-----Original Message----- From: Rene' Nilsson Date: Saturday, September 09, 2000 11:11 PM Subject: Power Plant destruction in 1956 >It happened on 8 June 1956 at 5 in the afternoon... Yikes-- that was the day I was born! But take my word I was across the state in Brooklyn at the time... (Come to think of it, the house in Anchorage in which my folks lived the previous autumn suffered a similar fate in the 1964 earthquake.) By the way, if anyone else on this list is researching the K(E)YSER, WORDEN or SAVAGE families who left Hartland with "Michigan fever" in the 1850s, please let me know. (Note they were out of the county a full hundred years when the plant fell down... though a couple did move back east to Buffalo to work on the trolley line. One even built the remains of a tram into his living room ceiling.) Cheers, Ron Kyser

> -----Original Message----- > From: Vee L. Housman [mailto:housman@adelphia.net] > Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 11:36 PM > To: NYNIAGAR-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Fw: Niagara Views Web Site > > But now I have a confession to make. I promised you that I would > check out > my local history books and give you the history of the Schoellkopf Power > Plant and the circumstances of its collapse in 1956. There is some info on this in Pierre Berton's book 'Niagara,' which I will quote/summarize from. It happened on 8 June 1956 at 5 in the afternoon, and brief experiences of some witnesses are included. It is described: "The top of the gorge began to shake, and for several moments it seemed that hundreds of tons of rock hung in the air as if suspended by wires. Then the entire mass - four hundred feet across and forty feet thick - tumbled down, crushing the roof of the powerplant below...." One of the workers in the plant heard a rumbling, and as they had been warned to keep an eye out for 'seepage' from the cliff above, he phoned the operator at the switching station above. "At that moment, the plant's windows began to pop. The floor heaved alarmingly. A huge crack opened in the end wall of the plant. In less than 30 seconds it widened to a two-foot gap. The building split open. The ceiling began to fall." 40 men ran through the building as a blast of water came in and blew out a generator "like a piece of paper", but one man, Richard Draper, was blown out a window and killed. The other 39 did make it out just before the foundations gave way and most of the plant slid towards the river. Another source, 'Images of America - Niagara Falls Volume II' mentions that the collapse (which it dates as 7 June 1956) was later attributed to an earthquake in 1946, which created a fault at the site. Water leaking from a station tunnel forced this fault to open wider, causing the slide. Berton's "Niagara" is a great book. It covers the history of the Falls beginning with a little of the geological formation, and telling the stories of lots of people around the Falls from the first explorers up to Love Canal. I'm not really a big history buff, but I found it fascinating. :) Berton also wrote "Niagara Falls: A Picture Book," a mix of old and new photos which is nice to accompany the history, or just to browse through. No, I have no connection to the author, but I thought it was a fun read and worth mentioning. ;) Rene' Nilsson [Looking for HEWITT in Niagara County.]

Hello all Subscribers Please allow me introduce myself to you I am Glenda Subyak, I am coordinator for the New York State & Monroe Co. Newspaper-Abstracts list I live in Rochester, Monroe Co., N.Y. I have been submitting my county newspaper to the list for about a year many people have e-mailed me about finding a lost grandfather - etc in the newspaper articles, that I have submitted as we all are after one goal, find our ancestors, right!!!!!!! Can I invite all (some) of you to submit one - two or as many newspaper articles, from your own county collection of newspapers Maybe even volunteer to be coordinator for your county Lets see if we can get every county on the map of N. Y. to have been filled in submitting some articles - obits - birth - marriages - any articles Just make copies from old newspapers from film 1800's up to 1922 transcribe them & submit them to the site - very easy Your county has NO submissions listed yet (other than the one I submitted) Please be the first to submit something, none too small, none too large you can check out my submissions, from this URL http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/ny/monroe.html The Newspaper-Abstracts site is http://www.newspaperabstracts.com Thank you for your time ********************************* Glenda Whitaker Subyak N. Y. News Coordinator

Hi, I was looking at Ancestry's images of the 1790 census online, but I wasn't sure where to look for Niagara County. I believe this was part of Ontario County at the time? However, after selecting this, I need to choose a township. Those listed are: Canandaigua Erwin District Genesee District Jerusalem District Does anyone know if any of these cover present-day Erie or Niagara County? I'm assuming this isn't all of Ontario county, since both Erie and Niagara county were part of it at the time, so it must have been large. Or were the townships/districts just really big? Any help appreciated, as I'm not sure where to start. :) Thanks, Rene' Nilsson amoeba@adelphia.net

