Downtown Chemung, Reflections of the past.
A narrative written by former resident, Mike Tuccinardi
W.D. or Wright D. Morley, born Jan 13th, 1870, was a third generation Athens resident, being descended from Isaac Morley, who immigrated from Connecticut to Athens at the turn of the 19th century. The Morley’s had a 100 acre farm between the old tannery in West Athens and Morley's Crossing. He was one of three brothers, Ira and Judson (JJ).
His parents being farmers, Wright Morley was a self-made money maker. When he bought Frank Hood's general store on Nov 3, 1910, the week before he was living with his wife and son in Mills, PA, westward up around the NY-PA border. So, he had money and moved quick when he saw an opportunity. (There were three general stores in town at that time - Ford's, Hood's (the one on the postcards), and later on that decade, Campbell's, which became Elmer Weston's Serve-U-Save-U in 1927.) His wife's name was Edna Besemer; they had a son Bernard S., the well-known Elmira radio personality in the 50s, and a daughter Edna Morley Smith. Their names are misspelled as Marley and Morly in various census. The whole time he lived in Chemung - 1910 to 1928, while he owned the store from 1910-1919, while he owned the Morley Hotel from 1919-1928, while he was Justice of the Peace from 1925-1927, he was a horse trader on the side. He'd have herds of horses railroaded in from the Midwest (he had cousins out there with connections) and sold them off at the Owen farm at first, his own farm in Athens, and Columbia Crossroads later on. He had horses for sale ads running constantly in the Binghamton Press and Elmira Star Gazette. The prices for these farm horses were pretty consistent from 1911-1933, $12-1600 a head. Once he moved his family to Elmira's Southside (504 Morley Place) in 1928, he was selling anything that wasn't nailed down, cars, trailers, poultry, feed, fertilizer, and finally, from 1936 to 1939, coal, for $8 a ton. While he was Justice of the Peace, two guys and a girl were caught breaking and entering at Elmer Weston's store. He gave all three 6 months in the county jail, with the girl's sentence suspended if she took the next train to New York City. As the paper said, "The girl was placed on the Saturday morning train to New York." The Morley Hotel, while Morley had it, was a class act. All the various clubs in Waverly would motor up to Chemung for their luncheons at the Morley. Wright D. Morley died on May 8th, 1939, 69 years old in Elmira. He's buried in the Tioga Point cemetery. His wife died at 75 in May 1953. The Morley Hotel is still there in Chemung, a bit shabby now. Morley Place on Elmira's southside is named after him, and 504 is a cute little bungalow, it doesn't look a bit like a coal yard. (The Chemung Springwater and Chemung Speedrome is beyond the scope of this narrative. Others have done a superb job of documenting their origins and business activities.) We all think of the Bodine’s, the Fords, the Weston’s, and Kirks as natives. By our time they were, but they were relative latecomers. The Bodine’s came to Chemung via Wellsburg from Wisconsin in the 1890s, John Ford came from Newark Valley in 1897, Walter Kirk came from Halsey Valley in 1925, and Elmer Weston came from Philadelphia in 1925. We know from newspaper accounts that Wright Morley owned the Morley store from 1910 to 1919, and owned the hotel from 1919 to 1928, when he bought a place in Elmira. William E Howell's obituary says he bought the Chemung House in 1905; owning it for (approximately) ten years and farmed for 3 years, before he buying the food store from Wright D. Morley. A separate article in the Star-Gazette says he sold the "old James Warren hotel on the Buck farm property" to John E. Skinner June 24, 1914. Howell also tobacco-farmed 170 acres until he sold the farm to Ralph Frisbee in 1922. John Skinner sold the hotel to Morley in 1919. We know the store that Morley owned was started in the same general location (NE corner of Main and Washington) by Charles Ruggles, burned in August 1883 and rebuilt as the postcards show it immediately by a contractor named Secord from Waverly, with Ruggles including his son Wilson in the ownership. After Wilson Ruggles died in 1893, Charles resumed proprietorship. When Charles died in 1896, his family sold the operation to Duane C. King. King ran the business into the ground, absconding with the proceeds to California in June 1900 where he met a bad end six years later. The goods were auctioned off in a sheriff's auction in November that year. In February 1901, DeWitt Masterson, son of E. R. Masterson, moved his family into Duane King's house on Washington and ran the grocery until Frank Hood shows up in the papers as proprietor in 