 1936. So it appears that Harnden owned the business, and Thrush ran it. His name is on the signs. I did find an advertisement from 1937 saying that the Harnden Store and Cabins were under new management. Maybe this is when Thrush came into the story.

Aerial Photos

Before the invention of the airplane, someone wanting a "birdseye" view of the village had to climb to the top of a nearby hill and hope for an open view. We have posted some of these birdseye views in prior post. After planes became available, it was easier to get a real birdseye or aerial view. Here are some we have found. 

Above- This was taken in 1938, just after the school had been completed. 

 Above- We are likely to date this one around 1947. The new concrete highway is being poured on the straightened Rochester Street. 

Above and Below- These two are very close in date, yet the one below shows work on the new firehouse and village offices.If memory serves me, a aerial was used as the inside cover of one of the yearbooks.

 Above- Bill Hecht sent along this one from 2005. 

Above- And from way up high in 1938, a crop of a high attitude military photo.

The Canal Route Change of 1857

In the 1850’s, a battle of wills ensued in Port Byron over the route of the canal that led to great harm in the business district of the village. What is odd is that this battle seemed to be waged by local landowners with the support of State engineers. In the 1931 obituary of Mrs. Harriet Johnson, who died at the age of 102, the paper wrote, “[She] was 28 years of age when the Erie Canal was enlarged from 40 to 70 feet. She remembered the squabble that took place among the residents of her village about the enlargement of the waterway. Some advocated the enlargement along a circuitous route and others a new and direct route. The will of the latter finally prevailed and the channel was cut through the most beautiful part of the village.”

            When the State decided to enlarge the canal in the mid 1830’s, it was understood that many mistakes had been made in the original construction of the canal and that the enlargement of the canal would allow for many of these mistakes to be corrected. One of the biggest problems with the old canal was the winding nature of the construction. It seemed that any obstacle that the original builders faced was simply bypassed by going around it. So in places the canal turned in ninety degree bends. This made it difficult for mule teams to pull the boats as they went around the tight bends and even more importantly, the twists even made it difficult for the water to flow and refill the canal. It was a mess. The rebuilding would give the State the chance to remove these curves as they enlarged the canal from 40 to 70 feet in width. In the end, so many bends were straightened that the canal was shortened by fifteen miles by the time the enlargement was complete between Albany and Buffalo.

            Unfortunately for Port Byron, the village was located on a curve, and it seems that some in the community saw an opportunity to profit if they could convince the State Engineers to move the route of the canal from the business district to the “flats” slightly north of the settled area. This flew in the face of canal law, which forbade any movement of the canal away from business areas; even it meant leaving a problem area in place. The curve that Port Byron sat on was in reality quite small and if removed would only save about a third of a mile in distance. But some in the village wanted the canal moved and petitioned the State. They got Canal Commissioner Fitzhugh to agree to the change in the route even though it went against the canal law. The businessmen of the village, the men who needed the canal to keep the money flowing, protested and got the Canal Board to reverse this decision and put the route back to the old route. This move put the canal back in the business district. But then the contractors who were hired by the State to build the new route sued and got the route changed once again. After all was said and done, the new proponents of the new route won. To satisfy some in the community, mainly the large mill, a stub of the old canal was left intact, however, it was not enlarged. After the mill burned and no one used the stub, it was quickly abandoned and the businessmen were paid off for the loss of the canal.

It took eight years to settle this matter, and all through this time, shippers west of Syracuse had to continue to use the smaller “pre-enlargement” boats since the canal through Port Byron wasn’t deep or wide enough to use the bigger boats. Shippers then began to use the Oswego route, robbing businessmen from Port Byron west to Buffalo the chance to ship larger loads on the canal. Thus, the mess at Port Byron became a state wide concern as it dragged on through the years.

Once the enlarged canal was completed in 1858, the larger boats could be used to ship to Rochester and Buffalo, but they couldn’t reach the businesses of the village. The village didn’t die, but it was harmed by the loss.

This 1857 map shows the two routes along with the original canal, all laid over a image taken from Google Earth. We thank Bill Hecht for doing this.