Niagara and Erie County were Indian lands in 1790. They were not part of Ontario Co. Before Niagara was a county (1808) it was part of Batavia town of Genessee County. From the Genesee Co. USGenWeb project: "Before the arrival of the first settlers, "Genesee Country" was the home of the Seneca Indians.   Robert Morris of Massachusetts, purchased "Genesee Country" in 1791 and sold it to the Holland Company, a group of Dutch bankers, on July 20, 1793.   the Holland Company opened for business in 1800, the first sale was 1801, and they moved the office to Batavia when Genesee county was founded in 1802. "The county was named for the indian word meaning "beautiful valley". Originally Genesee County comprised virtually all of Western New York and was divided into only four "Shires" or towns; Batavia, Northampton, Southampton, and Leicester.   Gradually, parcels of land were taken from Genesee County to form other counties; Allegany (1806), Cattaraugus (1808), Chautauqua (1808), Niagara (1808), part of Livingston (1821), part of Monroe (1821), Erie (1821), Orleans (1824) and Wyoming (1841).  What was left is the present Genesee County." If you're doing any substantial research on early settlers in Erie and Niagara Co's I recommend both USGenweb county sites, as well as reading up on the Holland Land Purchase. FAMILY history is made more difficult without knowledge of the HISTORY behind it; you'll save yourself a lot of wasted effort if you get some historical background under your belt. If you don't know what land was part of what county and town when, you can spend a lot of time looking in the wrong place. There is an excellent atlas the name of which escapes my menopausal brain at the moment...they have it in all genealogical and most public libraries. It shows the counties of every state for every census. I photocopied all the maps for each state I was going to be doing research in for each census year. The web is fine but there are times you can't get to it or have trouble downloading something (it took me EIGHT tries to get onto the web tonight, i kept getting bumped!) > -- "Three-fourths of philosophy & literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering." ~Gary Snyder, Zen Anarchist Poet ---------- >From: "Rene' Nilsson" <amoeba@adelphia.net> >To: NYNIAGAR-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: Where is Niagara County in 1790 census? >Date: Sat, Sep 9, 2000, 8:01 PM > > Hi, > > I was looking at Ancestry's images of the 1790 census online, but I wasn't > sure where to look for Niagara County. I believe this was part of Ontario > County at the time? However, after selecting this, I need to choose a > township. Those listed are: > > Canandaigua > Erwin District > Genesee District > Jerusalem District > > Does anyone know if any of these cover present-day Erie or Niagara County? > I'm assuming this isn't all of Ontario county, since both Erie and Niagara > county were part of it at the time, so it must have been large. Or were the > townships/districts just really big? > > Any help appreciated, as I'm not sure where to start. :) > > Thanks, > > Rene' Nilsson > amoeba@adelphia.net > > > ==== NYNIAGAR Mailing List ==== > To obtain New York State vital records (birth, death, marriage), see > <http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/consumer/vr/geninst.htm>. > >

Posted on: Niagara Co. NY Queries Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/USA/NY/Niagara/274 Surname: Sherwood ------------------------- Noah Sherwood and family apparently moved to Somerset, Niagara Co., sometime after 1831. They had 5 more children while living there. Any information about this family during this period would be appreciated. Thanks.

Posted on: Niagara Co. NY Queries Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/USA/NY/Niagara/272 Surname: Sherwood ------------------------- I am looking for information about the Noah Schuyler Sherwood family who lived in Hartland, Niagara Co., NY at least between 1820-1830. They had 4 children while living there. Noah was a sibling of my great great grandfather, Elijah W. Sherwood, who is buried in Trumansburg, NY along with his son, grandson and other members of that family. I have information on that line of the Sherwood family if anyone is interested. Any information greatly appreciated.

Hi, I guess I originally started this discussion on the Schoellkopf plant collapse when I sent information on my web site including Old City Views of Niagara Falls, NY. My father worked for Niagara Mohawk and its predecessors for about 35 years, so I remember the collapse very well, I guess I was about 12 at the time. It had a big effect on our lives and I guess that's why I pulled out some old company magazines and included those pictures on my site. Anyone who is interested in the history of power, geology and a lot more about Niagara Falls, NY & Ontario I can definitely recommend this site: http://www.iaw.on.ca/~falls/ I am new to this list and have been enjoying it very much. I left Niagara Falls about 35 years ago and now live in Arizona. I am coming back for a visit next month (a genealogy tour of NY State & Quebec); only my second time back in all these years. Thanks for your kind words about my site; give me a year and I will know what I am doing. Judy (Ohmann) Baillargeon http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~baillargeon/

