Those Places Thursday-Emporium, PA

My grandfather, Riley Murray, was that guy.  The one who was out and about, driving around town, at who-knows-what time in the morning.  He was the guy who knew when things were amiss.  He knew his town of Emporium, PA.  Apparently, as part of the Cameron County Historical Society project my grandmother worked on, he dictated information to her in order to record details about the early businesses and buildings in Emporium.  This post about hotels and restaurants will be a little dry unless you really have an interest in Emporium and want to gain some context if your ancestors lived there.  But I’m back to my amanuensis role and recording the notes here so that they will be available to the diligent search engines helping historians and genealogists alike.  A genealogical "pay it forward", if you will.

I will say, though, the reference to the “Bucket of Blood” Hotel really made me wish I could ask him some details.

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from Cameron County Pennsylvania Genealogy Project @ Rootsweb

Hotels and Restaurants

Riley Murray, as told to Frances Murray (recorded sometime 1966-1973)

During Prohibition days, bootlegging was a wholesale thing.  The man who liked his drink took a chance and drank most anything.  We had several deaths in Emporium of men who drank rubbing alcohol.  They weren’t men from the wrong side of the tracks either.  Bootleggers wasn’t just a 1920s thing according to George Huntley’s book. [ed. note:  The Story of the Sinnemahone, published in 1936]    “Sinnemahone” was once used in a Cameron County village at camp meetings way back in the 1800s.

The hotels and saloons were always plentiful in Emporium and Cameron County. The first hotel built on the corner of 4^th and Broad Street was called The Biddle House.   Don’t know who ran it, but Riley Warner built the Warner Hotel, as we all remember, in 1893.  My father was town policeman and then, as in later years, the police made the Warner lobby their stopping place.  My father and Mr. Warner became very good friends so when I was born in 1895, my father named me Riley after his friend, Riley Warner.  Hotel Warner and Parker Jackson, like the Broad Street railroad depot, are only memories.

Across the railroad track on Broad Street was the Cottage Hotel owned and run by Mr. and Mrs. Cummings.  It is now run by Doug Petty. 

The Commercial Hotel on Broad street was run by several people, but for the past 65 or more years was owned and run by Mr. and Mrs. Butler.  The later years the hotel has been run by their daughter, Mrs. Bea Barr. 

Sam McDonald ran a hotel on 4^th Street where the coffee shop is now located.  Later he ran the Central Hotel on Allegany Avenue. Later Mr. Bonsteel ran the hotel, but about 55 years ago, a fire badly burned part of it.  It was later rebuilt into apartments, then later torn down.

The Donovan Hotel was on 4^th Street where Leo Egan had his funeral parlors.  After the Egan building was burned down, the building was owned by Leo’s parents.  The first floor was furniture store and funeral parlor; second floor as living quarters.

The City Hotel was first owned by Billie McGee.  He sold to Mike Dolan.  The Dolan sons still carry on the hotel interest. 

The Cook House Hotel on Allegany Avenue was located where Tony Caruso has his home now. 

The first proprietor of the St. Charles Hotel was Charlie Fay, but the only two I can remember is Herman Maline and Lundeen Johnson, who were pardners in 1910 or 1912. It is only a parking lot now, across the street from Joe Olivetti’s store on Allegany Avenue.

Across the street, the American Hotel, owned and run by Dick Kelly.  Before he ran the hotel, Kelly ran a saloon on 4^th Street where the Silco store is now.  After the saloon, Mr. Kelly ran Kelly’s Bakery where the Western Auto store is located.

Dick Loyd ran a saloon where Charlie’s Tavern is now.  Mr. Loyd had both legs cut off while working under an engine when he worked on the railroad.