How Port Byron Became Port Byron

While writing about John Beach and his Mill, I was reminded of the stories that credit Beach with changing the name of the village from Bucksville to Port Byron. Over the years, many people have chimed in on this fascinating story, the latest was as late as 2012, when historian Dawn Roe wrote an excellent article about the subject. Years ago, I had written an article about the subject for the InPort, and looking back on it, I found it needed more details. So here is the latest entry.

There is an issue with using first person sources as people tend to mis-remember as time goes by. What clouds the facts is the fairly large event that takes place when John Beach and his partners build their very large grist mill on the banks of the Erie Canal. There is also the building of the Canal in 1820, the Incorporation of the Village in 1837, and the enlargement of the Canal in the 1850’s. So mashed all together, the events and dates tend to run together in people’s recollections.

In an Chronicle article titled “How Port Byron Got It’s Name” written by E.H. Kerns, he says when he wrote his 1922 History of the Village of Port Byron and the Town of Mentz, he could not find any record or person who could tell him why the name was changed. He goes on to say that he later spoke with Albina Treat about the issue. Mrs. Treat, who was born in1841, tells Kerns that the name was changed in 1832 after Beach built his grist mill. Remember that this major event took place eleven years before she was born. As Ms. Roe points out, Kerns “facts” are quickly corrected by George Perkins, who uses actual dated letters to place the name change prior to 1826. Perkins writes; “The origin of the village name has been a controversy for many years, and, while the story of Lord Byron, who died in 1824, and the mill owner with aristocratic tendencies is alluring, I fear it is just another of those fables which crop up in all village histories.” Perkins then goes onto write a very accurate history of the mill.

So I wanted to see what documents were available on the web that could help point to the Bucksville / Port Byron name change.

Ms. Roe mentions this very interesting death notice for Sarah Buck of Bucksville, and Giles Landon of Port Byron from February 15, 1826.

How can we have both a Bucksville and a Port Byron? Good question. From even earlier, we have this Travelers Pocket Guide from 1825, which was written in the summer of 1824.

What is important to keep in the mind is that whatever you call it, Bucksville or Port Byron, it was what we would call today a hamlet, or an unincorporated village. The actual Village was not formally created until 1837. Further supporting documents can be found in form of notices from the Post Master, telling people to pick up their mail. From April of 1827, we find this notice. And as you look it over, notice the last name, Bingham Young, more likely Brigham Young.

Yet there are conflicting documents that I won't post here. A document in the NYS Assembly from January 27, 1825 says Bucksville, as does the 1829 Natural History of NY, and the 1831 Gazetter. But the register of Post Offices in 1828 says Port Byron, as does the Niles Register of 1827.

In 1830, John Beach purchases the water rights of the Outlet and builds his mill. This probably delighted Aholiab Buck who runs this ad in the Auburn Free Press in 1830.

However, just a year later, Buck and his wife sell all their remaining village lots to Beach and Company and his family moves west. The deed is very interesting as it lists all the people that Buck had sold lots to, and all the land that Beach would own. The amount of land, basically much of the village, can be seen in the canal map from 1834 as listed as owned by Beach and Company, or Beach and Others. You can also see a part of Beach's Mill. The road running from the top to bottom of the image is Utica Street.

So let's go back to the 1824/25 Pocket Guide, which is the earliest document I could find that used the name of Port Byron.

It clearly says Bucksville, Port Byron P.O. (post office). Looking at the register of post offices, you find a Bucksville in Bucks County in Pennsylvania, and other Bucksville’s in Tennessee and Alabama. Just as the name of the Town was changed in 1808 from Jefferson to Mentz because there was just too many Jefferson’s about, the decision to change the name of the Post Office may have been one of convenience. In fact, we don't have any indication that there was ever a post office with the name of Bucksville, or that Bucksville had a post office prior to 1824 and the coming of the canal boom. Once the name of the Post Office was in common use, it was likely inevitable that the whole community becomes known as Port Byron. Was Lord Byron and his famous writings a factor in the name change? It certainly makes sense as he died in 1824, about the same time the name “Port Byron” came into use. However, Ms. Roe gives a good alternative explanation of the origin of “Byron”.

