Western New York Heritage Magazine

A little remembered but talented woodcut engraver, illustrator, and watercolorist has some interesting ties to Buffalo. John Reuben Chapin was a distant cousin of Cyreneus Chapin, the physician who helped rebuild Buffalo after the War of 1812, and they are both direct descendents of the illustrious Deacon Samuel Chapin who was a leader in the village of Springville, MA in 1642.

John Reuben Chapin moved to Buffalo in 1870 with his wife and five children. Here he opened the western branch of his company, The Bureau of Illustration. This company was associated with Sage, Sons and Co., and they hired six or seven craftsmen that did illustrations for the Buffalo Directories and many local companies. Chapin's work can be seen in the portfolio of the Bureau of Illustrations that he published in the 1870s. One copy remains in the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. The family stayed in Buffalo for a few short years and then moved on. In 1890, Chapin and his wife moved back to Buffalo and lived with their son, Charles Pierson Chapin. He continued to work as a free-lance illustrator and watercolorist until his death in 1904.

To read more of Judy Chapin Buzby's story, see page 46 of the Fall 2004 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!

The Great Pike Fire of 1909

"Fire! Fire!"

The shout echoed in the halls of Shered's Hotel in the Village of Pike in southeast Wyoming County. Mis Lydia Lapham was the first to discover the blaze. Mr. Shered, about to retire for the night, looked out the rear window of his wood-frame hotel to see the back corner of his barn on fire. He immediately alerted the occupants of the hotel and ushered his family to safety.

It was 1:30 a.m., Sunday, August 15, 1909 when one of the most devastating fires ever to ravage a Western New York community erupted. Within minutes, the bell of the Pike fire hall was ringing frantically in the darkness. Soon, all of the church bells in the village joined the clamor. The men rushed to the fire with the village's Rumsey hand pumper and hose cart, only to see the barn and hotel being devoured by a mass of crackling orange flames.

Since the fire was already out of control, phone calls were made to fire departments in Bliss, Castile, Fillmore, Silver Springs and Warsaw asking for help. Within an hour of the fire's discovery, firefighters from the surrounding communities began to arrive.

To read the rest of Norman Bauman's story, see page 52 in the Fall 2004 issue. Subscribe now!

The Historian's Notebook: The Seneca Indian Park

Ephraim George Squier (1821-1888) was a major figure in the documentation of "ancient" aboriginal sites in the Americas. In the fall of 1848 Squier, already famous as the author of Aboriginal Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, visitied the remains of a major "ancient" site in South Buffalo. Squier mapped the site off Seneca Street that was considered the last stronghold of the Neuter Indians.

...The site, which until 1842 had been within the area defined as the Buffalo Creek Reservation, contained a Seneca Indian cemetery and the specific graves of Red Jacket and Mary Jemison who had been interred here.

To read more of John H. Conlin's story, see page 33 of the Fall 2004 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!

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