A lot of old-timers will remember where the Bucket of Blood hotel was—between Swiderski’s store and the former Ford garage.  It was first run by Costello, then later by Mrs. Lyons.  [ed. Note:  one jotted note listed the Eagle Hotel associated with the names of Costello and Lyons, but no other information.  This might have been the real name of the hotel]  When Billy Dalyrimple peddled the newspapers, he and the kids that helped him used to sort the papers in the hotel lobby.  We can’t remember the real name of the hotel, yet for a year we lived next door over a candy store run by Mr. and Mrs. Morton.  Over 57 years ago we went to housekeeping in the upstairs apartment in the house next door to the hotel, so I can say it was some hotel.  

Mr. Huff ran a hotel where the Crescent is now located.

Across the street where the gas station is now, Mr. and Mrs. Shroup ran a boarding house.

Neil Cutler ran the Junction House.  It and the railroad station were a combined affair until the new depot was built in 1914. Most of Cutler’s trade was the railroader who could rent a room and eat their meals between their layover runs.  The public was served also.

Major Dowal’s restaurant and rooming house on Allegany Avenue and Portage Street was turned into the Ponderosa Hotel by new owners.  It burned.  The owners opened Ponderosa Tavern on 3^rd a few years later.

Homestead Hotel began as the F.X. Blumle Bottling Works.  After the death of Mr. and Mrs. Blumle, his son Joe remodeled into what is now known as The Homestead Hotel.

Occidental Hotel stood where Jaspar Harris & Sons is now.

Creighton’s Barroom was on 4^th Street where the Beacon Loan is now.

Alpine House (hotel) in Sterling was built years ago.  No longer standing.

Gardeau had a large hotel built back when lumbering was a big production in the 1890s.

Sizerville had the Sizerville Hotel.

The Mystery of Albert Murray, Sr--Or, Who the heck is Erastus?

So, now a post about actual research on my genealogy.

I started on our Murray line about a year ago.  I began with my grandfather, Riley Murray, Sr,  who was born June 21, 1895 in Cameron County, PA and lived there his whole life.  His father, Albert Murray, was born March 3, 1856 and married Katharine Doll on July 3, 1882.  I had the names of all their children, but as to earlier information, I had my grandmother’s memory as a reference. 

My grandmother’s notes said essentially this:  The Murrays came from Ireland and settled near Rochester, NY where Albert  senior was a prison guard.  Albert and his wife, Mary, had the following children:  Mary, Lucetta, Richard, Hopkins, Stanford, Albert, and Asa.  Mary died at Albert Jr’s birth in Syracuse, NY.  Albert Sr, died when Albert Jr was seven, and all the children were put in a Catholic orphanage to be raised.   From there Albert Jr was sent to a Catholic foster home.  And, beyond a few additional tidbits from other relatives, that was it.

As a novice to genealogical research, I wasn’t sure where to begin so went to the internet for census research.  My great-grandfather, Albert Murray, Jr, and his family were easily found in 1900 in Emporium, PA.  But when I started to go back further I was quickly overwhelmed.  I didn’t yet know of many reference options and I didn’t understand how to review search results with spelling variations in mind.  I searched and searched for Albert Murray, Sr, wife Mary and their family.  I pursued the possibility of orphanages but that seemed like a bottomless well.  I then decided to focus on prisons in New York, keeping the locales of Rochester and Syracuse in mind.   An internet search uncovered the history of a new, state-of-the-art prison built in the early 1800’s in Auburn, NY.  Bingo!  When I added Auburn to my search requirements, I found Albert, Jr in the 1860 census.  But, he was not in an orphanage, he was with his siblings, minus Asa, living with adults by the name of Erastus and Loretta Murry.  There was also another brother, George, I had never heard of.

So, who were Erastus and Loretta?  Foster parents?  Relatives?  How would I find out?  The next Eureka moment resulted from another internet search.  I turned up what seemed to me to be a rather obscure site, Old Fulton NY Post Cards.  However, a newspaper article I found there referenced the appointment of Erastus Murray as a gatekeeper at Auburn Prison in 1860.  The seed of doubt was planted and I became obsessed with uncovering the mystery of Albert Sr and Erastus.  

