A Historical Survey and Analysis of Buffalo, New York’s African American Population: 1865 to 1918

By Michael Boston

Copyright ©2020 All rights reserved by the author.

In this paper, I will examine the history of African Americans residing in the City of Buffalo from 1865 to 1918. There is much that remains unknown, partly because their population figures were smaller and were marginalized compared to that of the white population. Yet, due to the work of historian Lillian S. Williams, who wrote Strangers in the Land of Paradise: The Creation of an African American Community, Buffalo, New York, 1900-1940 and historian Ralph Watkins, with his dissertation “Black Buffalo 1920-1927,” much more information has been collected than was readily available previously, initiating a strong budding historical record, allowing me to state with confidence that in the period from 1865 to 1918, African Americans not only adjusted to the Buffalo area but also acted proactively in fostering community development.[1] However, more historical work still needs to be done.

In 1865, at the beginning of the Reconstruction era, census enumerators recorded 711 African Americans residing in the City of Buffalo, 349 male, and 362 female.[2] At that time, the New York State Census Bureau labeled them as ‘colored persons.’ They resided throughout the city, with the majority living in Wards 4, 5, and 6. As conveyed in Table I below, 213 African American persons resided in Ward 4 (30%), 147 in Ward 5 (21%), and 122 in Ward 6 (17.2%):

Table I: 1865 City of Buffalo Wards 

Distribution of African Americans[1]    

                                                      Wards        Males        Females

                                                                      1                 1                  3

                                                                      2               13                18   

                                                                      3               16                14

                                                                      4               99              114 

                                                                      5               69                78   

                                                                      6               59                63

                                                                      7               10                  9

                                                                      8               31                28

                                                                      9               13                10

                                                                    10                2                  7

                                                                    11                4                  5

                                                                    12              21                  5

                                                                    13              11                  8

                                                      Total           349              362

Western New York and Aid to Ireland During the Great Hunger

by Harvey Strum, Sage Colleges
Copyright ©2020 All rights reserved by the author.

Whig Congressman Washington Hunt from Lockport, in Niagara County, proposed in 1847 that Congress vote $500,000 for the relief of the starving Irish and Scots. A similar proposal introduced by a Whig Senator from Kentucky won bipartisan support and passed the Senate. However, Democratic President James K. Polk indicated he would veto the measure if it also passed the House since he believed that foreign aid was an unconstitutional use of public funds. Congressman Hunt’s efforts to aid the starving in Europe failed, because Democrats in the House tabled the proposal to avoid a presidential veto. Instead, members of Congress and the Supreme Court participated in a meeting in Washington, D.C in early February 1847, chaired by Vice-President George Dallas, that encouraged the American people to create voluntary relief committees in each village, town, and city in the United States. Congressman Hunt served on the Resolutions Committee that urged every American to donate to help the Irish and Scots.

From Maine to the frontier of Wisconsin and Oklahoma Americans joined in a campaign of voluntary international philanthropy that turned the United States into the leader in international aid to the famishing people of Ireland and Scotland. Americans joined in a non-partisan and ecumenical effort of voluntary philanthropy as Americans contributed money, food, and clothing shipped through the nation’s major ports, like Boston and New York City, to Europe. New York City emerged as the leading port in the United States forwarding aid to Ireland and Scotland. American aid became a people to people movement with the people of New York state playing a major role in providing the required aid. [1]

The American press did not devote much attention to the conditions in Ireland until news arrived in November 1846 of the worsening famine and mass starvation. Newspapers reprinted stories from English and Irish newspapers. Some editors added their own commentary describing the impact of the famine and the need to help. People living in western New York learned about horrible conditions in the British Isles from their local newspapers. One Rochester newspaper told its readers “the accounts of the state of the country continue to be most distressing.” Reports indicated widespread “cries of…famishing children.” [2] Similar accounts appeared in the other Rochester newspapers of the bleak conditions in Ireland.[3] Readers of small-town newspapers saw similar stories. For example, in Ovid, in Seneca County, the Bee published part of a letter from Dungarvon: “The condition of the people is truly heart-rending. They are Starving.”[4] In Batavia, one of the newspapers reported on hunger marches in Ireland: “We have come because we are famishing because we have no food of any kind” and fear for our wives and children. In Dundee in Yates County, a local paper reported: “The famishing condition of the people is very fearful.”[5] Anyone with access to a newspaper in western New York learned of the frightful conditions in Ireland in November 1846.

Anti-Semitism

by Harvey Strum, Sage Colleges
Copyright ©2020 All rights reserved by the author.

Albany’s Jews saw anti-Semitism as a rejection of their identity as Americans and Jews. Political anti-Semitism by local political leaders did not exist in Albany or in other communities in the Capital District. Local politicians valued Jewish immigrants and their descendants as potential voters and wanted to assimilate them into the political process. Social anti-Semitism, however, became a major issue for Jews in all communities. In 1877, the Grand Hotel in Saratoga Springs denied admission to Joseph Seligman, a major Jewish banker, and associate of former President Ulysses Grant. The phrase that began to appear as No Hebrews, No Dogs Need Apply. Jews visiting Saratoga had to stay in Jewish owned boarding houses or hotels. Saratoga became infamous for shunning Jews. This symbolized the emergence of social anti-Semitism by the Protestant Anglo-American elite who wanted to distance themselves from the increasingly upward mobile segments of German Jews. They also wanted to prevent working-class Jews from coming to hotels, theaters, and races. Many Protestants in Saratoga or Albany despised Jews, whether upper middle class like Seligman or members of the working class. This evolved as the norm in the last quarter of the 19th Century. 

Social and economic anti-Semitism lasted for over one hundred years in the United States. For decades the Fort Orange Club, Albany Country Club, and University Club barred Jews. Even the most successful Jewish businessman knew he could not eat lunch at the University Club or play a round of golf at the Albany Country Club. Albany’s Jews of German origin responded by creating the Adelphi Club in 1873 and the Colonie Country Club in 1914. Most of the members belonged to the Reform synagogue Beth Emeth. Conservative and Orthodox Jews of East European origin established the Shaker Ridge Country Club in 1930.[1] Fraternal lodges, like the Masons, refused to admit Jews into existing local branches, and Jews formed the Washington Lodge, an almost exclusively Jewish branch. For a time, restrictive covenants prevented Jews from living on certain streets in the Pine Hills neighborhood. 

Educational institutions, private schools, colleges, and medical colleges limited the enrollment of Jews. Quotas emerged as the norm at many private schools and colleges in the country, starting with Harvard in the early 1920s and ending with Princeton in the 1970s. 

Administrators at the Albany Academy for Girls strictly limited Jewish enrollment because the parents of Christian girls “threatened to withdraw their children if the numbers of Jews were not kept down.”[2] Albany Medical College, adopted a similar method of limiting the admission of Jews to the percentage of Jews living in Albany. Administrators reflected the anti-Semitic values of many Americans in the 1920s to the 1940s, and admitting too many Jews might scare away the right kind of student at educational institutions like Albany Academy for Boys. From private primary and secondary schools to graduate schools of professional education, setting quotas on Jews became the national and local norm. Protestant students and their parents did not want to attend schools with too many Jews, and in some cases, this concern extended to too many Catholics.

