Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2013, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== A Memoir of the Late William Hodge, Sen. Bigelow Bros., Buffalo, N.Y. - 1885 PREFACE ------- By The Editor This tribute to a father's memory, and the papers accompanying it, have value not only in themselves, but as examples. Such simple narratives and descriptions concerning by-gone days in Buffalo, ought to be far more numerous than they are. On the subject of their publication, the venerable author said, in 1882, in a letter as to printing one of them, "It would need to pass through your or some other's hands, to put it into readable shape, as my 'college' education was obtained in log school-houses. The 'pro- fessors' were generally paid $12.00 to $20.00 per month and 'boarded 'round.' I am willing to do what little I can in obtaining facts which may help towards completing the local history of Buffalo, where I have resided more than seventy-six years." The chief work which I have done as editor is that thus indicated, of " shaping" these papers for printing. I have already done the same thing which is here undertaken, for several other papers prepared by the venerable author, viz: "The Cemeteries of Buffalo," "Captain David Wilkeson" and "The Pioneer Steamboats on Lake Erie." And it has fallen to my lot to do similar delicate and laborious work with numerous papers, from various hands, relating to the past of Buffalo ; especially, when Corresponding Secretary of the Buffalo Historical Society, in editing the two vol- umes of its publications, which have been printed, and in preparing the material for a third volume, which has not been printed. The thing that impresses me most strongly as the result of this work, is, that though much has been done towards collecting materials for a history of Buffalo, that history has not yet been written, in any true sense of the word. I am not ignorant of, nor do I forget, Mr. Ketchum's "Buffalo and the Senecas," nor the lately-produced portly agglomeration called a "History of Buffalo and Erie County." But I mean, that the materials for such a history have not yet been all collected; and especially that the collections already made and with- in reach have not been wrought into a history. They have not been subjected to that thorough, systematic, intelligent and appreciative examination, verification, comparison, selection and arrangement in symmetrical form and scholarly style, by the hand of a true lover of Buffalo, of which the facts making up the life of this great city are susceptible and deserving. Yet every endeavor to catch and preserve in usable shape that information in particular, as to the early days of Buffalo, which is not originally documentary, is helping to prepare the way for the historian of Buffalo, when he shall appear. Of course, much of what is thus collected will be in itself minute, and it may be, will appear trivial to many. But it is often by just such things (as "straws show which way the wind blows") that in matters of testimony, material conclusions are established; and in matters of history, important,— at any rate, truthful,—results, attained. Of the more than sixty documents placed in my hands for the purpose of the present publication, largely in manuscript, I have sought to make a selection and arrangement which would include the substance of all of them, freed from material repetition,— and yet present them not as mere detached miscellanies, but as having a certain unity of rela- tion to each other and to one central object. Accordingly, the paper concerning the life of the author's father is taken as the leading and chief one; while the others are given the relation of appendices to this. To avoid, however, some inconvenience attending the insertion of references to these, in the text of the leading paper, I have so prepared the Table of Contents as to note, in most cases, in connection with the title of each illustrative article, the point in the Memoir at which it may most suitably be read. The arrangement of the miscellanies is in a general way chronological as to subjects, and thus serves the purpose of extending and illustrating the main narrative, as it proceeds, in due order of time. In regard to some of these miscellanies, especially among the concluding ones, it should be said that they seemed to me calculated to be entertaining for children and young people: and likely to be useful in leading them to look with interest into the early forming days of this great city in which they live. Hence I have not re-cast them with reference to the taste of older readers. And yet it often happens that what is said, written and printed expressly for children has great interest also for the children of a larger growth. In the course of final revision, a few items have been discovered which, for the sake of correction or explanation are here noted, viz: At page 23, line 32, for ''Mr. Franklin," read, "Stephen Franklin." At page 34, next to the last line, after "Goodrich Mansion," read, "so called in later years, from the name of one long its owner and occu- pant, though it was built by Joseph Ellicott." At pages 35, line 19, and 44, line 11, for "Alvan L. Dodge," read, "Alvan Dodge." At page 36, line 30, for "near the bridge," read, "near the north end of the bridge;" and, line 31, after "west side," read, "of the road." At page 96, line 28, read, "This spring it is sixty-three,' &c. Let it now be remembered that they who could tell us such things as are presented in these pages, or anything at all, "from their own knowledge," concerning Pioneer Life in Buffalo, are nearly all gone from among us. He whose reminiscences and records are here given to types is well nigh the last original witness of those early times, remaining with us: and passed his eightieth birthday nearly five months ago. Let then these his simple and graphic recollections be to us as if we sat with him for a last conversation ere he shall join his companions of "days auld, lang syne," where "Time shall be no more." Buffalo, May 1, 1885. ALBERT BIGELOW. ===========================================================================