Buck may have been happy to see the big mill come to town, but as can be seen in his ad, continued to fight the name change that was occurring. It might be why Sarah Buck is listed as dying in Bucksville, where Mr. Landon was listed as dying in Port Byron. I ask you, would Aholiab allow a Buck to die in Port Byron? And the name was well used ever before John Beach built his mill, although his purchase of all the land and the leaving of the Buck family likely settled the matter.

An update as of January 1, 2017

It was another one of those wonderful moments in history when a question about one topic led to a answer on another, quite unrelated topic. So for a little background, a few months ago I wrote about a program where the speaker thought he had, at the very least, nailed down the date that Bucksville became Port Byron, and maybe why. He suggested that both Bucksville and Port Byron were in use at the same time, with maybe Port Byron being the name of the post office. (We have the talk up on our YouTube page so you can hear the reasons why.) But a lot of the reasoning well simply that, well researched reasoning of what few facts were available. Well then a question came in about the age of housing in the village, and in my study I was reading a study about historical resources in Port Byron. A citation noted that a letter dated October 6, 1824 that made reference to the name change. This led me to the talents of Jessica in the County Historian’s Office, who quickly found the 1824 letter in the Cayuga Republican. The reason for the letter was that a Mr. B.B. Drake was protesting the way that his minutes of a meeting in the village were reported. The letter stated that he was the secretary at a meeting where it was decided to change the name of the post office from Mentz to “Port Byron”. (The name Bucksville was adopted in 1819, so why the name of the post office wasn’t Bucksville is not known.) Drake states that it was unlikely that the Post Master General would allow the name change, but if he did, then Port Byron would become the name of the village by use. But, Mr. Drake goes on, there was no reason why there couldn’t be both a Bucksville and the Port Byron. To cap this off, the Editor of the Republican posted a notice just below Drake’s letter stating that the Post Master General had indeed changed the name of the post office from Mentz to Port Byron.

The interesting thing was that Mr. Drake began his letter with; “In your last, an article purporting to be a copy of the proceedings...”. I asked Jessica to go back through the previous issues of the Republican thinking that we would find the first article, but no luck. Looking for avenues, I starting looking into B.B. Drake, and came up with very little on my own. So it was back to the County Historian’s office with the question, “Who is Drake?” Well, little was found on Drake, but a notice in the paper was found, stating that the village residents had held a meeting, and had voted to change the name of the village from Bucksville to Port Byron. Not the post office, but the village, and that B.B. Drake was the secretary. This article appears in the Free Press, dated September 13, 1824. A week later, the B.B. Drake letter appears in the September 29 Free Press, and a week later, the October 6 Cayuga Republican reprints the letter, word for word. This is why we couldn’t find the notice in the Republican.

Anyone who has done family research knows that the censuses before 1850 are greatly lacking in information,listing only the male head of household. So B.B. Drake is still a mystery. He lived in Weedsport, maybe Bucksville, maybe Skaneateles, and Waterloo. But we do know that he was there in the meeting when about 60 people decided to change the name of the village. And he must have opposed the action of the meeting, hence his letter to the paper, as he puts up his convoluted argument to keep Bucksville and still use Port Byron. There is more to do. Is the Roswell Beardsley mentioned in the newspaper a part of the Auburn Beardsley’s? And who was Peter Cook?

This must have been quite a blow to Aholiab Buck, who had given his name to the settlement, and his land to settlers who would move here. Much of the old history states that it was John Beach and his mill that changed the name of the village, but this notice places the change six years prior, and as a action of a large number of the residents. Buck did sell off the rest of his land to Beach in 1831 and then moved west. But up till then, he continued to advertise land for sale in Bucksville.

John Harvey Beach and the Biggest Mill in the State

A 1839 portrait of John Harvey Beach.