Widespread discrimination in housing and employment concerned the average Jewish resident of Albany. Rather than confront housing bias publicly, the Jewish Community Council’s Committee on Alleged Economic Discrimination tended to privately confront bigoted landlords and realtors and pressure the malefactor to change his or her ways. Usually, sending a prominent member of the community worked as a strategy to reverse discrimination in housing and real estate purchases in Albany. Members of the community also faced glass ceilings on the employment of Jews in the city’s larger businesses. Utility companies in the Albany area were notorious for resisting the employment of Jews. Other companies and stores in Albany had their own internal quotas on hiring Jews. Once again, the Jewish Community Council attempted to reach out to companies privately to expand job opportunities for Jews.[3]

Quiet contact to counter anti-Semitic incidents became the strategy of the Jewish Community Council. When incidents occurred in the public schools in the late 1930s or 1940s, a member of the Council would approach school authorities. When a coach at a local college began ranting anti-Semitic diatribes to his student-athletes a member of the Council contacted the Board of Trustees to silence the coach. When a public official made anti-Semitic comments in 1939, the Council approached his superiors to reprimand the offending individual. Members of the Council reached out to the publisher of the Albany Times Union when the newspaper published hate advertisements that offended the Jewish community successfully pressuring the paper to cease publishing offensive material.[4] Wanting to prevent publicity about anti-Semitic incidents in Albany President of the Council, Sol Rubenstein, refused a request in 1944 from Councilmember Samuel Caplan to provide a report on the Council’s actions against anti-Semitism.

Nativist organizations established chapters in the Capital District. In the 1890s, the American Protective Association ranted about immigrants, especially Catholics, and an Albany chapter of the Immigration Restriction League railed about Jewish and Catholic immigrants from inferior races polluting the superior Aryan Americans. During the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan appeared in the Capital District harassing Jewish farmers in neighboring Rensselaer County, and the Klan held a convention in Albany much to the annoyance of the Jewish community. In the 1930s, the German American Bund, a pro-Hitler group, attracted enough local German Americans to start several chapters of the organization. Veterans of World War I established the Jewish War Veterans in 1935 to combat the anti-Semitic activities of the Bund. Albany Jewish Veterans joined with their Troy colleagues in March 1938 to block a meeting of the Bund in Germania Hall on River Street, in the Jewish section of Troy. Bund members wanted to celebrate Hitler’s forced union of Austria with Germany. Members of the Jewish War Veterans took a more militant approach with the Delmar branch of the Bund and drove to the Bund’s headquarters, getting into a donnybrook with Bund members.[5] Because of the upsurge in anti-Semitism in the late 1930s, several Jewish organizations banded together to form the Jewish Community Council in November 1938 (now the Jewish Federation).

Entrance into World War II produced a collapse of the Bund due to its pro-Hitler tendencies. Social and economic discrimination against Jews lingered but gradually declined by the 1960s due to civil rights legislation. Isolated incidents of vandalism and bomb threats have been the public manifestations of anti-Semitism. For example, in 1981, vandals defaced the shoe repair shop of Michael Shkaf, a Russian Jewish immigrant, and the Bagel Baron, owned by Joe Lewis with anti-Semitic stickers, both stores located on New Scotland Avenue, not far from five of the city’s six synagogues. In 2019 the Albany Jewish Community Center evacuated its building due to a bomb threat.6 Several bomb threats have been made to Jewish institutions in Albany since 2001. While none of these threats appeared real, they did lead to several synagogues and Jewish Federation adding to their security protocols. In 1963 Rabbi Naphtali Rubinger of Conservative Ohav Sholom, who wrote a doctoral dissertation on the history of Albany’s Jews, expressed concern that public institutions in Albany discouraged Jews “from observing the faith of their fathers.”[7] Rabbi Rubinger voiced his concern about two issues valid in 1963 and 2020---how sensitive are public institutions, like public schools and colleges, to the needs of Jews trying to maintain their adherence to Judaism and how can Jewish residents of Albany feel American while maintaining a separate identity as Jews, a tiny minority in upstate New York. 

After World War II, other Jewish organizations joined in the fight against anti-Semitism. SUNY Albany created a Jewish Studies program and a Jewish Studies Department offering courses and public lectures on anti-Semitism like the appearance at SUNY in 2019 of author Edward Berenson, The Accusation: Blood Libel in an American Town, who spoke on the blood libel charges against Jews in Massena, New York in 1928. The Holocaust Survivors and Friends sponsored lectures on the Holocaust in Albany and throughout the Capital District. A prominent Jewish family, the Golubs of Schenectady through the Golub Foundation-sponsored activities of the World of Difference in public schools. Several synagogues in Albany sponsored talks on anti-Semitism, including Reform B’nai Sholom, Reform Beth Emeth, and Conservative Temple Israel. 

Reform synagogue Gates of Heaven in Schenectady and Conservative Agudath Achim in Niskayuna also sponsored lectures about anti-Semitism. To commemorate the most savage example of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, the Jewish community of the Capital District started in 2017 designing a memorial to the Holocaust in Niskayuna, on ground donated by the Roman Catholic Church. When completed, it will become an educational tool to combat anti-Semitism and one of the few local memorials to the Holocaust.[8]

Schenectady

As in neighboring Albany, political anti-Semitism did not create problems, but social and economic anti-Semitism limited opportunities for Jews. Employment discrimination prevailed at large employers like General Electric until after World War II. Some smaller merchants would not hire Jews as well. Local public schools were not always sensitive to Jewish students. Union College, like many other academic institutions, imposed a quota on Jewish students despite the fact that Jewish students played a prominent role in student activities. In the 1930s, the president of the student council, David Yunich, tried to persuade Union College’s President Dixon Ryan Fox to combat anti-Semitism in college fraternities. Still, Fox refused to leave it up to each individual fraternity to eliminate discrimination, which lingered through the 1960s. While Fox showed his sympathy for the plight of Jews in Germany, he remained indifferent to local anti-Semitism. As a college president, Fox defended the Union’s use of quotas on the admission of Jews and endorsed the discrimination of fraternities against Jews. Only a few Jews, like Louis King, who graduated in 1888, attended Union College in the late 19th Century, but as the numbers rose to fourteen percent of the student body in 1929, Union imposed a quota of ten percent restricting Jewish admission for the next thirty years. Officials defended the practice as in the best interest of the Christian students at Union and as necessary to avoid an increase in anti-Semitism at the college if too many Jews attended. Oddly, Union never imposed a quota on the acceptance of money from Jewish alumni or donations from wealthy members of the Jewish community in Schenectady or elsewhere.

