By Dutch Adams
The first homes in the United States were lit with candles and oil lamps. Then a new method of lighting for homes was developed lamps using gas manufactured from resin. Lockport was among the first communities to use this new gas illumination, and the first street lights were installed in 1851. Lockport Gas Works was established on the corner of LaGrange and Transit Streets to manufacture the gas and Lockport Gas & Light Company was established for the lighting. By 1855 the gas was being manufactured from coal because coal was cheaper and more plentiful.
Lockport streets were still not paved in 1865, but the business section of Main Street and a few other streets were lit by the gas street lights. In 1877 a generator and carbon arc lighting system was developed that was used to light the streets in several cities, including Lockport. The canal raceway, which carried surplus water around the locks at Lockport, was producing more electricity than even Niagara Falls. However, Niagara Falls had dug the hydraulic canal to carry water from above the falls to below the falls and eventually this water power made Niagara Falls the leading producer of electricity.
When the carbon arc light was replaced by incandescent light, electricity became the source of power for lighting in buildings. In 1884 the first electric lights were installed in Lockport and Lockport began converting from gas lighting to electricity, although gas lighting still remained popular as late as 1918. In 1885 Weaver's Drug Store was the first store to be lit with electric lights. In 1894 the Lockport Gas & Electric succeeded the Lockport Gas Light Company.
Gas was now used primarily for heat. Then Birdsall Holly set up his steam heating system in 1877 with the Central Steam Heating Plant on Elm Street, and many of the buildings in Lockport were heated with steam from this plant. This steam plant and the steam heating in Lockport was taken over by the Economy Light, Fuel and Power Company and then in
1908 the Lockport Light Heat and Power Company absorbed the entire business.
The first electricity was direct current (DC), always traveling in the same direction through the wire. The problem was that it could only travel a short distance before the power was used up and was too low to move the electrons. Then alternating current (AC) was developed which could move the electrons long distances. With alternating current the electrons move first in one direction, then back in the other direction. Nikola Tesla was one of the pioneers in this development. His inventions are said to have revolutionized industrial power transmission.
The first alternating current produced was a 25 cycle current. This means the electric current reverses 25 times a second. With an incandescent light the problem was 25 cycle electricity made the light flicker. So 60 cycle electricity was produced, which yielded a steadier light, and by 1947 a complete changeover to 60 cycle electricity was made for lighting Lockport homes. Motors for refrigerators and other appliances also had to be changed at this time.
Main Street, Lockport, had brick paving and electric lights in 1892 and a few other streets were also lit with electric lights. However, on bright nights the lights on some streets were turned off. Electric street cars began operating in 1895 in Lockport and the Buffalo-Lockport Electric Railroad began operation three years later. The New York State Electric and Gas Corporation came to Lockport in 1930 with an office at 115 Main St. They merged with Lockport Light, Heat & Power Company, taking over the gas, electric and steam distribution in Lockport. In 1973 the company moved its offices to 6544 Lincoln Ave. The steam plant eventually was shut down and the old electric generating facilities were closed. Electricity for Lockport is now generated elsewhere.
Republished
with permission from the April 2003 issue of the
Niagara County Historical Society Newsletter
by John K. Hall
One of my fondest childhood memories is Sunday dinner at Grandpa's house, the house that Arvilla and I have lived in for 52 years.
My paternal grandmother died when I was five years old and my grandfather remarried. The lady's name was Bertha and for some reason, unknown to me, the grandchildren called her Aunt Bert rather than Grandma. She was a very nice lady and was a good grandmother to thirteen grandchildren.
Quite often Grandpa's brother and his wife, Uncle Churchill and Aunt Ella, and their two sons would be invited. During and after dinner the conversation would turn to Grandpa's and Uncle Churchill's experiences growing up on the farm on South Transit.. Great-grandfather's house was just about where Burger King is located now.
Sunday dinner would start Saturday afternoon when Grandpa would go into the hen house and select a plump hen, chop her head off, pluck and draw her, and turn the chicken over to Aunt Bert. Dinner consisted of chicken and biscuit, mashed potatoes, several vegetable pickles, home-made sweet rolls, and dessert. If it was spring, we might have dandelion greens with slices of hard boiled eggs on top. Summer and fall was squash or rutabagas, and for dessert Aunt Bert would put anything between two pie crusts and turn it into a tasty dessert. Aunt Bert made a nice Jell-o dessert. She would let the Jell-o set for a while then whip the thunderation out of it, and after it finished setting, it would be frothy. Sometimes she mixed two or three different colors together.
The stories that follow were told over several years' worth of Sunday dinners...
Great-grandfather's farm was small but very productive. They had horses, a few cows, a hay field, woods, chickens and ducks, and a fruit orchard. The hay field was particularly productive and unlike most hayfields, which were cut two or three times a year, Greatgrandfather's hayfield needed to be cut twice a week. This kept the three of them busy and produced a lot of hay for the animals and plenty to sell.
