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Recalling the railroadin early HornellsvilleBy ROBERT F. OAKESA look at what was Hornellsville 122 years ago was set in print in November of 1926 from the memories of the late J.K. Chapman, renowned at that time as the city’s oldest Erie Railroad employe and a veteran of the war between the states.Chapman was 90 years old in 1926 bat recalled vividly the many landmarks of Hornellsville from visions stamped in his memory.A newspaper story published of Chapman’s memories of early Hornellsville 150 years ago noted: “The present city was at the foot of an incline to the goal of prosperity. Placed in a position of considerable advantage by the advent of the railroad, Hornellsville roused from the lethargy of years and detoured from the path of least resistance to the path of progressiveness.” Hornellsville, Chapman told an Evening Trtbune-Times reporter in 1928 as he referred to life three-quarters of a century before, “could be taken in at a glance in those days. The village consisted of Main St., Broadway, a part of Canisteo St. and Union Park.Union Park was never moved and the town grew around it virtually undisturbed until the arrival of the arterial known as Maple City Drive through the city. Union Park was then and is now one of the area’s best known landmarks.Instead of concrete walks electrically lighted and brick pavements bounding the green, the park then had more of the appearance of a fort. It was partially surrounded by a stump fence and was lined with hitching posts where farmers tied their horses and sold produce.Union Park 122 years ago was bounded on the north by a vast meadow in which huge trees of all kinds grew. There was no Seneca St. at that time and Chapman explained that the pasturage was used by a herd of cows owned by Rufas Tuttle, one ol the early pioneers here.The article goes on to say:“On the east, the famous Rose block stood. The property which now (1926) stands at the corner of Main and Union Sts. was recently bought by Dr. Alex Hall. This block was large for that period of architecture and housed a tin shop, a public hall and other enterprises.“Next to the Hall property was i house which has beensupplanted by the Steuben County Courthouse Building. This house was one of the best furnished in town and priceless pieces of furniture adorned the rooms. These were brought from the east by canal and carried to Hornellsville by stage prior to the advent of the railroad.“Near the present Steuben Trust Company was the old American Hotel run by Natty Chadwick. Chadwick had a nephew named Sherwood who for years was a stamp clerk in the Post Office in Washington. Mrs. Chadwick became acquainted with him at a national GAR eneompment years ago and Sherwood told him that his first visit to Hornellsville was in 1849 and the trip was made from Maine entirely by stage and boat.”The Erie Railroad came to Hornellsville in 1851 and Chapman recalled that in 1926 the tracks ran through the old creek bed and out through Cass St. to the railroad bridge at North Main St. His story also noted:“It was necessaty to fill in great hollow places in order to set the roadbed. The route had changed but little, but the higher grade on the Buffalo Division was established when the old bridge went out in a flood and was rebuilt 16 inches higher.” Chapman’s memories of Hornellsville in 1850 and ’51 continue:“Adjoining the tracks at Cass St. was the original Catholic Church which remained on that site until 1865. Adjoining tbe edifice which stood where George Peters’ battery station is now (a building since razed for the city’s Urban Renewal Program) was a proverbial Irish shantytown. Rude shacks with dirt floors were huddled on Erie property where Buffalo and Taylor Sts. are now located.”Chapman explained that residents of that shantytown area were a hard-working, reverent and likable class, mostly employed on the road. In later years squatter sovereignty is said to have been the cause of some litigations hut a few of the residents emerged with clear titles to property which was in the original Erie Land Grant.Chapman was a native of Friendship in Allegany County and came to Hornellsville to make his home following many years as an Erie Railroadbrakeman, fireman and engineer. He began his long career with the Erie in 1854, three years after the line appeared in this ar*»;»The Erie shops, according to the article related to the newspaper by the veteran railroad man, were of very small dimensions. A roundhouse big enough to hold three wood-burning locomotives was considered immense. Practically all the buildings were located between the present depot and Canisteo St.Fuel for the woodburners was piled in huge stacks where the Swift Packing Company building was located. Hours for the railroad men were long and hard.The veteran railroad man back in 1926 recalled that 75 years before that time the area in the vicinity of the Erie station was practically unsettled. The landmarks on what is now Loder St., many of which have since been razed, stood on what then appeared as a thick pine woods with an occasional shack appearing in the adjoining meadow, meadow.It was back in 1851 when the Canisteo St. section of the citywas being developed from country farming land to a residential area. Railroad men started to build at that time and the village limits extended below the old Franklin Hotel which stood where the Schwarzenbach and Hornell Breweries were located;Hornellsville began to grow after the Erie Railroad came to town and it continued to grow until such time as railroad employment here began to taper off during the late 1940's.Early industries started up, Chapman recalled in his 1926 article, and npted that, “In a few years the town boasted tbe shops, a tannery and a brick kiln operated by David Woolever and Lester Rockwell.Chapman recalled that tiie brick kiln used clay excavated from the site of what later became the turntable area at the Erie shops. He told of the time that North Hornell was known as Reynoldsville, when the Washington School site was occupied by a hotel operated by the McGee family and when Davenport and Adsit were the only department stores in the village.
Newspaper Details
Spectator
Wellsville, New York, US
Sun, Sep 17, 1972
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
NA, NA 21 Jun 2021
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