Social discrimination at Union College played a role in the establishment of Jewish fraternities, like Zeta Beta Tau, as early as 1909. When Jewish editors staffed the student newspaper, it would make more public attacks on the anti-Semitism at fraternities, and there were several exposes in the late 1940s and 1950s of prejudice at Union, especially during the 1952-53 academic year. In the 1960s, several fraternities still excluded Jews, and one Phi Delta Theta only allowed white Aryans to join as late as 1964. While the college finally took a stand against discrimination in 1960, fraternities and sororities ignored it until the 1968 Civil Rights Act forced Union College administrators to demand an end to discrimination against Jews, Catholics, Asians, and African Americans. Federal law and the fear of loss of financial aid and not the “goodwill” of Gentile college students and college administrators ended organized anti-Semitism at Union College. In the 1960s, Union lifted its quota, and Jewish numbers more than doubled over the next thirty years. Ironically, Union’s current library, Schaffer Library is named after a Jewish trustee, Henry Schaffer, the son of the first cantor and religious leader at Agudat Achim, who donated millions of dollars to Union College.[9]

In Schenectady, residents found themselves at odds with members of the Polish community in 1919 over pogroms aimed at Jews in Poland. Some members of the Polish Catholic community denied the existence of anti-Semitism in Poland, and they denied the attacks by Poles against Jews. Schenectady’s Jews protested the murder of about 30,000-40,000 Jews in Poland and organized a mass protest meeting in May 1919. Jews of the Capital District joined together in a second protest against pogroms in Ukraine in December 1919. Jews sent telegrams and petitions of protest to Secretary of State Robert Lansing and President Woodrow Wilson. The first Jewish defense group, the Jewish Citizens Committee formed in the wake of this confrontation in 1919, but it disbanded in the early 1920s.[10]

Actually, the first recorded incident of perceived anti-Semitism occurred in 1904 when a new minister, George Lunn, later Schenectady’s mayor and a congressman, delivered a sermon, “Unreasonableness of Jews Duplicated Today,” at the First Reformed Church. Rabbi Edward Chapman of Gates of Heaven immediately responded to this anti-Jewish Christian diatribe. An exchange developed in the press with some of the Gentile press siding with Lunn. Ironically, a decade later, Lunn became a leading local supporter of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Ku Klux Klan met in Schenectady in 1925, and there were concerns of possible conflict with a Jewish meeting of the Y.M. and Y.W.H.A.s in the city at the same time, but apparently, no clashes took place. Fear of anti-Semitism in 1935 led to the formation of Jewish War Veterans in the Capital District and the creation of a Schenectady chapter. Several chapters of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group, got organized in the 1930s, and this outraged Jewish war veterans. The local JWV chapters monitored the activities of the Bund and served as a catalyst within the Jewish community to organize against anti-Semitism. When Union College invited Fritz Kuhn, leader of the German American Bund to speak in December 1937, Jewish students joined with representatives of the Schenectady Jewish and Catholic communities to protest Kuhn’s appearance. President Fox citing freedom of speech refused to cancel Kuhn’s talk, and Schenectady’s Jews continued their protests against the American Nazi.[11]

In 1948, representatives of the Jewish community took part in an area-wide conference on prejudice in the region. Residents expressed concern in April of 1948 when a Polish spokesman, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, gave a talk in Schenectady because his past indicated an anti-Semitic background. The community became outraged in February 1949, when Union College’s drama club put on the Merchant of Venice. The Jewish Community Council protested against it and met with Union College President Carter Davidson, who declined to intervene in the student production. Rabbi J. Leonard Azneer of Agudat Achim and Harold A. Friedman, president of the Jewish Community Council, voiced the concerns of the Jewish community that the play promoted anti-Semitism. Still, the students staged the play in early March. Social anti-Semitism remained a problem well into the 1960s at the elite WASP Mohawk Club. City Manager Erwin Shapiro refused to attend a meeting of mayors at the club to protest its continuing restrictive admissions policies. Shapiro’s stand against social anti-Semitism and prejudice made the local press in February 1968. A related problem for local Jews was the continuing promotion of Christmas observances in public schools. This presented problems for Orthodox and Conservative Jews since it showed the indifference of public officials to the diversity of the community. Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s made clear that public observance of religion had no place in American public schools.[12]

Troy and Rensselaer County

Stereotypes published in the Troy press about Jews using sharp business practices served as the rationale for the emergence of social and economic discrimination against Jews starting in the 1860s. Escalating in the 1870s with the famous incident at the Grand Hotel in 1877 in nearby Saratoga Springs--- hotels, restaurants, resorts, clubs, and businesses barred or limited Jewish customers and employees until the 1960s. While the press described Jews as inoffensive immigrants, it did not prevent discrimination against Jews because Christian Americans viewed Jews as the “other.”[13] Even children felt the disapproval of their Christian schoolmates. In the 1870s and 1880s, a jingle popular in Troy and sung by school children across the United States went this way:

I had a piece of pork, I put it on a fork

And gave it to the curly-headed Jew

Pork, Pork, Pork, Jew, Jew, Jew.

Morris “Marty” Silverman, son of a tailor, grew up in Troy during and after World War I. Priests delivered sermons denouncing Jews as Christ-killers on Sundays. “and on Monday mornings, we Jewish public-school students were sometimes beaten up.”[14] Christian students at Troy HighSchool barred Jews from membership in fraternities and sororities. Jews remained the other.

Jews also faced occasional violence. In the late 19th Century, Troy was not “the spiritual home of National Brotherhood Week.”[15] Jewish immigrants, like peddler Hyman Bernstein, became the targets of “ugly incidents that victimized” Jews on the streets of Troy. A “group of streets urchins attacked him with stones “and presumably anti-Semitic epithets” in November 1883, and a French-Canadian saloonkeeper stole his peddler’s pack. Four years later, during the Fourth of July celebrations, Hyman and his son Sam “were in the center of a brawl on River Street that appeared to break down on religious lines---Jews versus Catholics.”[16] 

Jews found relations with their Catholic neighbors a confusing mix because individual Catholics might attack them. At the same time, other Irish, Polish, Ukrainian, or Italian Catholics in adjoining neighborhoods showed no animus to Jews. Gentile neighbors developed friendly relations with Jews who lived in South Troy, where there were few Jewish families since most Jews lived in the Jewish neighborhood near downtown. Catholic leaders, both religious and secular, worked with Jewish leaders and showed sensitivity to the concerns of the Jewish community. Troy’s Irish mayors in the late 19th Century, like Mayor Dennis J. Whelan, seeking the votes of Jewish immigrants, “religiously attended synagogue dedications.”[17] Political leaders in Troy kept a lid on public expressions of anti-Semitism because they wanted Jews to become political supporters and to assimilate them into the political process. Irish American political leaders embraced the Jewish community.

However, Protestant elites and many working-class Catholics and Protestants disliked Jews. As historian Hasia Diner concluded: “for them, Jews served as a collective symbol of alienness, of being different from everyone else, and at odds with the ideals of Christian America.”[18]

By the 1920s, 200 Jewish farm families lived in southern Rensselaer County, specializing in dairy, poultry, and vegetables. The Jewish Agricultural Society encouraged Jews to settle outside of large cities, like New York, and become farmers. In New York State immigrants who became farmers settled in Ulster and Sullivan counties, but by 1908 Rensselaer County had the second-largest concentration of Jewish farmers. There were two kosher butchers and a kosher bakery in Nassau in the 1920s. Jews established synagogues in East Schodack, East Nassau, and Nassau in 1925, 1927, and 1913, respectively. Local Jews did not publicize the dedication of the synagogues because they feared possible attacks from the Ku Klux Klan chapter in Chatham in northern Columbia County. Members of the Klan organized several chapters in Columbia County during the 1920s, posing a potential danger to Jewish farmers living in southern Rensselaer and northern Columbia counties. Their neighbors did not necessarily welcome the arrival of Jews as farmers. Local fraternal organizations, like the Odd Fellows and Masons, would not admit Jews. For their Gentile neighbors, Jews, even farm families, remained the “other.”[19]

Political anti-Semitism did not exist in the Capital District since local political leaders welcomed Jews as new potential voters. Mayors in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, whether Protestant or Irish Catholic, attended every dedication of a synagogue, showing that Jews were an accepted part of the community. Jews faced relatively few barriers for running for office and served as aldermen, judges, and school board members. Nativist groups, however, targeted Jews from the 1890s to the 1940s, including the Immigration Restriction League, Ku Klux Klan, German American Bund, and the Christian Front. Jews became occasional victims of violence on city streets by local Catholics, usually French Canadian or Irish. Ironically, Roman Catholic leaders embraced Jewish causes and befriended the Jewish communities in Troy, Schenectady, and Albany. Many priests delivered anti-Semitic sermons on Sundays, as did some Protestant ministers. Still, individual Catholic priests in all three communities worked with the Jewish community and showed up at major Jewish events, like Jewish Relief Day during World War I or joined in protests against Kristallnacht in 1938. 