Beach’s Mill (1830-1857) Port Byron

Anyone who has picked up any history of Port Byron has seen the description of Beach’s Mill; “In 1828, Mr. Beach settled in the place, purchased the water power on the Outlet, and built a raceway, two miles in length, thereby securing a head of twenty feet. Mr. Beach put up a mill with ten run of stone, capable of manufacturing five hundred barrels of flour per day. This was at that time, and for a number of years thereafter, the largest and best constructed flouring mill in the State. The building was 120 feet long, fifty wide, with a store-house attached, 80 by 40 feet, and an overshot wheel 22 feet in diameter. It was situated on the west side of the Outlet, and on the south bank of the canal, and had a branch canal under a portion of the store-house, which afforded great facilities for loading and unloading boats. The building cost $60,000, and employed 20 to 30 hands. A cooper shop, built of stone, 200 feet long, was connected with it, and supplied a part of the barrels used by the mill. The employment which this enterprise furnished, and the traffic it built up, was of great importance to the prosperity of the village.” As a Historian, I wanted to know 1) Who was Mr. Beach, and 2) Was his mill the largest and best constructed in the State? Here is what I found.

John Harvey Beach was born about 1784 in Connecticut. He was trained as a lawyer, but becomes a miller by trade. In 1809 he moves to Auburn and begins a long career in public service. In the War of 1812, Beach rallies the people of Auburn to march west to defend the homeland against a rumored British attack. By 1814, he joined into a partnership to open the first cotton mill in Auburn. In 1815, he was the local representative to the New York State Assembly and helps to incorporate the village of Auburn. In 1816 he aids in the establishment of the Auburn prison and in 1817, he helps to organize the first bank in the village. During this time he also helps to start schools, gives money to build the new Theological Seminary, opens more mills along the Owasco Outlet, builds other businesses, and sits on a board to investigate the construction of a Owasco and Auburn Canal between Port Byron and Owasco Lake.

At the same time, John’s brother, a General Ebenezer S. Beach was buying land in northern Cayuga County and in Rochester. In 1827, E. S. Beach and Thomas Kempshall opens a large flouring mill in Rochester. This mill was six stories tall and has room for sixteen run of stone, although it appears that only ten run are installed. This mill is the first in Rochester to use a elevator system to unload wheat directly from the hold of a canal boat. The mill was capable of turning out five hundred barrels of flour per day. It is not known (at this time) what became of the land he purchased in Cayuga County.

In 1830, John Beach spent $11,000 buying land in Port Byron. Some of this land is located on the bank of the new Erie Canal and next to the Outlet, which today would be across the creek from St. Johns Church. Beach also buys easements to many parcels of land south through the valley for the construction of a two-mile long canal headrace. He built the large flouring mill as described above on the south bank of the Erie Canal. Included is a slip for boats to dock while being unloaded or loaded. About a year later, John Beach and Company (Henry Kennedy, Thomas Kempshall, and E.S. Beach) buy land just to the west of the mill, near the canal lock. (The canal lock was the first lock built in Port Byron, not Lock 52 that can be seen today.) Here they built a large cooperage that made barrels in which was packed the finished flour. Somewhere between seventy to eighty men found work in this enterprise, which consisted of the saw mill and cooperage.

To understand the large mill, one needs to understand the nature of milling at this period of history. The romantic idea of a mill might be a miller bent over a turning stone, slowly pouring the wheat from a sack, grinding it into flour. This might have happened at one of the smaller mills in town. These were typically known as a custom mill, where the farmer traded a portion of his wheat to the miller in return for grinding the rest of his crop. But Beach’s Mill was a merchant mill, designed to process large quantities of wheat into flour. A mill such as this was highly automated, with the wheat being unloaded by an elevator, moved by screw type conveyors and gravity, cleaned by air blown by large fans, ground by many stones, sifted and packed, all without the touch of human hands.

