Benjamin Carpenter, First Mayor Of Lockport
Like all other towns in the County, Lockport had a Company of State Militia. Once a year, this company gathered at one of the County Military Camps for a week of regimental drilling with the companies from the other towns. In the Village of Lockport was Camp Riley, located on the escarpment between Transit and Prospect Streets, and possibly extending a little way into the present. Outwater Park.
When the Civil War was declared in April 1861, Lockport became a beehive of military activity. Wm. H. Bush, who kept an Oyster Saloon under the Lockport Exchange Bank, learned of President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers in some way before the official notice was received. He immediately tacked a poster on the Pine Street wall of his saloon asking for recruits to form a company of which he would be automatically, Captain. He thus became , and was later acknowledged by the G.A.R. to be the first volunteer for the Civil War. Soon, ten other recruiting stations appeared around the village and the 28th, 151st, and 129th (later the 8th Heavy Artillery and one or two other Regiments, composed largely of Niagara County men camped and drilled on the Old Fairgrounds at Washburn and Willow Streets. In this and the succeeding wars, Lockport has always furnished its quota, and many of our boys have gained great military distinction.
The military room at the Niagara County Historical Center, at 215 Niagara St., contains rosters of the various companies recruited in Niagara County as well as military equipment used by our soldiers.
Serious discussions as to the desirability of Lockport petitioning the Legislature for a City Charter began as early as 1852. Many public meetings were held. In 1853 a City Charter patterned after that of Buffalo was prepared. It was not until April 1865 that it was submitted to the Legislature and on April 11, the Act making Lockport the first city in Niagara County was passed.
There were only two wards in Lockport prior to 1865. The new City Charter that year specified four wards with two aldermen and one supervisor from each ward. The population was about 11,000.
Sixteen hundred and seventy-three men voted at the first City Election on May 9, 1865.
Benjamin Carpenter, First Mayor Of LockportBenjamin Carpenter who had been President of the Village Board in 1864 was elected Mayor of the new city. His salary was set at $100.00. Those elected for the first Common Council were as follows: First Ward - Isaac Allen - Mortimer N. Southworth; Second Ward William H. Fursman - David C. Huff; Third Ward - Josiah L. Breyfogle and S. Rollin Daniels; Fourth Ward - Andrew W. Brazee - Hopkins C. Pomroy. Supervisors for each ward were Henry F. Cady, first ward; Horatio Kilborne, second; Thomas T. Flagler, third, and Morrison W. Evans, fourth ward. Richard Crowley was appointed City Attorney, Joshua Gaskill, City Clerk, and P. D. Walter, City Treasurer.
The first meeting of the Common Council was held in Joshua Gaskill's office. After that for many years meetings were held in the Arcade on Pine Street where now stands the Eagles Temple.Four days before Lockport became a city, General Lee surrendered* his army to General Grant, thus virtually ending the Civil War. Four days after our transition to a city, President Lincoln was assassinated and shortly after the assassination the funeral train, draped in black, steamed slowly through Lockport.
In 1864-65 the Holly Mfg. Co. were laying water pipes in the Lockport streets with fire hydrants at regular intervals. In November 1865 the Hydrant Hose Co. #1 was organized and so named because they were the First Hose Co. in the state and quite possibly in the world to use water from hydrants to battle fires. Birdsall Holly invented the system including the powerful pumps that were necessary.In 1865 the unpaved streets of the city were illuminated at night by gas lamps. Automobiles were not even envisioned. Horse drawn hacks were the only taxi's of those days. Main Street was often so congested with farmer's rigs that the fancy coaches of the rich with the liveried driver and coachman could only with difficulty pass through the street.
On lower Market Street and upper Locust Street (called the Hill) were the residences of the aristocrats who rode to their offices and on Sunday to church in these fancy coaches.
That year of 1865 there were in Lockport four newspapers, two weekly and two dailies. Five banks were available to our people. Fifty-six retail groceries are listed in the 1865 City Directory. Thirteen hotels, three of them comparable to any in Western N.Y. were available for travelers. Seventeen churches contributed to the religious needs of our people.
Six flour mills represented one of the main industries in our city. To ship the flour and the 20,000 barrels of beer and ale from three breweries together with whiskey from two distilleries, and apples from nearby orchards required our eight cooper shops to make 200,000 suitable types of barrels each year.
There were twelve lime kilns in operation and five quarries in or near the City. Eight foundries and sixteen blacksmith shops consumed vast quantities of iron. Eight carriage shops provided all types of horse-drawn conveyances.
Our streets and many homes were lighted with gas. The New York Central served our industries and our traveling public. As to the Canal which meant so much to Lockport in 1865, the surplus water passing around the locks made available to our industries in Lower Town some 3785 horse power.
The traffic on the Canal that year of 1865 averaged over one hundred boats every twenty-four hours. Some peak days saw nearly one hundred and fifty boats pass through the locks. Despite the railroad and stage coaches, packet boats on the canal still carried many passengers but the patronage was declining rapidly each year. Many more important factors in the community life of our city are available in this office of the Niagara County Historian.