While political and religious leaders demonstrated tolerance, their constituents did not necessarily share tolerance. Jews found this out when they tried to join the Masons or Odd Fellows or other fraternal organizations that barred Jews from local chapters, whether in Albany or Nassau. No Jew could eat lunch at the Mohawk Club in Schenectady or the University Club in Albany. In 1877, the Grand Hotel in Saratoga Springs set the pattern for social discrimination that spread throughout the Capital District. Gentiles, primarily of Anglo or Dutch origin, wanted Jews excluded. Educational institutions, whether Union College in Schenectady or the Albany School for Girls, limited Jewish enrollment to avoid scaring away their good customers, Protestant Anglo-Americans, who cringed at the sight of too many Jews. 

Many educational institutions, from private schools to professional schools, adopted quotas to limit Jewish enrollment. Jewish children in public schools could not join high school clubs, fraternities, or sororities. Some Jewish kids, like Marty Silverman in Troy or Issur Demsky in Amsterdam, faced hostility from their Gentile classmates.

Jews faced restrictions in housing and employment. The Grand Hotel set the model for rejecting “Hebrews,” and local realtors and landlords would not sell or rent to Jews in certain sections of the Capital District, like the Pine Hills neighborhood of Albany. Employers would not hire Jews or limit the number employed. For example, a resident of Amsterdam, twenty-eight miles northwest of Albany, remembered his father could not get employment in any of the mills because they would not hire Jews. 

Issur Demsky recorded the anti-Semitism in Amsterdam in the early 20th Century in his autobiography, and his father became a ragman because of the limited job prospects. Large employers and smaller retailers in the Capital District tended to limit the number of Jews they hired. Employment discrimination limited opportunities for Jews until after World War II. Social, educational, and economic, not political anti-Semitism, became the way Jews faced rejection in the Capital District from the mid-Nineteenth Century until the 1960s. For some Gentile Americans, as historian Hasia Diner concluded, Jews remained a symbol of otherness that did not belong in Christian America. What happened in the Capital District represented the national patterns of discrimination in America.[20]

About the author: Harvey Strum is a professor of history and political science at Russell Sage College in Troy and Albany. His most recent publications include: America’s Mission of Mercy to Ireland, 1880, New York History, 2018; Schenectady’s Jews, Zionism, New York History Review, 2019.

---

1 William Kennedy,  O Albany (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 225-26; Ira Zimmerman, Anti-Semitism in Albany, 

1933-1945 (Unpublished paper, November 22, 1975). 5-6, copy at Albany County Records Office, Albany, N.Y.

2 Zimmermann, Anti-Semitism, 6, citing an interview with Mrs. Anna de Beer, October 23, 1975.

³ Ibid, Zimmermann, citing an interview with a member of the Jewish Community Council, Judge Sol Rubenstein,     

  October 20, 1975. Also, he cited the Minutes of the Albany Jewish Community Council, October 15, 1940.

⁴ Ibid, Zimmermann, 7-8, citing Minutes of the Albany Jewish Community Council, January 1940. Also, citing 

 interview with Judge Rubenstein, November 6, 1975.

⁵ Ibid, 10, citing an interview with Sarah Jaffe and Louis Lieberman, past Commander of the Jewish War Veterans Post in Albany. 

⁶ Knickerbocker News, August 29, 1981.

⁷ Messenger, October 19, 1963, Records of Temple Ohav Shalom, Albany, New York. 

⁸ Albany Times Union, May 21 and 24, 2019.

⁹ Wayne Somers, ed., Encyclopedia of Union College History (Schenectady: Union College Press, 2003), 185-87, 189-91, 310-11, 417-19, 626-27, 682, 805. See for example, Lambda Chi Alpha Application From that bars 

candidates of Semitic blood, Special Collections, Schaffer Library, Union College, Schenectady, New York. 

¹⁰ Schenectady Gazette, May 15, 1919; Schenectady Jewish Community to Robert Lansing, May 16, 1919, 

Woodrow Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Schenectady Union-Star, May 15,16, December 8,  1919; New Jewish Chronicle, June 1919, 156, November 1919, 282. Schenectady Gazette, December 8, 1919.

¹¹ Schenectady Gazette, September 5, 7, 1925; Somers, Encyclopedia of Union College, 417; Concordiensis, 

December 1937 from the college newspaper;” Reverend George Lunn’s Sermon” Schenectady Gazette, February 1, 1904; “Rabbi Chapman Answers Mr. Lunn.” Schenectady Gazette, February 2, 1904.

¹² Samuel Weingarten to the Jewish Labor Committee, April 23, 1948, Schenectady folder, Jewish Labor Committee, Robert Wagner Archives, New York University; Schenectady Gazette, February 10-12, 1949.

Schenectady Union Star, February 12, 1949; Schenectady Gazette, February 21-23, 1968; Jewish World, 40^th

Anniversary, September 2005, 74-75.

¹³ Hasia Diner, A Time for Gathering : The Second Migration, 1820-1880 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 191-200; Howard Sacher, A History of the Jews in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1992, 274-334; Naomi Cohen, “Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age: A Jewish View,”  Jewish Social Studies 41  (Summer/Fall 1979): 187-220

¹⁴ Diner, Time for Gathering, 198.Interview of Rabbi Avraham Laber with Marty Silverman in 2000 when Silverman was 88 in Rabbi Avraham Laber, “Jewish Life in Troy, “ in Jim Richard Wilson, editor, An American Shtetl: Jewish History and Community in Troy (Albany: Rathbone Gallery of the Sage Colleges, 2001), 26.

¹⁵ Walter Shapiro, Hustling Hitler (New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), 27. Hyman was Walter Shapiro’s great grandfather. 

¹⁶ Ibid, 26-27.

¹⁷ Ibid, 27.

¹⁸ Hasia Diner, Time for Gathering, 193.

¹⁹ Jewish Agricultural Society, Jews in American Agriculture (New York: Jewish Agricultural Society, 1954), 16. 

Nassau Synagogue and Jewish Community Center, Sharing the Light (Nassau, N.Y.: Nassau Synagogue and Jewish Community Center, 2016), 6, 9-11. Chatham Courier, June 8, 1922; Hudson Columbia Republican, June 13, 1922.

²⁰ Issur recently died at 103. His autobiography is The Ragman’s Son (New York: Pocket Books—Simon and Schuster, 1989). Issur later changed his name to Kirk Douglas but never forgot the rampant anti-Semitism he and his family encountered in what he described as WASP Amsterdam.

Grounds of Expansion: The Seward Surveys of New York’s Natural History

by Zachary Finn

Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved by the author.

“This earth is undoubtedly a wreck of a former world; a new combination of old materials.”