Then another clue through an internet search engine--an Auburn area 1856 burial record at Throopsville Rural Cemetery for Christina Murray, age 32, wife of Erastus.  Thus a second seed of doubt, after all Albert Jr was born in 1856, his mother supposedly dying at his birth.  Could Christina actually be Albert’s mother? And Erastus his father?

With these new pieces of information I decided to target Erastus and Christina, moving away from Loretta and much further away from where I had started with Albert Sr and Mary.  What a surprise when I found Erastus and Christina in the 1850 census, with all of Albert’s siblings who were born before 1850, and then with the help of the Cayuga County Historian’s office, again in the 1855 NY census.  I found Erastus, in the Auburn City Directory as a laborer, then as a soldier in Civil War records, and later in census records living as a farmhand, without his family, well into his senior years, and in a newspaper record of his death at a poorhouse in Rose, NY in 1895.

I still didn’t know anything but the most basic information provided in census records about where and when Erastus and Christina were born.  All indications from census records are that the entire family had been born in Cayuga County, NY.  There has been no sign of an Albert, Sr or wife Mary and son, Asa, although there was a daughter, Mary, who married an Asa (Van Patten).  I still didn’t know who Loretta and George were, but I am guessing that she was a second wife and that the son George was a half-brother.  And I didn’t know what happened to the family after 1860, but it appears Erastus deserted the family or the family otherwise fell on hard times.

I found out a lot and learned early the importance of using sources to verify (or invalidate) family stories. I still have a lot of work to do on the Murrays, but after pounding the internet in every way I could think of, I took a break to research another line.   But, the mystery, the puzzle, the clues, the history lessons, the surprising discovery…it’s just plain addictive.

My Life Mostly in Cameron County-Frances Schwab Murray, 1966-Part 2

As a fair warning, this is the second of seven parts.  I want to to keep the length of each post manageable for readers.

Click here for Part 1

A year later Alice was born.  Dr. Smith of Emporium was Mom’s doctor, her first doctor at childbirth.  We lived in that house until Alice was about 2-1/2 years old, when Dad and Uncle Alfred built our house next door to the big boarding house that Grandpa Stewart ran, just above the coke ovens.  We lived there until 1906 when we moved to Detroit, Michigan.  We went by train to Buffalo, caught a boat and sailed the lake to Detroit.  It was my first sight of a big boat and water everywhere.  I was a nosy kid and had to explore the workings of the boat.  Mother missed me and with the sailors’ help, where did they find me, but down in the engine room watching those big wheels turn.  I’d never saw an indoors toilet before either until on that boat.  Every time you sat down water rushed up so you can imagine how many times Lake Erie rushed up and washed me. 

This being the day after Halloween 1966, it brings back memories of Oct. 31, 1906 in Michigan.  A gang of us kids went out--at that time it was all tricks, no treats--upset an outhouse.  The poor Italian fellow when it went over—his yells.  We lit out as fast as we could run and crawled under someone’s porch as the cops were hot on our trail.  That was down near the River Rouch [ed. note-Rouge] where the Ford Motor plant is now built. 

At that time, 1906, that big field was our playground.  We lived on Peterson Street.  My grandparents lived on Homels Street-the alley separated the two houses.  One day a bunch of us kids set out to see the Wildwood Cemetery [ed. note-Woodmere Cemetery] where Uncle George’s son Howard was buried.  A couple of the kids who lived on Peterson Street, were along.  There I saw my first vault and crematory.  Boy, what a scare.  Us kids watched as they put a body in a big pan and pushed it into the furnace.  As the heat increased, the body began to sit up.  When it moved, so did us kids and I know I never went back there again. 

We spent a lot of our time watching the soldiers as they drilled and paraded at Ft. Dearborn.  My dad worked in the tunnel that was being put under the Detroit River.  Uncle Howard Burlingame was the Super on that job.  He was Aunt Alice Clark’s first husband.  When the job was done, Dad went back to Pennsylvania.  He was working in Idamar, PA digging coal so in Jan 1907, Mother and us 5 kids, with Uncle Ed, left for PA too.  We went by train through that tunnel that Dad helped to build.  We stayed a short time with Aunt Jennie and Uncle Fred until our furniture came. 