1905. (The Masterson family was tragic. Another son of E.R's, Herrick, attempted to murder his wife and committed suicide in 1897; DeWitt's oldest son died of diphtheria in 1900; his other son bled to death after a freight train cut his leg off in 1902; his wife and 2 of her sisters died within 5 years of each other 1915-1920, young women.) Across Washington street from the Ruggles/Morley store was the store known as the first John I Ford store, the one in the post cards. But it was a lot older than that. From Joyce Tice's Tri Counties' reprint of Ausburn Towner's 1892 History, "Directly across the street from the Ruggles store is the oldest store building now standing in the village. It was built by Abner Buck, an uncle of George W. Buck, about 1833 or '34, but was not used as a store until 1838, when J. M. Baldwin, familiarly known as " Morg." Baldwin, opened the place with a stock of groceries and carried on business there for about five years. It passed into several different hands and for some time prior to 1868 was kept by Sawyer & Nichols. Martin Wood then purchased the store and continued it until 1885, when he disposed of it to Charles Murphy, who was in possession for two years. In 1887 Reeser Brothers took charge of the store and continued there until the death of Willis Reeser, after which F. A. Reeser carried on the business until bought out in April, 1890, by George C. Baldwin, the present proprietor." George C. Baldwin sold the store in 1893 to a man named Charles A. Woodruff, who sold it to John I. Ford in 1897. According to three sources, John I. Ford came to town from Newark NY in 1897 and bought the existing store across Washington on the NW corner in 1897 outright from the Woodruffs, where he (and son Guy R.) sold drugs, general merchandise, lumber and feed there until 1926. As previously noted, Milton H. Bodine came to the area from Wisconsin in the 1890s (Eli Sr. was born in 1888 in that state), buying the Park Hotel in Wellsburg. In March 1909, Milton bought the Maple Row Farm in Chemung - this is the one on Wynkoop just above the current racetrack on the east side of the road. In Sept 1909, he sold his interest in the Park Hotel to his son-in-law Ernest L. (Robert) Bradley. In Oct 1909, Bradley flipped the hotel to his mother, telling the paper he and his family was moving to Denver. However, the 1910 census has him and Emma and son Harold in Brooklyn NY. I found in census reports Milton had two daughters, Emma, married to Bradley; and Reeva, who married Guy R. Ford, John I. Ford's son. Robert/Ernest/E.L. Bradley was a shady guy. He used both names indiscriminately. From all the personals in the Waverly and Elmira papers, the Fords and the Bradley’s socialized; Guy Ford and Ernest Bradley were great friends. Ernest L. Bradley ran a sandwich shop in Waverly in 1912, and expanded it with a bakery that he bought out. The week after he bought the bakery, the building burned, his end of it was covered by insurance. It is a fact that Ernest L. Bradley and Guy Ford opened the Pyramids in Dec 1922 as a restaurant and dance hall. In Feb 1923 they sold dance cards for the year. There were big events there throughout 1923, however, in December, there's an item in the Star-Gazette that says the Pyramids had been taken over by two Elmira’s, Howard Kolb and an R. Sullivan. But before you know it, we have two March 1924 Star-Gazette newspaper clippings from the same day's paper where Robert Bradley, proprietor of "Bradley's Store", will sell the business to Wright D. Morley so that Robert can devote more time to the Pyramids. In a separate article same page, in the Chemung personals, Ernest L. Bradley is disposing of his grocery business so that Bradley can devote more time to the Pyramids. During the early twenties, the Pyramids was a hot weekend night ticket. So Bradley is unloading a store on Morley so he can spend more time with Ford at the Pyramids. Which store was it? It wasn't Howell's. It wasn't Campbell’s. I don't have a clue. "Messrs. Ford and Bradley" ran the Pyramids the rest of 1924, and part of 1925, when on Decoration Day 1925, there's an ad "Under New Management" and in Sept. 1925 there's another "re-opening". So, I think the original Pyramids was in business as a restaurant and dance hall 1922, 1923, 1924, and went broke late 1925. ...continues at top of page |
(I found no documentation, but "reliable sources" say the Pyramids restaurant and hot spot was started with seed money from the EC&W trolley company to generate revenue. For a while, it was a popular destination. Newspaper articles noted that the EC&W partially funded various enterprises in the Elmira area like Rodrick’s Glen, Eldridge Park, and a park in the Watkins Glen/Montour Falls area.)