 DeWitt Clinton, 1822[1]

“Nature has written her own annals on the globe we inhabit.”

William H. Seward, 1842

In 1817, the future New York State Governor (1839-1843), Senator (1849-1861), and Secretary of State (1861-1869) William H. Seward was simply a college student seeking to distinguish himself from the pack. Struggling through his second year at Union College in Schenectady, New York, the petite and diminutive young man-- he stood at only about five feet, and five inches tall--was fighting tooth and nail to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa.[2] Not only would induction mean having his “name enrolled in a society of which De Witt Clinton, Chancellor Kent, and Dr. Nott were members” (the latter two being a revered local judge and the college president,) but it would also allow the young man, as he put it, to “acquire great secrets of science.”[3]

While Seward tirelessly sought acceptance into Phi Beta Kappa, elsewhere, other “secrets of science” were being unearthed--including in Seward’s own backyard of Orange County, NY.

As Seward woke at 3:00 AM each morning, eager to unlock the mysteries of the natural world through “severe study,” a tusk from an enormous mastodon was found only five miles away from Seward’s hometown of Florida, NY.[4] His native Orange County had already been established as a hotspot of discovery after multiple mastodon bones, some dating before the American Revolution, were unearthed in the region. However, in 1799 the discovery of fossils in a clay pit at a family farm in Newburgh, NY, led both to the excavation of the site and a new booming interest in paleontology in the Hudson Valley. A rapid flurry of similar discoveries propelled a spike of early archeological digs in Orange County, culminating with the eventual display of a complete mastodon skeleton in 1801, the year of Seward’s birth.[5]


By 1817, while Seward was on campus in Schenectady, Orange County was the place to be for amateur paleontologists (though the word paleontologists had yet to be termed) and geologists alike, most of who were well-educated gentlemen-generalists who were interested in the study of natural history.[6] Similarly, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton was intrigued by these fields, and he would become an avid writer on subjects about science.[7]

How to Save an Island

By Emma M. Sedore

Copyright ©2020 all rights reserved by the author
photos used are permission of the author

View on the Susquehanna (above Owego). By W. H. Bartlett, 
5 x 7 engraving by C. Cousen, 1839

It is not uncommon for people to save historic buildings, but almost thirty years ago, a group of concerned citizens went a step further and saved an island; all 112 acres of it, along with its incredible history.

Hiawatha Island is the largest island in the NYS portion of the beautiful Susquehanna River, approximately three miles east of the village of Owego and twenty miles west of Binghamton.

First known as Big Island in the nineteenth century, it was a favorite subject of such painters as Thomas Doughty, William Henry Bartlett, Thomas Chambers, and Currier and Ives. Its rich history includes births, deaths, marriages, and almost everything in-between.

A poster used to entice tourists to the island.

Its earliest years began with Native Americans using it on a seasonal basis for farming, hunting, and fishing. It was mentioned in the journals of explorers as early as 1615 and land surveyors in the mid-eighteenth century. The island saw the armies of Generals Sullivan and Clinton swoop past in a deluge of rain during the Revolutionary War in August of 1779.

One of its most flamboyant periods began in1873 when a local group of businessmen dreamed up an idea to make it into a destination for tourists. They first built a steamboat right on the riverbank in the village of Owego to take them up and around the island, and everybody loved it. That led to building a four-story hotel, a dance hall, a bowling alley, and gravel walks that led to manicured picnic areas. Groups of people came from all over, including the very first reunion of the 109th Civil War volunteers. It was so popular that according to the old hotel ledger at the Tioga County Historical Society Museum, in Owego, thousands of tourists visited there from twenty-six states and nine foreign countries by 1884. In fact, the NYS Legislature passed a law on April 18, 1876, to allow the Susquehanna River to be dredged between Owego and Binghamton to allow the new 120-foot steamboat, Lyman Truman, to travel back and forth.

John D. Rockefeller talked about his boyhood connection with Hiawatha Island in his biography by Allan Nevins. The Kilmer brothers of Swamp Root Medicine fame, in Binghamton, became the owners in 1887 for more than a dozen years. Their plans included enlarging the hotel and installing medicinal fountains that they said would cure just about anything that ailed anybody. Still, when new business opportunities opened for them back in Binghamton, they called it quits and moved on. Its flamboyant days were definitely over.

The 20th century saw new owners. The first was a woman who always dreamed of using it as a summer home, without the noise of tourists. In the early twenties, it was purchased with plans to make it into a bible camp. That worked for a while, but it wasn’t long before the next owner came along. He owned the largest hotel in the village of Owego, and his plan was to use it to grow most of the food for the dining room. Because it was during the Great Depression, caretakers worked long, hard hours for just a dollar a day. They oversaw the gardens, the creamery, and caring for the animals. During this period, two babies were born on the island and sad to say, five drownings occurred, including the owner himself.

Hiawatha House, ca. 1890

Shortly after, a local doctor with seven children purchased it. When he died unexpectedly, the next owner came along with big dreams of making the island into a tourist attraction, wax museum and all; but because his plans fell through, he fought a long legal battle over it and lost it to an owner who put the island up for auction. In a way, this final chapter is reminiscent of the island’s flamboyant years.

News spreads quickly in a small village, and when several local businessmen heard that Hiawatha Island would be put up for auction, they made a huge decision to save it, especially because it was rumored that a land developer wanted it and knowing its history, that was unthinkable!

Their first plan of action was to raise enough money to go to the auction and bid on it, which was just a few weeks away. They contacted every person, organization, and business to raise the money, and when the day arrived on August 20, 1988 they had collected $42,000. That seemed enough until the opening bid started at $50,000! Not to be deterred, they allowed the group’s spokesperson to keep bidding, figuring they could get the rest of the money later. Bidding went on all afternoon until the land developer jumped his bid to $350,000. At this point, the group figured that if he wanted it badly enough, let’s make him pay for it; so they went ahead and bid $351,000 thinking the developer would say $352,000, but the gavel came slamming down with the auctioneer saying in a loud voice, “SOLD!” They were speechless, remembering that there was a ten percent auctioneer’s fee that brought the total cost to $386,100, and the total had to be paid up by October. It was all over the news. The television stations and newspapers mentioned it almost daily. Everybody was talking about Hiawatha Island.

A separate fund-raising committee called the Hiawatha Purchase Committee was formed, and frantic efforts were made to sell certificates for a square foot of the island at $10 each, which sold like hotcakes. Auctions, jamborees, and more were held, and fortunately, Paul Noel Stookey, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame, came to Owego and gave a benefit performance at the middle school. Needless to say, it was a sellout. Private individuals made generous loans, and more importantly, over a dozen people actually mortgaged their homes and businesses. By October, enough money was finally raised, and they even had a $15,000 check leftover!

That was the good part. The not so good part was that after the owner and the auctioneer were paid, the ad hoc fund-raising committee had to start all over again to pay back the good people who mortgaged their homes and businesses and gave generous loans.

Grants were successfully written and received from the J. M. Kaplan Fund, Norcross Wildlife Foundation, the local Mildred Faulkner Truman Foundation, and others. The local IBM plant was more than generous with matching funds by its many employees, donating thousands of dollars. The Purchase Committee never had a dull moment. They gave regular “breakfasts on the island,” which were extremely popular and profitable. They sponsored everything from garage sales, raffles, tee shirts, and everything they could think of. At the island for two days, an innovative dance company delighted and amazed visitors to fiddle music with their rendition of the island's history while flitting through the bushes and even hanging from the branches of trees.