All this machinery was run by the power of a large waterwheel. This is mentioned in the description, where it states that the wheel was twenty-two feet high. What is missing is the width of the wheel, but similar sized mills used wheels eighteen feet wide. The water to turn this wheel flowed through the canal that began two miles up the valley, south of Hayden Road. This canal can still be seen today as it follows the west side of the valley between Port Byron and Hayden Road. The beginning of this race can be seen just south of where Hayden Road intersects with Route 38. (Look just downstream from where the power lines cross the valley.) At this point Charles and Amos Parks owned a dam that impounded water and increased the amount of head to the mill. This dam also served Hayden's Mill which was built right at the intersection of today's Hayden Rd and Route 38. 

The question raised by the period description quoted above is “Was Beach’s Mill the largest and best constructed mill in the state?” It appears not to be totally true, nor is it a complete falsehood. John’s brother Ebenezer had built his mill in Rochester in 1827. His mill was at least as large as the mill in Port Byron, with ten run of stone, six stories tall, and a more reliable source of water, that being the Genesee River. Both brothers used the canal to transport wheat to their mills and to ship flour out. Ebenezer was the first to use an elevator to unload the boats, although this was something already invented years before by a Millwright named Oliver Evans.

An article in the paper states;

A Mammoth Mill- The American Miller of the 8^th inst[ant], describes Beach’s Mill, at Port Byron, as the largest in the State. It consists of ten run of stone, propelled by five overshot water-wheels, driving two run of stone each, with the necessary bolting and cleaning apparatus. This mill was built for the late Gen. Beach, by Robert M. Dalzell, Esq, assisted by the Messrs. Jewells of Rochester. Those gentlemen are widely known as most skillful millwrights. The mill is capable of turning out about 800 barrels of flour per day, and of consuming 3,500 bushels of wheat every 24 hours. (The Auburn Daily Advertiser, Monday November 17, 1851.)

Beach’s Mill was capable of turning out five hundred barrels of flour per day, but only if all the stones were running. What we don’t know is the size of the stones used to grind the wheat, and this would make a huge difference in these calculations. One barrel of flour weighs one hundred ninety six pounds, and it takes two hundred seventy two pounds of wheat to make one barrel. An average size (about four feet across) stone can make two plus barrels of flour in one hour, so if all the stones ran for twenty-four hours, the mill should produce five hundred twenty eight barrels a day. This would take one and half boats or about seventy-five tons of wheat. So while the period descriptions of the mill might be correct, there seems to be a tad bit of hyperbole involved.

In 1911, the Auburn Semi-Weekly said that the flour produced by the mill "maintained a reputation amoung New York City bakers for producing the best flour for cake baking of any of the up-state mills."

John Beach never settled in the village. He lived in Auburn. One of his partners, a Henry Kennedy, ran the business. Kennedy also began the process of laying out new streets in the village and seems to be a driving force in the expansion of Port Byron. Beach and Company bought large parcels of land in the village, seemingly planning for large-scale growth. Beach dies in 1839 and his son assumes John’s ownership of the mill.

In 1855, the mill is sold to Messrs Bradfield and Roberts. It is an odd time to buy such a large mill. By the 1850’s, the bulk of the milling business had shifted to the much larger city of Rochester. And in the 1850’s, talk of changing the route of the canal in the village threatened the mill and other businesses that relied on the waterway. A court battle raged between those who wish to move the canal slightly north and those who wish to see it enlarged along the old route. in 1857, the canal was shifted north, however, the State did allow the old canal to remain open to serve the mill. But this short dead end section was never deepened to the enlarged dimensions, so it was useless for canal transport.  In 1857 the mill burned. The Auburn paper states that the fire was started in the "smut Machine" and spread quickly, but that the origin of the fire was unknown. In 1906, John L. Davis told the Port Byron Chronicle that he was told that the fire was started by a night watchman who had left a candle burning in the grain room.  By this time, only twenty seven years after it was built for $60,000, the mill was insured only for $13,000. The loss of this large business and the non-related death of Henry Kennedy hurt the prosperous outlook of the village. In 1922, E.H. Kerns stated that “…Port Byron ceased to grow.”

Today Beach’s Mill is just a mention in our history books. The dams and millponds that once fed the water into the mills are all gone. Beach’s raceway remains only because it was used to feed water into the enlarged Erie Canal until 1917.