Dear Folks, First of all, I'm certain that Vince Olscamp meant the following message to be posted to our Niagara Co. list. And without his prior permission I'm forwarding it on to you. Vince, I bow to you regarding your knowledge of the geology of the formation of Niagara Falls. Now I don't know about you or the rest of you but it's only been in the past week or two that I saw the documentory our local PBS station broadcasted that really opened my own eyes to the history of formation of the falls. From my/our local point of view, it received a standing ovation. But now I have a confession to make. I promised you that I would check out my local history books and give you the history of the Schoellkopf Power Plant and the circumstances of its collapse in 1956. This evening I managed to get up enough mental strength to dig up the details from the local history books that I have and write up the whole story. But here's the bottom line. I peered at the old history books I have still stacked up on my desk, took feeble note of the their dates of publication, realized that they were too old to report a 1956 incident and when I dug up the most modern of them, published in 1955, I realized that I can't tell you one single thing about the rock slides that demolished the power plant. But from what Vince posted, I hope you will contact him to learn further information. And hey, Vince, I hope you'll share your knowledge with all of us. You've got my curiosity up! You were there at the time and I wasn't. That ain't fair!.:-) vee ----- Original Message ----- From: <Instman50@aol.com> To: <nbvena22@worldnet.att.net>; <housman@adelphia.net> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 9:13 AM Subject: Re: Niagara Views Web Site > I was a resident of Niagara Falls and took interest in the remains of the > power plant when I was growing up. I will give you some information but Vee > has promised more so I will cover only what her books won't tell her. > > The power plant was built in the gorge down river from the falls. It was > built against the wall of the gorge by people that did not know as much about > geology as they thought. The gorge was created over the last 10,000 years by > the soft rock under the Falls giving way and collapsing. Then the Falls would > start again on the new rock. The reason there is a falls at all is that Lake > Erie where the Niagara River begins, is at an elevation about 160 feet higher > than Lake Ontario, where it ends. > > The gorge wall behind the plant just plain couldn't take the weight and > collapsed. > > If you would like further information please let me know. > > instman50@aol.com - Vince Olscamp

> Pat, > > I noticed your posting for LEWIS. I'm researching George > Trumbull Lewis who addressed his Civil War letters to his > father, Thomas L. Lewis, Esq in Lockport, NY. Any connection? > > Regards, > > Ed in CA > My Lewis is Peter George and his father is William Sorry, Pat

Pat, I noticed your posting for LEWIS. I'm researching George Trumbull Lewis who addressed his Civil War letters to his father, Thomas L. Lewis, Esq in Lockport, NY. Any connection? Regards, Ed in CA

Dear Group, I will be unsubscribing. However, I am still looking for information on my wife's family; David Ingham Alfred Mallette + + Ann O'Callahan Florence Smith Harold Ingham + Florence Mallette The Ingham family was from Buffalo and the Mallette family was from Niagara County, NY. If you would like additional information, please go to: http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/j/o/h/Thomas-Alan-Johnson/ Thank You, Tom Johnson

The name of the company in Lockport is Simonds Saw and Steel. "The Simonds Saw and Steel Company in Lockport, N.Y., milled 25-30 million pounds of uranium [or use as fuel rods] for the government`s plutonium-producing reactors in Hanford, Wash." Another Niagara (or is it in Erie?) Co. site mentioned is Linde Air Products in Tonawanda, NY. The URL is: http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/001.htm -- "Three-fourths of philosophy & literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering." ~Gary Snyder, Zen Anarchist Poet

Dear Nancy, et al, Oh, yes INDEED, the Home of Shredded Wheat! And the rockslides that did in the Schoellkopf Electric Plant in 1956 (after I had left Niagara Falls when I joined the Navy). Regarding the Shredded Wheat plant, I have memories (and the details of its history). Regarding the rockslides, I have history books that certainly tell the story in graphic detail. I sincerely want you to bring up those subjects again at a future date so that I can respond to them with all the details of my enthusiasm. For the moment, however, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. vee ----- Original Message ----- From: venable <nbvena22@worldnet.att.net> To: <NYNIAGAR-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 7:35 AM Subject: Niagara Views Web Site > Judy -- > > Thank you for putting these early postcards of Niagara Falls, NY on your > Web Site! They really give a flavor of the city, & especially of the > changing faces of the streets over time. > > I didn't realize this was the "Home of Shredded Wheat"! I have a question > about the final web page, showing the destruction of part of the > Schoellkopf Electric Plant by 3 rockslides in 1956 -- does anyone know what > caused the rockslides at that point? > > Nancy V > nbvena22@worldnet.att.net > ---------------------------- > >From: Judith Baillargeon <jabaill@uswest.net> > > >If anyone would be interested I have just started a new web site; part > >of its content is old views of the city of Niagara Falls, mainly from > >old postcards. > > >The URL: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~baillargeon/ > > >Please bear with me as this my first attempt to put a site online. > > >Judy B. > > > ==== NYNIAGAR Mailing List ==== > A list of Town, Village, and City Historians for Niagara County is at > <http://hometown.aol.com/Moecow/index12.html>. >