Significant awards that boosted their morale included the NYS Outdoor Education Association, with the “Environmental Impact Award in recognition towards the improvement of environmental problems through research, conservation and/or political action. One of the more unusual awards was the Giraffe Award, by the Giraffe Project of the state of Washington. The key requirement to earn it was that we had to have the audacity to “Stick one’s neck out.”

After five years, the loans were finally paid in full. On a sunny autumn-scented day, October 23, 1993, a happy, upbeat crowd shuffled through piles of colorful leaves to the ceremony site on the island. They cheered when the deed was handed over to the Fred L. Waterman Conservation Education Center in Apalachin, N.Y. with the condition that the water-bound property is forever protected.

Waterman would use it for educational classes on Native American civilizations, conservation, and wildlife and is open and free for everyone to enjoy. As an added safeguard for

Hiawatha Island, a permanent easement, was made to the Finger Lakes Land Trust, which will make sure that no bridge or other permanent crossing would be built to the island.

It was once referred to as the “Island of Charisma,” and it seemed fitting because two of the volunteers fell in love and were married on the island May 15, 1993, the date chosen to correspond with the first wedding held there eighty years before.

Last but best of all, through respect for each other’s integrity and commitment, camaraderie developed among the group that still binds them today.


About the author: Emma M. Sedore has been the Tioga County Historian since 2001 and the Town of Owego Historian since 1987. As a result of her book, Hiawatha Island, Jewel of the Susquehanna, she was awarded the DAR History Medal, and a copy was placed in the DAR National Library in Washington, DC.

Don't Have a Cow!

By Lauren Letellier and Chris Atkins, Town Historians of Hillsdale, NY

Elsie

Over the years, a number of celebrities have lived in or visited Hillsdale. Some were not famous when they lived here but achieved celeb status elsewhere. But Hillsdale was always “home.” A case in point was Hudson River School painter John Bunyan Bristol, who was born in Hillsdale but achieved prominence in New York City. Even after he received worldwide recognition, he still spent summers at the Mt. Washington House.

Some believe that one of Hillsdale’s celebrities was "Elsie the Cow," the famous mascot and logo of the Borden Milk Company. We're sorry to report that the real Elsie the Cow never made her way to Hillsdale, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some Elsie history here in town.

Our story begins in Norwich, NY, where Gail Borden was born in 1801.

Gail Borden

After a few years, the family moved to Kentucky and then to Indiana. In his early 20s, Gail followed his brothers south, eventually working as a surveyor in Mississippi. By 1835, Borden – now married – had settled in Texas, working first as a surveyor and then as a newspaper editor, which is interesting since his only formal education took place during his two years in Indiana, and that was spent learning to be a surveyor. How he ended up editing a newspaper is still a mystery.

Borden was an inventor, although not always successful. One of his inventions was “the terraqueous machine,” a kind of sail-powered amphibious wagon that could make both thunder across the plains and glide into the waters of the Texas coast. Accounts of his first – and only – journey are not kind.

In 1849, Borden turned his attention to meat. Specifically, he created a meat biscuit similar to Native American pemmican. The meat biscuits were immensely popular during the California Gold Rush because the 49ers needed compact, lightweight, non-perishable supplies, and Borden’s meat biscuits fit the bill. Borden actually traveled to the 1851 London World’s Fair, where his biscuits were well received despite the fact that they looked like an old Pop-Tart and from all reports tasted like the box the Pop-Tart came in.

Doesn't this look yummy?

(A lot has been written about Borden, and we commend our readers to the library or Internet for a more comprehensive study.)

Sailing back from London, Borden was horrified to see that several children aboard the ship had died from drinking tainted milk. He wondered if there was a way to preserve milk indefinitely, and found inspiration from the Shakers with whom he had spent some time, possibly in Kentucky. He recalled that the Shakers had developed a process of evaporating fruit juice by vacuum and making it “shelf-stable,” as we would say today. Borden used a similar process and invented condensed milk. In short order, he founded the New York Condensed Milk Company.

Borden opened factories across New York State, including in Craryville, Copake, and Ancram.


By 1858, Eagle Brand Condensed Milk was a trusted brand and selling briskly. During the Civil War, the Union Army supplied the troops with Eagle Brand, an enormous windfall for Borden.

Borden died in Texas in 1874, but the New York Condensed Milk Company lived on, and in 1899, the company renamed itself Borden Milk Company in his honor.

Still with us? Here’s the Hillsdale connection:

The cartoon logo of "Elsie the Cow" was created by Borden’s director of advertising, Stuart Peabody, in 1936

Peabody was a lifelong Hillsdale weekender with a farm on Taconic Creek Rd., off of West End Rd.

Peabody Corner

(Some sources credit New York advertising agency maven David William Reid with inventing Elsie. It’s often said that “success has a million fathers; failure is an orphan.” In any case, if Reid did indeed come up with the idea, it most certainly would have been by the direction of his client, Stuart Peabody. So we give Peabody credit, and so does Advertising Age. However, a New York Times obituary states that a Borden illustrator, Walter Oehrle, actually drew the cartoon, again at Peabody's direction.)

In a few years, Elsie became the most popular company mascot ever. The logo can still be found on Eagle Brand cans in stores across the country, and the Elsie logo is considered to be an icon of advertising history.

In the 1930s, Borden Milk Company invented the new-fangled milking machine called the "Rotolactor," which Borden proudly displayed and operated at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. During one demonstration, it is said, a girl asked the Borden representative, “Which one is Elsie?” Thinking fast, the Borden man looked around for the friendliest looking cow and selected a Jersey named “You’ll Do, Lobelia,” born in Brookfield, MA in 1932. Rechristened and festooned with a necklace of daisies, “Elsie” became the biggest hit of the World’s Fair

Elsie began making celebrity appearances throughout the Northeast. Still, demand for Elsie extended throughout the nation, and it soon became clear that there was a need for a few more Elsies, strategically located around the country. Sad to say, “You’ll Do, Lobelia” died in a tragic accident in 1941 and is buried in Plainsboro, NJ. Here’s the headstone.

"You'll Do, Lobelia
A pure bred Jersey cow
One of the great Elsies of our time"

You can go see it if you happen to be in Plainsboro and find yourself with absolutely nothing else to do.

The remaining ersatz Elsies soldiered on, appearing at War Bond rallies, store openings and fairs across the country.

But did Elsie ever grace Hillsdale with her bovine charm? There is no evidence that she did, although some residents recall visiting “Elsie” at the Peabody farm. Obviously, anyone can name a cow Elsie, and perhaps Stuart Peabody did.

But just like George Washington, the real Elsie the Cow never slept in Hillsdale.

About the authors: Lauren Letellier and Chris Atkinsare co-Town Historians for Hillsdale, NY. They publish a (mostly) monthly blog about Hillsdale history. Their blog is hillsdalehistorians.wordpress.com

The Trials and Tribulations of Homer’s Circus Owner, Sig Sautelle

by Martin A. Sweeney

Sig Sautelle

Over a hundred years ago, there must have been something thrilling about a circus coming to town and perhaps something even more enthralling about a circus coming to town to spend the winter. Such must have been the case for young people in the Cortland County village of Homer in the 1890s when Sig Sautelle’s Circus came parading down Main Street. There were cavorting clowns, bareback riders, trapeze artists, tumblers, high-wire performers, and exotic animals. The Circus had 225 people on the payroll; boasted two elephants, 14 cages of animals and 150 horses, and ponies (according to John C. Kunzog’s book Tan Bark and Tinsel, 1970). For twenty-five cents one could enjoy one of two performances per day in one ring under one big tent set up on a large lot at the corner of Cortland Street and Copeland Avenue.