The woodlot was very productive also. Most of the trees were cut and sold to the cooper shops in Lockport. At one time there were fifteen cooper shops in Lockport. The trees had to be cut into four foot lengths, called bolts, and then split into proper thickness for barrel staves. They cut the trees early in the winter and split staves for the rest of the winter. In the spring the trees would start growing, and by winter would be big enough to cut again. This got to be too much for Great-grandfather, Grandpa and Uncle Churchill so one fall they asked a big fellow who had been picking apples for them if he would stay over the winter and help in the wood lot. He was happy to do so. They put a bed in the woodshed, along with a stove, and he was quite happy. He ate his meals with the family.
His name was Xavier Bibliotheck. Now with a name like that it would have been nice if he had a nickname like "Bib." Xavier would have none of that. His name was Xavier and that's what he wanted to be called. Xavier had the blacksmith fasten five axe heads side by side, and then Xavier fitted a heavy wooden handle to the axe heads. He would stand a four foot bolt upright, and with a mighty swing of the axe split the bolt into five rough staves. This speeded things up and if they got caught up on their own wood, Greatgrandfather would buy bolts from the neighbors.
Barrels were the standard package for transporting just about everything. Slack barrels were for apples and tight barrels for liquids and flour.
They didn't have many cows, but they were proud of one cow named Penelope. Penelope was just about like every other calf that was born except that she grew faster and bigger than any other cow in the county.
In order to get milk, the cow has to be bred and have a calf. Grandpa and Uncle Churchill were proper gentlemen and didn't want to go into detail about breeding Penelope. I was a young fellow and didn't know anything about it, but I thought maybe I should know something about it. So I paid attention at dinner and also to conversations between dinners and this is what happened.
Because of Penelope's size, she presented a real challenge to the neighborhood bulls. Several took one look at her and fit out for home. Several tried and failed, but the on that succeeded had a smile on his face for the rest of his life.
Well, Penelope freshened and started giving milk. Boy, did she ever give milk. Greatgrandfather had a dozen thirty gallon tight barrels made up with tight lids. Grandpa would put a thirty gallon barrel under Penelope's udder and stand beside her and milk for an hour while Uncle Churchill shoveled feed into the manger. Then they would switch places. On the west side of the farm was an artesian well that produced a steady stream of cold, clear water. They built a well house with a basin in it to hold the barrels of milk. Each morning Great-grandfather would take the barrels in a wagon and peddle the milk. They had so much milk they cut the price of milk in half and ended up furnishing milk to everyone on the south side of the canal. The customers were happy, but the other farmers were peeved.
Penelope gave milk for about twelve years, which is a long time, but like all living creatures, animal or human, Penelope had a limited number of years -and she died. It was a sad day in Lockport when word got around about Penelope's death. A lot of people came to call. Great-grandfather wanted to bury Penelope on the farm. A lot of men volunteered to dig the grave. It took fifty men all day to dig a hole big enough for Penelope. They hooked twenty teams of horses onto Penelope and dragged her into the hole. It was four o'clock in the morning when they finished shoveling the dirt into the hole.
Great-grandfather, Grandpa, and Uncle Churchill were pretty upset, but after a few days they decided they should do something positive in memory of Penelope. One of the neighbors suggested planting an apple tree on Penelope's grave.
This sounded like a good idea, so they planted a "Vittles and Drink" apple tree on top of Penelope. Well, you wouldn't believe how that tree grew. It was common for apple trees to grow thirty feet in height, but with this tree that had to tie two thirty foot ladders together to reach the top. They weren't sure whether it was the good ground on the farm or Penelope that made such a big tree. Grandpa and Uncle Churchill tied a pulley on each side of the ladder at the top, ran a rope through the pulleys and fastened a half bushel picking basket to the rope. One of them would go up the ladder and fill the baskets while the other stayed on the ground, raising and lowering the pick baskets and dumping them into barrels. It still took almost all fall to pick that one tree.
It wasn't all work. They took time out to have fun. In 1910 work was going on widening the canal and "Old Home Week" was being celebrated. One fellow came to town and bragged he could jump across the canal where it had been widened for the Big Bridge. No one believed he could, but everyone wanted to see him try. This was the end of July and the days were hot so the fellow wanted to jump early in the morning.
There were lots of people in town that week, and even early in the morning people were lined up along the canal to see him jump. He went up Cottage Street to the Grace Church and started running down the hill. By the time he got to Main Street, he gave a mighty leap and away he went. When he got half way across, he must have changed his mind because he turned around and came right back to where he jumped.
Some fellows were unhappy because he didn't do as he said he would, but most folks felt it was a better show to see him turn around and come back than if he had gone all the way across.
Well, I expect you have read enough for one time, but like the fella' said, "Don't believe anything you hear and only about half of what you read."
The Jell-o was really good. Do any of you make it?