Walter Kirk started Kirk's Garage in 1926 in, and I quote " the building formerly occupied by John I Ford's feed store." All other references to John I Ford's 1st store was "general" store. Mike and Susan Aumick posted an excellent photograph of Kirk's Garage in the 1926-1929 time frame. It turns out that John I. Ford had 3 businesses at that (NW corner of Washington and Main) location - the general store out front (dry goods/hardware), post office, and trolley stop; the Feed Store directly in back of the general store; and a lumber yard with a two-story building that you see in the Aumick photo. In Aug 1929, a huge fire cut Chemung off from the outside world for 3 days. It broke out in the barbershop in the "causeway" between Kirk's Garage and the two-story building in back. It burned the two-story building and Guy Ford's house in front to the ground, also damaging John I's house next door west of Guy's house. The fire was eventually put out with a bucket brigade - no water available. Guy Ford eventually built a new house that is on the northwest corner of Chemung St and Washington St. in the early thirties. So, allow me to recap this period with what we know now: Guy Ford and E.L. Bradley open the Pyramids. It was a popular if not shaky enterprise, with the Fords moving their Feed Store into the defunct Pyramids in late 1925-early 1926. At the same time, they sold their old feed store to Kirk, who opened his garage in 1926. They evidently leased or sold the two-story building to #2 school district, because at the time of the fire they were using it as a annex as a storage facility, and two classrooms, also. After the fire, it became imperative for the district to build a new school, as it was overflowing. After a controversial bond issuance, a new 4 room brick school was built across from the Cemetery at a cost of $30,000. It was occupied Nov 1931, according to Elsie Thomas' article on Historical Echoes website. Also, in 1931, as we can see with another Aumick photograph, a new fire engine was purchased. In 1925 and 1926, E. L. Bradley was promoting circuses in Elmira as fundraisers for the Moose Lodge there. In 1929 he wrote a rubber check and moved his family to Buffalo, where a detective from Corning went to pick him up. (Emma Bradley makes periodic visits to Chemung to visit her mother.) In further reading, I found that Bradley and his son Harold had a restaurant in Elmira on Lake St that burned in 1939. If it hadn't been for the fire, the cops wouldn't have found a gambling hall on the second story. The two safes, records, and unpaid for fixtures were impounded by the sheriff. Bradley recovered from this, and wound up owning a string of restaurants in the 1940s along Rt 17. Walter Kirk got his start in 1926 in the old Ford Feed store, and celebrated his 30th anniversary as a garage owner July 27, 1956. In between, he made enough money to raise a family, he was big on charities, he and his wife Leda were active in Chemung church and civic affairs. He was from Halsey Valley, where his father was a blacksmith and lived to age 91. Walter was in business at that location for 53 years, married to Leda for 53 years, and died in 1986 at age 81. They snow-birded it in Florida the last 13 years of his life. Walter Kirk was a good solid man, the kind of guy Chemung could brag about. Reprising the history of the Chemung House, that location (SE corner of Main and Washington) was occupied by an immense hotel seen in the 1853 lithographs built by Ashael Buck in 1828. Most folks think that the Bucks operated the old gigantic hotel the whole time, but there were others involved. A George Reber, for instance. I don't have any firm dates. While it was owned by Charles A. DeWitt in 1873, all of it burned to the ground, with DeWitt and his wife escaping with little more than the clothes on their backs. It was then rebuilt by James Warren by the mid-1870s as the hotel we know as the Morley. Warren, some may be surprised to find out, sold the hotel in 1905 to a man in Waverly by the name of Walter D. Parks, with Milton Bodine being interim manager until William E. Howell bought it from Parks later on in 1905. Bodine was operating the Park Hotel in Wellsburg