Then, starting in 1900, some of the performers and animals took up headquarters for the winter months at three red-painted, octagon-shaped buildings (one with a cupola still stands) and other structures at the south end of Main Street. Circus employees filled up the hotels in Homer, and their children attended the academy on the Green. “Sig,” its popular owner, was known for his big cigar, a diamond pin in his lapel, and ventriloquism skills he had learned while a drummer boy during the Civil War.

According to James P. Hughes (“Homer’s Sig Sautelle.” Life in the Finger Lakes. Summer, 2008),

In Homer’s confectionery store, to give the impression of a man trapped in the basement, he would carry on a conversation through a hot-air register in the floor with a helpless voice below howling, “Let me out, let me out!” As the children gazed through the grate bewildered, Sig stood by with a twinkle in his eye.

With these tantalizing influences, how many local boys contemplated running away with the circus come spring? Perhaps they would have reconsidered if they knew what events lurked ahead.

Circus tent

Judging by the newspaper accounts of the day, circus life, at least outside the ring, was not all that glamorous. For George Satterly (Sept. 22, 1848 – June 21, 1928) – sometimes spelled Satterlee and better known as “Sig Sautelle” – there seemed to be plenty of unwelcomed, even dangerous, challenges for a flamboyant circus showman whose show traveled via road, the Erie Canal, and railway to communities primarily in New York State. While his ads, such as one in the Daily Argus of July 5, 1901, enticed the people of Mount Vernon, NY, and elsewhere to take in “A Vast All-Star Programme of sensational and exclusive features in its arenic department,” other newspaper articles present a sampling of the traumatic events associated with Sautelle’s traveling entertainment extravaganza.

For example, there was a negative reputation borne by circus people that comes through in The Port Chester Journal’s reporting of an incident (Thursday, July 18, 1901). It seems that during the evening show at Port Chester, Sautelle ordered a police officer to arrest a lad named Eddie Hutchins, a Port Chester lad “who had been with the circus for some time” as it made its way through the Hudson Valley. Sautelle claimed, “he had discharged him in Albany and that he had followed the circus ever since and he wanted him arrested and taken off the grounds.” Sautelle further maintained he had paid Hutchins upon termination and had the receipt. However, Hutchins countered that Sig Sautelle had "fired" him without paying him what his due was and that “he had followed the circus around in the hope of getting his money.”

The officer believed that in ordering the arrest of Hutchins, Sautelle would appear in court against him. He claimed Sautelle had vouched "his lawyer" would be present and appear against Hutchins. The lad was locked up for twenty-four hours before a justice of the peace was available to hear the case. At the hearing, neither Sautelle nor “his lawyer” appeared. Without a complaint brought forward, Hutchins was released. And Sautelle’s Circus had already departed, leaving the lad in the dust.

The newspaper went on to state that while Hutchins was admittedly an unsavory character, “this does not alter the case…. There was no warrant for his arrest, and the officer was clearly in error in arresting him on the word of a circus-man. The integrity of Sautelle may be all right, but circus men are birds of passage and the officer should have known this. He should not have taken as gospel what Sautelle told him.” The paper further noted that “in the wake of all circuses, there is a miscellaneous following which drift in with the vans of the road.” The paper called them “camp followers,” but maintained that Hutchins [mind you, a local boy] had an “outrage” imposed upon him. “Hereafter,” the paper concluded, with a stereotypical bias, “there should be some discretion used in making arrests of persons on the order of circus men. As a class, we are not stuck on the Canvass Knights who are not loath to resort to all kinds of acts to gather in the shekels.”

The next incident, as reported by the Syracuse Evening Herald on August 17, 1901, occurred in Saratoga, NY. This time, J. Charles Banks of Seneca Falls, the manager of Sig Sautelle's circus, shot and killed Herbert Tackaberry of Ottawa, Canada, at 8 P. M. on the 16th at the South Broadway circus ground. “Tackaberry had been following the circus, running a gambling outfit,” reported the paper, “and for some reason left, it is supposed because his presence was not desired.” He returned on the 16th, the shooting resulted, and Banks claimed it was in self-defense.

The coroner was summoned. He examined the body. One of the shots took effect in the right temple and went clear through the head. The other entered just below the ear, severing the jugular vein and carotid artery. The coroner concluded death must have occurred within five minutes after the shooting. Banks was arrested on the charge of murder in the first degree.

Banks was taken to police headquarters and jailed. The examination of Banks took place around midnight that night before Justice Delaney. C. B. Kilmer and W. P. Butler appeared for the defendant and Assistant District Attorney McKnight for the people. To take the testimony of several employees who had been subpoenaed, the examination was not held until after the circus’ evening performance. The courtroom was filled with a good many of Sautelle’s employees when the proceedings commenced.

After the formal charge of murder in the first degree was read and a plea of not guilty entered, Richard Raymond, ticket seller for Sautelle’s show, was called to the stand. He stated that he knew Banks and Tackaberry and was standing at the entrance to the main tent when he saw Tackaberry sitting to one side of the entrance and Banks opposite him on the other side. He said Tackaberry got up and started towards Banks with his hand at his hip pocket. Banks then took hold of Tackaberry. A scuffle ensued, and shots fired. Tackaberry fell to the ground. Raymond testified he heard nothing said between the men and “it was only an instant between the time of the scuffle and the firing of the shot.”

Under cross-examination, Raymond said that he had been with the show since the 10th of May and knew both men personally. He said that Tackaberry followed the show with a “gambling game” and was a "grifter.” He had remained with the show two weeks, but on the 16th came as a visitor. Raymond said on one occasion he had been shown a revolver by Tackaberry and was told that if ever Banks told anything about him, he would "croak" him. On another occasion, he had said that if he (Tackaberry) were obliged to leave the show, he would get even. Raymond stated, “Tackaberry carried two revolvers, one in his hip pocket and the other in his vest pocket, wore brass knuckles at times, and carried a cane and a lead Billy club. Some witnesses testified that the weapon was in Tackaberry’s possession and that he "was loading it apparently for use when Banks snatched it and fired the two shots.” Hearing the shots, a crowd collected in time to see Tackaberry fall, and Banks start to run away. Chase was given, and Banks was readily captured when he saw that escape was impossible. But he managed to dispose of the weapon, which had yet to be found. Circus employees called Banks “an inoffensive sort of fellow.” They were surprised he had even resisted.

After the people rested their case, Clarence B. Kilmer for the defendant moved to discharge the defendant because the shooting was justified. It was overruled by the court, and the District Attorney would not accept a plea of manslaughter. It was ultimately determined that Banks be held to await the action of the grand jury on the original charge of murder in the first degree. During the coroner’s inquest, about fifteen witnesses testified Tackaberry had at various times threatened Banks with violence, which was similar to that brought out in the police-court examination. The coroner exonerated Banks.