During the 44 years which elapsed between the naming of the hamlet in 1821 and the attainment of City-hood in 1865, many men and women brought prestige to Lockport in one field or another. Some of the most outstanding should be remembered by all students. Space forbids giving details of the lives of the following outstanding men and women of whom Lockport can be especially proud. Dozens of others deserve mention but only those attaining national prominence are listed. Orsamus Turner, Lyman A. Spalding, Orange H. Dibble, Lot Clark, Washington Hunt, Jesse Hawley, Mark Hopkins, Potter Palmer (only 2yrs in Lockport) Belva A. Lockwood (Union school teacher for 4 years) Birdsall Holly, Richard Crowlet, John Hodge, Thomas T. Flagler, Dr. Sarah A. Cushing, Prof., Othniel Marsh, John A. Merritt and Judge Cuthburt W. Pound.
Students could profitably write of the lives of any of these men and women.
In 1886 the old part of the present Court House was built and in 1892 the brick jail, which was torn down in 1961. The present jail is located on Niagara Street extension.
The original settlers of Lockport as has already been stated were of American birth and largely from the eastern part of New York State or from various parts of the New England States.
Construction work on the canal in 1821 and 1825 brought more than 1200 Irishmen to the Lockport area and less than half of them moved away after the Canal was finished so that a great many families in Lockport today trace their ancestry back to these original Irish immigrants.
The familiar "melting pot" of the United States has operated in Lockport to quite an extent in the mingling of American, Irish and Italians. Prior to the arrival of the Italians in the early 1900's some German families from among the 1843-52 wave of German Lutherans that settled in several parts of the County, moved to Lockport, but broadly speaking the composite population is as stated -American, Irish and Italian. A sprinkling, of course, of natives of nearly every European Country is to be found here.
The Lockport Locks - Circa 1890
Beginning just before the turn of the century there was a strong demand from many sources for an enlargement of the Canal system and the discarding of mules and horses as motive power. The State in 1905 appropriated 101 million dollars for the purpose. Work in our section began in 1908. In 1910 four stores from the Cottage Street bridge east to the alley on Main Street had to be torn down. The Fire Alarm Tower was moved to Darrison Park from its site near the bridge.
The Cottage Street Bridge was torn down and replaced by an extension of the Big Bridge, now one of the widest bridges in the world. The enlargement was completed in Lockport in 1918 and five of the old locks had been replaced by two large modern locks. The five old locks on the west side were retained for small craft but are now merely a spillway for excess water. Now, in 1959 due to competition of trucks, canal tonnage has decreased to such an extent that efforts are being made to have the Federal Government take control of it.
Our largest and nationally known Holly Mfg. Co. suffered from one of the first major strikes in Niagara County. (The story of the evolution of the Union movement in Lockport is an interesting topic for some student to pursue.) The bitter feeling engenered by this strike and an offer from the Worthington Pump Works of Buffalo to amalgamate with them induced the Holly Pump Works to move to Buffalo. Between five and six hundred men were then out of work. Many of the foremen were transferred to Buffalo and moved their families there. The last casting made in Lockport was in 1904.
On November 2, 1854 Lockport's most serious fire occured. Starting in the "Lockport House" located just west of where now is the Lox-Plaza it spread northwesterly. Eventually with the aid of two fire engines from Buffalo (brought down on flat cars on the rail road) it was extinguished but not until three hotels, two churches, eighteen stores and eight houses and a barn were consumed.
In 1865 Lockport's most famous hostelry, The Washington House which had entertained Gen. LaFayette in 1825, was destroyed by fire with several adjacent structures. This stood on the site of the present Park Hotel.
In 1909 Lockport suffered two disastrous fires. The first was the Boston and Lockport Block Factory below the hill on the east side of Market Street. It was a five story building which had been erected in 1859 by local business men to provide floor space for new industries. Their optimism paid off, for the fifth floor was rented soon after completion. by the Holly Manufacturing Company. The other four floors were likewise rented. In a comparatively short time the Holly Manufacturing Company expanded to such an extent that they built a group of stone buildings between Lock and Gooding Streets. The office building was very near the north bank of the Canal. This group of buildings, largely vacant since 1904, were also gutted by fire.
The Franklin Mills, manufacturing Wheatlet and occupying the four story stone building built in 1833for manufacturing cotton products was gutted by another spectacular fire in 1907. The remaining or ground floor of this building is now occupied by the Farley Coal and Oil Company.
These losses together with the general depression or as we. could call it today, a recession, beginning in 1907, resulted in Lockport's population in 1910 showing scarcely a noticeable increase from the 1900 figure of 16,581.
In 1910 occurred Lockport's first Old Home Week. It was the biggest affair of its kind in the history of the City and seemed to give the City a new lease on life.
In 1910 Simonds Saw & Steel Company built a plant here; the Harrison Radiator Company started in a small way on Richmond Avenue; the Upson Company, also first started in the present Farley Coal and Oil Co. building on Exchange and Garden Streets. These three companies soon expanded their business and today are the three major industries in the city.
In 135 years since its incorporation as a village, Lockport has grown from a population of 2100 to 27,000 and the City limits have been extended from High Street to beyond Harding Avenue on the south; from the Escarpment and Olcott Street to Old Niagara Road on the north; and east and west from Davison Road to the West Harrison Division of General Motors.