at the same time. Warren was getting on in years (he died in 1914), he may have wanted out and Parks saw a chance to make a buck. William E Howell ran the hotel from 1905 to June 1914, when he sold it to John Skinner. Wright D. Morley bought it from Skinner and operated this hotel from 1919 to 1928, when he sold to Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Hawkins. The Hawkins got a "summertime" beer license in the 1930s. They sold to JJ Weller in 1938, who operated it during World War 2. After the war, Ray and Gordon Vanderlyke ran the hotel until 1964, when the Depew’s bought it. (Thank you Lissa.) I think it is worth noting, that during this period (1900-1905), James Warren built the structure across the street from the hotel. This building eventually became Elmer Weston's Serv-u Save-u, but before that, George W. Campbell operated a grocery store here from 1916 on. He sold to Elmer Weston at the end of 1926 (who, btw, was from the Philly area); with Weston inheriting the $800/yr postmaster job from Campbell as well. James Warren also erected a building on the same side of the road as the Erie Railroad station, up from the station. Its function was not described. He also built a wooden sidewalk from the railroad station to his hotel in the 1900s. Meanwhile, back at the grocery store, William E. Howell was doing pretty good. He sold his tobacco farm to Ralph Frisbie in 1922, ran for County Sheriff in Oct 1923 and lost; and was appointed County Sealer (Weights and Measures) in Oct. 1926, a post which he held until he died Sept 4, 1948 at age 75. They were going to retire him Sept 30th, but the Lord beat the County supervisors to the punch. Howell had been getting yearly extensions since he was 70. William Howell is the man you see in the Chemung House postcard standing on the porch of the Morley in 1906 holding son Peter B. in the crook of his left arm. (Peter was a town supervisor in the 1950s-1960s.) Howell ran the grocery store until Dec 31, 1932, when he sold the operation to Leonard. Ashley Sparling and Walter Chase, who, with his wife, moved from Millport NY to Chemung so he could "assume an interest in a grocery there." Sparling moved to Chemung from Corning in 1930, and played on the Chemung ball team; before that he ran a garage, and after that he ran a garage. Chase, I think was a silent partner; Sparling, on the other hand, had a high profile as a cab driver in Corning, I'd say he was accident-prone; his name was in the papers 1921-1930 for this lawsuit and that. But anyway, Chase and Sparling sold the operation to the Dewey’s in 1936. The Dewey’s’ ran the store until April 1950, when they sold the business to John Winnick Winnick was a nice guy, who I know personally carried more people on the books than he should have, but the people for which he did were grateful. From his obituary, he ran the store for 14 years. then sold to Bob and Ramony Sempler. Alice Curren said she operated the store after the Semplers from August 1964 until April 1975. Vicki Lysak said Len Lysak ran it until late 1978. According to the Post family, Isabel Post Smith ran a grocery here starting in 1978, with the 1988 bi-centennial booklet saying she is still running it. Then a family named Gorman had it, then Ernie Stedge had an auction house. Everyone who operated a business here, from Sempler on, paid rent to the Masonic Lodge. So, it was the Masonic Lodge that owned the building starting, I don't know when. Off the subject - there were no shortage of gas stations in Chemung. From Casterline's Rotary on the east curve, somebody (thanks, bub) told me there was a station by Schamel's house, George Cambell pumped Socony-Mobil gas in front of what we knew as Elmer Weston's store; Walter Kirk was pumping Esso; Tommy Ridler had a Texaco on the west curve; the Gunderman’s, Harry and Norm had the Texaco on Katy-Did Curve. Ridler's Texaco became the interim Town of Chemung equipment depot when Tommy opened a Texaco in Elmira, until the new Town of Chemung building was erected on the Rotary extension. After that, there was a coffee shop with the Chemung Post Office alongside. (Someone else can supply the dates.) I liked Tommy Ridler. He was a good man. |