Residents of Homer, New York, must have found some irony in the Cortland Evening Standard of Monday, August 19, 1901. The paper noted Banks was to stand trial and added the following: “It will be remembered that the grand jury of Cortland County on Feb. 4, 1901, reported six indictments, two of which were sealed. One of these was against Tackaberry for assault on the person of a man by the name of Morrison. Tackaberry then worked in Thurston's winter garden. He was given a hint of the indictment before the grand jury reported, and he skipped to Canada and had not been found by the officers.”

Banks was acquitted on November 15, 1901. The following notice appeared that day in the Waterloo Observer: “The many friends of J. Charles Banks, of Seneca Falls, were pleased to note this morning that his trial for the murder of Herbert Tackaberry… had been finished and that the jury, after being out five hours, had returned a verdict of not guilty.” The verdict must have been a relief for Sig Sautelle as well, whose business had moved on since the incident, following the adage “The show must go on.”

It was not just the humans associated with Sautelle’s Circus that got into deadly scuffles; the animal performers did, too. On June 4, 1902, the Cortland Evening Standard reported that a tiger in the Sautelle menagerie had escaped from his cage while on a moving train and got into a horse car. A terrible fight occurred between the tiger and the frightened horses. Several horses were badly lacerated and bitten. A horse named Toby fared the worst but managed to kill the tiger, breaking its ribs and neck. The Poughkeepsie Eagle of May 31 described the ferocious attacker as a year-old, 400 pound Bengal tiger in Sautelle's circus and said, “It is fortunate the tiger in escaping entered the horse car instead of jumping off the train and taking to the woods where he would probably soon have attacked people.” The Eagle said the circus train was headed for Poughkeepsie when the battle occurred and that it was “a bloodcurdling affair while it lasted.”

There has always been conjecture regarding the fate of some of Sautelle’s elephants. According to local lore, some were buried in the field in Homer that was once known as Contento’s junkyard. Judging by the following article in the Cortland Republican for November 30, 1905, Sautelle may have, indeed, pondered burying one problematic pachyderm in Homer.

BIG ELEPHANT BREAKS LOOSE

"Duke," Sig Sautelle's Ugly African Elephant Breaks from His Moorings at Headquarters, and One of His Keepers Narrowly Escapes His Murderous Attack.

There was plenty doing at the animal house at Sig Sautelle's headquarters last Monday morning. Soon after daylight, "Duke," the big and ugly African elephant which was chained to a big post in the animal house, made a lunge at one of his keepers. The post to which he was attached broke off under strain and liberated him. Mr. Marrow, the expert animal man, and manager, was quickly summoned and hastened to the quarters. "Duke " had chased one of his attendants into a corner, knocked him down, and made a vicious lunge at him with his single tusk. The tusk providentially missed the man's body and went below his legs. Other attendants with pikes attacked the elephant and made him back away and Mr. Morrow secured a long pike in use by telephone linemen, who were working close by, and hastening to the rescue drove it into the elephant's trunk.
As soon as the man was rescued from his perilous position and the others had found places of safety, about 100 grains of morphine was administered to the elephant. It was given in water first, but "Duke" detected something wrong with the water and drank only a few swallows. Then the bread was soaked in the water and fed to him, and more was placed in apples which he seemed to relish. About fifteen minutes were required to get the desired amount of the drug down the big brute. Fortunately, with the exception of smashing up some woodwork, little damage was done. The stoves, fortunately, were not overturned, and as soon as possible, the fires in them were extinguished. After some time, the morphine began to take effect and along in the afternoon, “Duke” became drowsy enough so that he was able to be again chained securely to a post which it will be very difficult for him to break. The other animals in the house were greatly excited during the elephant's rampage, and there was a lively time all around till the morphine took effect and quieted the angry elephant. The beast has been Sautelle's property for about a year and has given much trouble by his treacherous and ugly disposition. Mr. Morrow said he was a sorry looking beast Tuesday morning, the morphine having evidently given him considerable distress. Mr. Morrow said enough was administered to kill 150 men.

Marital spats among circus employees are hard to ignore when traveling and living in close quarters. One such conflict made it into the May 22, 1903, issue of The Waterville Times: “One of Sig Sautelle's hyenas was devoured by its mate, while en route from Oneida to Rome. When the cage was opened, the blood spatters were seen, and naught remained but the bones.”

The same newspaper revealed on January 26, 1912, that a circus performer had such a disagreeable personality he simply had to be terminated:

“Kruger,” the African lion which was purchased last spring for $1,000 by Sig Sautelle and kept in winter quarters at Homer, was shot last week having become so viciously ugly that he fought his keepers and no one could be hired to longer care for him. “Kruger” had killed two keepers and injured others. An attempt was made to put him to death by poison, but he detected an unusual smell in the meat and refused to eat. Chloroform was then tried, but he knocked away the saturated sponge with his paw as fast as it was shoved under his nose, and finally he was shot.


The following from the Waterville Times of October 4, 1912, presents a concise summation of how Sautelle dealt with the trials and tribulations of being a showman, including inclement weather:

Sautelle appeared in Waterville on Wednesday afternoon and evening according to schedule, giving two excellent performances. The circus travels by wagon and had experienced some very bad
roads during the past week. On the way from Worcester to Cooperstown, where the company showed last Saturday, one of the lion cages toppled over and turned a complete somersault
down an embankment, breaking the reach and otherwise damaging it. The circus is now on the way to winter quarters in Homer, after a most successful tour. Sig Sautelle is one of the oldest circus men
on the road, and small disasters like a deluge of rain or the tipping over of the menagerie merely cause him to puff a little harder on the cigar and gaze quizzically out over the rim of his glasses. The
circus left Cooperstown in the pouring rain on Sunday, Richfield Springs being their next stop. They came here from New Berlin and left yesterday morning for Morrisville.
Circuses faced incredible expenses, and that could have devastating economic consequences, as The Holley Standard of Holley, NY, (December 17, 1914) posted in this notice:

George C. Satterlee, better known as Sig Sautelle, the circus man, who resides at Homer, Cortland county, and was in this section with his circus for several seasons past, filed a petition in bankruptcy in Utica Saturday with unsecured liabilities of $33,103 and nominal assets of $3,815. His fifty creditors are scattered. All that is left of the circus is a spotted horse and mule.

Sig Sautelle

George Satterly and his ailing wife, Ida Belle, took up residence in 1915 on a small farm outside of Homer. That was about the time, according to the late Homer historian R. Curtis Harris, that the Wharton Moving Picture Company of Ithaca (the Hollywood of the silent film era) came to Homer to film a segment with the famous actress Pearl White. Extras were the many circus performers who still made Homer their home. Sig must have enjoyed it. For three days the glory of ,his old Circus was reenacted, if only for the camera (“Sig Sautelle: A Circus and an Era.” The Crooked Lake Review. October, 1995).

In 1927, the year before he died, Sautelle, then a widower, tried to give it another go. With the improvement in roads, he decided to use the new large, motorized trucks to move his new show. Caught in a downward whirlwind of credit and a fluctuation of prices, Sig's show failed the first year. To the end of his five-decade career in entertainment, Sautelle contended with ups and downs, earning his rightful place in the Circus Hall of Fame, and, for a while, Homer’s fame was tied to that of Sig Sautelle’s highly respected traveling circus.

About the author: A retired history teacher and previous contributor to the Review, Sweeney is the historian for the Town and Village of Homer, NY. He authored Lincoln’s Gift from Homer, New York: A Painter, an Editor and a Detective (2011) and a historical novel titled The Suffragette’s Saga: A Murder Mystery (2019).