We moved into one of the houses in the Block Row.  There, in May 1907, my youngest brother was born.  Dr. Walter Bush was Mom’s doctor and my brother was the first baby he brought after coming to Cameron County.  A few days after the baby was born, all 5 of us kids came down with whooping cough.  The hired help (our Aunt Esther) left, and when the baby was 10 days old, he got the whooping cough.  I slept on a cot in Mom’s room and I had to jump up and stick my finger down his throat to get the phlegm up.  Boy, what a job for a 10 year old kid.  Then a few days later we 5 kids came down with the mumps, so Dad had to come home as I didn’t dare go near the baby.  Dad was like a bull in a china shop.  He and I cooked some rice for our supper.  I don’t remember how much we used, but as it cooked, we bailed it out of the kettle with the dipper.  When it was done, we had a dishpan full.  Dad carried most of it out to the pig. 

Those were the days—no running water, outhouses, oil lamps, coal or wood stoves to heat those old houses.  The snow blew in on the floor through the doors and windows.  Bread froze, so did the water pail. 

Dan O’Brian, big lumberjack, he as the tallest and biggest man I had ever seen, in 1907.  He used to come to Schwab Bros. store, in Cameron, from his shanty house way up in the hills, to buy his groceries.  We kids were scared to death of him, as tales of his fighting powers were known by all the folks in Cameron.  He always wore a sleeveless jacket made from a cowhide, fur side out.  Summer or winter.  And a coonskin cap, but a tailless one.

That spring Dad and us kids were planting potatoes.  We’d had an early thaw, lots of snow and the early rains had the nearby creek running bank-to-bank with cold, muddy water.  The neighborhood kids, Yuharts, were throwing sticks in the stream.  Anne was about four years old.  She slipped into the stream and was washed down by us.  Dad and I together got her out.  Dad rolled her over a barrel.  Boy, did the water ever come out of her.  No first aid as we know it now.  When Charles was about 2 years old, we moved across the river at the mouth of Mooley Hollow.  That’s the house where Mary was born in 1910 and Evelyn in 1912.  The house was across the road from where Jack Stuart lives now.

One spring day shortly after Mary was born, Dad and several others and I went berrying in Russel Hollow for raspberries.  I stepped over an old log and a rattler hit.  He missed my leg, but its teeth got caught in my woolen skirt.  Boy did I ever move and yelled “I’m bit”.  Dad yelled stand still, but I took off for home and I could run.  The road out of the Hollow was fenced off and had a fence across the road, leading to the main road into Hunts Run.  When I got to that fence, I didn’t wait to open it up, but went over the top.  Somewhere in that leap I lost the snake.  Boy was Dad mad when he caught up with me, but I had only the yellowish-green marks on my skirt to show where it had hit.  My berry-picking was over for that day.  The summer before Evelyn was born I almost got it again while picking berries in Mooley Hollow.  I had come home for a couple of days.  I was working in Driftwood at Riley’s Hotel.  I had worn Dad’s Wisconsin boots.  They were high top boots (leather) and came up to my knees.  That’s what saved my leg as I stepped over a log in a dried up creek bed.  I was carrying a revolver, so I shot it.   

Up to this time, in the same hollow, there was some of the remains of a lumber camp.  Us kids used to play around them.  One day the three Lupole kids, my brother Nelson, and myself went up the hollow to pick gooseberries and my dog Shep followed.  As usual he went off after a squirrel.  Pretty soon we started for home, but he didn’t come to our call until we were pretty well in sight of home.  He came tearing down the road followed by an old mother bear.  He’d been chasing her cubs.  Boy, Shep was scared.  He’d run between my legs and down I’d go.  That old bear followed us clear to Walker’s house.  Good thing their place was fenced in.  We sure did a quick crawl under that fence and the old bear turned back.  I was about 13 at that time.

Part 3