history

Why You Need an Archive.org Account

Cynthia Van Ness1 Comment

Disclaimer: I have no connection to Archive.org beyond than having a free account and being acquainted with one of their employees.

Most of my readers already know about Archive.org, also known as the Internet Archive, as a place to find cool old stuff online. While I spend my time with their full-text, online books, Archive.org also offers audio and video, including TV, films, and concert tapes. Patents. Podcasts. Census microfilms. Outdated software. Plus the magnificent Wayback Machine, which has been crawling the web and saving websites for 25 years.

Here’s another service they offer: community uploading. Anyone may register for a free account and start contributing their stuff. From their Help screen:

Having an Archive.org account allows you to:
Upload files to the site
Have collections for your uploads (50 items minimum required)
Borrow books from the lending library
Leave reviews
Participate in forums
View and use some items that are restricted
Receive monthly newsletters and event notices

excerpt From: Accounts – A Basic Guide

Why is this important? A lot of individuals and groups — now that we all create and accumulate digital property without even trying, let’s call ourselves collectors — are turning to libraries, educational institutions, historical organizations, and museums, asking them to put the collector’s stuff online. It might be photos, letters, or home movies that have or have not been digitized. It might be original essays or artwork by the collector. It might be by-laws, minutes, spreadsheets. It might be articles and downloads that are still protected by copyright.

Some large and well-funded organizations might store or host your digital assets. Smaller organizations, though, rarely have enough server space to digitize collections they already own and have title to. Under the circumstances, they may be simply unable to commit the time and server space to additional stuff.

While server space is definitely cheaper than bricks and mortar storage space, it is not free. Neither is the labor, software, and hardware needed to do all of the processing that makes digital files findable and usable online. Whether it is tangible objects in boxes or digital files on hard drives, we all simply own more stuff than our institutions can possibly house and care for in perpetuity.

Here’s where Archive.org comes in. You or your organization can take out an account and scan and upload. Here’s why I recommend Archive.org:

  • Archive.org is a non-profit, so your stuff won’t get monetized for stockholder benefit
  • No ads or paywalls
  • No intrusive and unnerving suggested content pop-ups
  • Superb access options for those with vision limitations
  • Accepts files in almost any format
  • Your stuff joins an international community of individuals and organizations who have already shared bazillions* of collections for public access and benefit

If you join and start contributing, please donate what you can to offset their server, software and labor costs. Here’s where to sign up.

*A technical term that roughly translates as More than I can count

Who Was Buffalo’s First Woman Property Owner?

Cynthia Van Ness

I don’t recall anyone ever identifying the first woman to acquire property in the city of Buffalo so I set out to find her. The Holland Land Company, which had title to what are now the eight counties of western New York, began selling lots to settlers in 1801. Many Buffalonians reading this will find the name of one of the principals of the Holland Land Company on their deeds. Often it is Wilhelm Willink.

What makes women property owners unusual at this time is that once they married, they could not buy, hold, or sell property under their own names. On their wedding day, by law, husbands automatically acquired all right and title to whatever land or fortunes women brought to the marriage.

This did not change in New York State until the passage of the Married Women’s Property Act in 1848. This law granted married women the same right as unmarried women to buy, hold, and sell property in their own names. No longer were husbands able to take control of wives’ land or money. New York was the first state to pass such a law and it was an important landmark in the emancipation of American women.

The first place I looked for our woman property owner was Tobias Witmer’s Deed Tables…in the County of Erie, originally published in 1859 and reprinted in 1981. I wish it was online for free, but it is not. Our link shows which libraries have a copy. Here is a list of more early lot holders in Buffalo.

The first feminine name I found was Letitia M. Ellicott (1782-1864), daughter of Andrew Ellicott and niece of Joseph Ellicott. On May 6, 1811, at the age of 29, she purchased a half acre in one of Buffalo’s inner (downtown) lots, next to Juba Storrs. It is likely that she did not spend much time in Buffalo; she was reportedly born and died in Pennsylvania.

Witmer, Tobias. Deed tables…in the county of Erie, as sold by the Holland Land Company, the Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company, and the State of New York. Knightstown, IN : The Bookmark, 1981, 1859, p. 4

Letitia’s half-acre was on lot 48, between what is now Main (Van Staphorst), Eagle, Clinton (Cazenovia), and Pearl (Cayuga). Today it is the site of the Main Place Mall.

Map of Buffalo in 1805, drawn by the Matthews-Northrup Company, probably in the 20th century
Map courtesy of Buffaloah.org and Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, based on the original drawn by Juba Storrs

Her parcel was still vacant just before the burning of Buffalo in 1813.

Letitia Ellicott married John Bliss at West Point in 1819. He served as a captain in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812. His military career took them to several cities but she must had a fondness for Buffalo because she is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery with her husband. I was unable to find a portrait of Letitia.

Back Cover Blurb for City on the Edge

Cynthia Van Ness

Front cover of City on the Edge, originally written in 2007. Order through our affiliate link and we earn a small percentage.

It is easy to dismiss Buffalo as the poster child of urban decrepitude and dysfunction.  It is also wrong. Mark Goldman resurrects Buffalo’s forgotten role on the cutting edge of the literary, artistic, and musical avant-garde. Here is how Buffalo, much to the envy of Boston, peacefully and successfully implemented a court-ordered school desegregation program. Here is how Buffalo, with diminishing resources and little outside help, saved some of America’s finest architectural treasures; and how Buffalo integrated one of its most desirable neighborhoods without rancor or white flight.

Author James Howard Kunstler, a noted critic of suburban sprawl, has argued that after decades of massive investment in suburban expansion, the result is places not worth caring about, not worth defending. In City on the Edge, Goldman shows us a city that, even after massive disinvestment, survives as an inspiring and magical place worth caring about and worth defending.

Goldman tells the story of a passionate and committed citizenry betrayed by inept if not corrupt leadership. On the one hand, City on the Edge is a painful history of desperate politicians who squandered scarce dollars on worthless if not damaging development, which resulted in sickeningly gleeful architectural and urban amputation. It is also homage to a city blessed like few others with engaged caretakers and activists, people who stay and fight to mend the city they love. Goldman’s final chapter is an anthem to the extraordinary sense of place that seizes the hearts and minds of those who are lucky enough to make Buffalo their home.  

Goldman’s Buffalo is a city on the edge of rediscovery, renewal, and regeneration—if only its officials will respect the leadership, wisdom, and passion of its citizens. Read it and be prepared to discard your most cherished stereotypes.

Top Ten Urban Legends in Buffalo

Cynthia Van Ness

In the old David Letterman format, these are the ten most bogus urban legends about Buffalo & its history:

10.  Buffalo has the longest, coldest, snowiest, harshest, worst winters in America.

9.   Every house in Buffalo was photographed during the Pan-American Exposition and the Buffalo History Museum has the pictures.

8.  The “Historical Society” or the “Preservation Society” won’t let me demolish/remodel/alter my building.

7.   The stone farmhouse at 60 Hedley Place was built as slave quarters.

6.   My title abstract dates back to 1804, so that is when my house was built.

5.  The City of Buffalo Property database says my house was built in 1900 so that is how old it is.

4.  The towers at the Richardson Complex (Buffalo State Hospital) were used to chain up mental patients.

3.  Grover Cleveland lived at 51 Johnson Park.

2.  The Niagara Movement (1905) met in Fort Erie because of racial discrimination at Buffalo hotels.

1. My house was a stop on the Underground Railroad.  [Alternate version: my house was a speakeasy during Prohibition.]

New addition: City Hall had a fire and all of the records were lost.