Bronson Rumsey moved into his new mansion in 1862 (330 Delaware), whose rear view is seen here from Rumsey Park. Mabel
Dodge Luhan recalled the era in her memoir, Intimate Memories: "Old Bronson Rumsey had bought a block of the city street -
a whole sqaure of it - and he built a large and impressive red-brick house on the lower corner of Delaware Avenue, out of money
made from traffic in hides...To each of his sons and daughters he gave a house and a piece of land - an interest in the whole.
Their back doors all opened on the garden, in the center of which was a lake with a little boathouse."

This view from the Bronson Rumsey mansion's morning room across the terrace was into the garden.

Designed by architects Henry and Edward Rose, who had designed the mansion, the wooded garden and lake were improved
by the addition of terraced gardens, fountains, a pergola, small Greek temple, Swiss chalet boat house, paths, new shrubs
and trees, and all surrounded by a high wooden fence on sides that faced the streets. This made the park largely hidden
from view by the public and inaccessible except from Rumsey homes.

A natural spring fed the lake which was the scene of rowing in summer and skating and ice hockey in winter for the Rumsey
children and their friends. In addition to children's games in the woods and football on the lawn, the park was used by their
parents as a stage for theatricals and garden parties.The steeples in the background are from the Delaware Avenue Methodist
Church (aka Asbury Methodist) at Delaware and Tupper, under renovation in 2005 by Righteous Babe Records for a performance venue.

From the 1880's through the 1890's the park was the headquarters for Rumsey friends with names like Wheeler, Goodyear,
Spaulding, Wright, Laverack, Dart, Cary and Milburn. And the Rumseys issued tickets in winter to neighborhood children
who wanted to ice skate. Eight-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald skated on Rumsey lake.

In 1911, the city of Buffalo extended South Elmwood Avenue from Chippewa north, creating a major arterial street. This bisected
Rumsey Park and, in 1915, as seen above, the lake was drained in preparation for residential development of the former parkland.

Green highlighted lines on both maps (1902 left, modern at right) show the extent of South Elmwood before and after the extension was built.

Rumsey relations continued to live in the homes on Delaware and Tupper for several decades. The Bronson Rumsey mansion at
330 Delaware was given to the Children's Aid Society upon the death of Mrs. Lawrence Dana Rumsey in 1943.

The mansion was later demolished and a modern building constructed which houses the descendent of the Children's Aid
Society, the private non-profit agency, Child & Family Services.

Reference information from Intimate Memories, by Mabel Dodge Luhan, Buffalo's Delaware Avenue, by Edward T. Dunn; photos
from the Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, Frank Severance, and from a private collection.