Today's USA TODAY had an article about Cold War era nuclear waste pollution, and one of the sites they listed was LOCKPORT NY which is where my dad's mother's family lived and some elderly cousins still do reside, one of whom lost a daughter at a relatively young age to cancer. so I was wondering if anyone on the list has more information about this, whether or not anyone had relatives who worked in the nuclear industry, or who may have become ill as a result. i know back in the 1970s there was an epidemic of what was called 'chronic fatigue syndrome' in Lyndonville (is that Niagara or Orleans Co.?) which i always suspected was some kind of chemical or heavy metal poisoning which, like Love Canal, was covered up, only this one was covered up more successfully so no connection was ever made. the article said there is massive pollution of groundwater in certain areas which has never been owned up to by the government. If anyone is interested, it was on the front page of USA TODAY. don't know if it's on their web site. -- "Three-fourths of philosophy & literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering." ~Gary Snyder, Zen Anarchist Poet

To keep you further updated. Zona --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Gordon A. WATTS" <gordon_watts@telus.net> To: CENSUS-CHAT-L@rootsweb.com Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 19:33:01 -0700 Subject: [CENSUS-CHAT] Environics Research Omnibus Survey re: Post 1901 Census Message-ID: <001601c01874$9edb0280$4bf635d1@telus.net> Greetings All. At last. The long awaited Report of the Environics Research Omnibus Surveys on Public Attitudes relating to access to Post 1901 Census has been posted on the Statistics Canada website. It is an Adobe PDF file that downloads when you access the link. You require the Adobe Acrobat reader to view the document. It is 27 pages long and you will probably want to print it out for easy reading. Go to http://www.statcan.ca/english/census96/interm.htm and click on the link labelled "Report on Public Attitudes". This downloads the English language version. The document in French is accessed by first accessing the French side of the Statistics Canada website. We have not yet seen the Report of the Expert Panel. In speaking today with yet another Assistant to John Manley I sensed some uncertainty about what she was telling me. She thought that Mr. Manley was currently conducting meetings relating to the Report of the Expert Panel but could not say with any certainty that such was the case. She indicated that she would check and get back to me. Rest assured I will let everyone know as soon as I find out anything. In the meantime I would encourage everyone to continue with writing letters. Please let us know of any responses you get. I am off to read the Environics Research report. Happy Hunting. Gordon A. WATTS gordon_watts@telus.net Canada Census Committee Port Coquitlam, BC Keep up to date on Post 1901 Census information at http://www.globalgenealogy.com/census and http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Farm/7843/poll.html Download and circulate Post 1901 Census Petitions now from http://www.globalgenealogy.com/census/petition.htm This message has been posted to the Alberta-L, Can-British-Columbia-L, Can-Manitoba-L, Census-Chat-L, Colchester, Lunen-Links-L, Nova-Scotia-L, Ontario-L, PictouRoots, Roots-L, Watts-L, and Wiltshire-EMI-L mail lists. Permission to forward without notification is granted.

Looking for the parents of Aurilla and Joseph Edson, both b. 1810-1820 NY. Both were in Vigo Co. IN, in 1840. Aurilla was m. to Nicolas Larkin. His father Nicholas, his brother Sanford, and his brother Dennis were all in Vigo. Later, in Putnam Co. Aurilla, now a widow, m. Benjamin Bastin. She was probably a daughter of an Edson family from Niagara, where the Larkins were in 1830. I am going to unsubscribe, so send any response direct. debelling@msn.com

Posted on: Niagara Co. NY Queries Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/genbbs.cgi/USA/NY/Niagara/271 Surname: Kittell ------------------------- I checked the Military Institute at Carlisle Barracks web site and there are a number of photos from the 151st. Very quickly scanning, however, I don't think there's one of Kittell. http://carlisle-www.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/PhotoDB/FindPhotos.cfm The other place to check is with the New York State Library at Albany. Good luck! Ginny Gage

Posted on: Niagara Co. NY Queries Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/USA/NY/Niagara/270 Surname: VanAmburgh, Moore, Mattison ------------------------- Hello. I am seeking information regarding either the Moore or VanAmburgh's who lived in Niagara Falls(Niagara County) ca 1910. Esther Elizabeth Moore was the sister-in-law of Henry VanAmburgh. Nellie VanAmburgh married her cousin, Harry T. VanAmburgh. Harry remarried after Nellie died to a Louise UNKNOWN and had a daughter named Virginia VanAmburgh. Other names are: Edward James Mattison/Truman VanAmburgh/Burt VanAmburgh/Henry Moore. I believe that there are still descendants of this Moore family in or around Niagara Falls but the long distance calls to locate them out of the hundreds of Moore's were killing me. Anyone with information on any of these people, please contact me at rmatthews6196@penn.com Thank you in advance. Rose

Posted on: Niagara Co. NY Queries Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/genbbs.cgi/USA/NY/Niagara/268 Surname: ------------------------- Re: Niagara County, NY There are some Land Transactions listed for all of Western NYS at This Site; ftp-ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ny/deeds/holland.txt