Previous: How Commonality Saved Captain Williamson And Western New York
Geneva a generation after Lafayette’s visit. Source: Barber, John W., and Howe, Henry, Historical collections of the state of New York, S. Tuttle, New York 1842, p. 52
General Lafayette rose the morning of Wednesday, June 8, 1825, shortly after sunrise. At 7 o’clock that morning, the French entourage bid John Greig adieu. They climbed aboard their waiting carriage and a military escort led them onto the old Genesee Road (and then the Seneca Turnpike). About ten miles down the road, at Ball’s tavern, they’d meet the committee from Geneva and transfer their precious cargo to them.1
For the good citizens of Geneva, the largest settlement in the Greater Western New York region, Lafayette was a long time coming. A couple of weeks before, the village appointed a committee of eleven upstanding men to invite the Nation’s Guest to visit their fair village. They drafted a letter dated May 28, 1825, for that purpose. Appealing to his sense of Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: Pomp, Circumstance, Before Lunch In Geneva”
Competing Dreams of the Genesee—Part II: Phelps And Gorham Play By The Rules
Oliver Phelps came into this world on October 21, 1749 near Poquonock, Hartford County of the Connecticut Colony.21 The seventeenth child of Thomas Phelps, Oliver’s father died only three months after his birth, leaving his family destitute. At the young age of seven, Oliver got his first job working at a store in Suffield. Despite his employment, he was able to attain a modest education. By the time he was twenty-one, he had relocated to Granville, Massachusetts, “where he established a prosperous mercantile business and became recognized as one of the leading citizens.”22
An ardent patriot from the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Phelps was there at Lexington. With his business experience, and not because of any family wealth or ties, he was appointed to the commissary department, where he served until the end of the war.23
Livingston came from one of New York’s most prominent families. Phelps, on the other hand, rose from far humbler beginnings through trade, logistics, and business. While he may have Continue Reading “Competing Dreams of the Genesee—Part II: Phelps And Gorham Play By The Rules”