"Leading Citizens Built Homes On The Hills South Of The River," Jamestown (NY) Post-Journal, 29 March 1986, p.13.
        The Post-Journal website:  http://post-journal.com/

Continued from p.12, The Post-Journal, March 29,1986

Leading Citizens Built Homes On The Hills South Of The River

   From the start the Jamestown Worsted Mills were a success. They can rightfully be termed Jamestown's entrance into the machine culture. It was one of William Hall's biggest ventures. By the time of his death in 1880, he knew that it was one of the most successful. It was a significant step forward for the village.

    Directly south, as Warren Street (now South Main) ascends from river level, a brick chateau-like structure was reaching completion in 1886. It was alive with towers and turrets, all connected by a steeply pitched slate roof. William Broadhead, the owner of the home, had been engaged in successful financial ventures since before mid-century. It was his energy and optimism that led William Hall to invest in the first knitting mill. It was Broadhead's accumulated savings from a tool factory and a men's clothing store, earlier businesses, that enabled him to part from the Jamestown Knitting Mill after only two years and, with his two sons, Almet and Sheldon, establish a parallel operation. The gamble of mechanization paid off for him as it did for William Hall. The Broadhead sons quickly took up the family leadership. Both were dedicated to the welfare of the community and by 1886 the Broadhead money was being distributed throughout the city in both commercial and philanthropic enterprises. Personal commitment as well as money was extended. Almet, at age 35 in 1886, was the youngest member of the Committee of Ten which formulated the new City Charter.

    In the same neighborhood, on the brow of Prospect Street hill, stood a large frame house, distinguished by its mansard roof, graceful bay windows and lacy iron work. This was yet another manifestation of affluence in the city. Porter Sheldon, its owner, was often called New York's most famous lawyer in his day. He was active in national politics and had known every president from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt personally. Mr. Sheldon owned large tracts of land within the city limits which were soon to be developed, and choice parcels of land along Lake Chautauqua. In his prime at 55 years of age in 1886, Mr. Sheldon was busy with a variety of projects beyond his law practice. The most ambitious and the one to which he lent his considerable means was the development of a novel manufacturing plant. This operation would produce a newly invented stable photographic paper.  Plans were already under way in 1886 and by 1890 the American Aristotype Company was providing a new pattern of employment and bringing a national reputation to the city.

    Just directly south of Brooklyn Square on a prominent rise stood an impressive brick dwelling. This delightful Italian villa style building was artistically crowned with a cupola that overlooked the entire city. This was the home built by Reuben E. Fenton in the mid 1860s when he was gaining a national and international reputation. The governor, justifiable termed "the first citizen of Jamestown," had died in 1885. In addition to the esteem of his fellow Jamestowners, the governor had accumulated a sizable fortune from his lumbering and real estate holdings. Then in the mid-1880s, Governor Fenton's son and heir, Reuben Earle Fenton, was able to join with his brother-in-law's family, the Giffords, to invest $125,000 in the proposal of an enterprising salesman from Chicago, James Hine. This investment which established the Fenton Metallic Company, brought still another industrial dimension to the city - the manufacture of metal office furniture. Their company's name was soon changed to The Art Metal Company and it proved to be the source of much of Jamestown's prosperity in the early decades of the 20th century.

    The owners of the large mansions, both those south of the city, and those to the north more recently built, were benefactors to the city. However, a more rapidly growing segment of the city population was equally important to the economic health.
    There was a prosperous, hard-working middle class. The merchants busy with goods and services made up a part of this group. Also of great importance were the small scale craftsmen who were just beginning to turn out the well-made wooden furniture for which Jamestown became nationally famous.

    The homes of this class were sturdy frame dwellings that were dotting the streets along the river and the railroad and up the precipitous hills to the east. The people were characterized by close ties to home and church, careful financial management and an earnest ambition to better themselves. Numbered among these were the Irish and Yankees of earlier times, the English  who had come to work in the newly established knitting mills, and, most recently, the Swedes. The Carlson family living on English Street was fairly typical of that last wave of immigrants. Their son, Samuel, 18 years old in 1886, combined the strong home discipline with his own personal philosophy of municipal humanitarianism. This he carried into action in city government as he reached his 20s. As mayor for 26 years, he was the dominant voice of Jamestown for the first third of the 20th century.

    The first city administration took up its work with zeal. Municipal improvement was everywhere in the air during the 1890s. A city-owned water system powered by the Buffalo Street pumping station extended its lines to all sections of the city. Sewer construction was begun in 1893. Street paving, financed by property owner assessment, was initiated a year later. Electricity was produced for both street lights and private homes by the Jamestown Municipal Power Plant opened in 1891. Trolley lines were built on all the mainstreets. The horse-drawn trolley disappeared when electric power became available for the cars in 1891. The Chautauqua Lake Railroad was completed along the east side of the lake in 1887. Local citizens could make rail connections with national lines of the Pennsylvania and New York Central at Mayville and Westfield.

    Other city services appeared at this same time. The Women's Christian Association opened the first hospital in a large house on Allen Street in 1887. This gave the people of Jamestown not only the opportunity for more centralized health care, but it also made possible locally many of the life-saving surgical techniques which were then being developed. (The first operation for appendicitis was performed in the United States in 1886.) A local physician, Dr. Cornelius Ormes, gained a national reputation for performing successful ovarian surgery.

    Telephone service had increased. Two independent companies vied for business. By the early 1900s competition was so intense that the city was obliged to set forth limitations on the number and extent of the franchises.

    The population increased from 15,000 in 1886 to more than 22,000 by 1900. It was a period of extensive development in the residential areas. New public buildings also appeared. When it became evident that the county seat would not be removed from Mayville to Jamestown early in the 1890s, a new city hall was built in 1897. Until it was constructed city business was centered in the Prendergast Building on Main and Third streets. The James Prendergast Free Library opened its own building in 1891. A bequest from Mary Prendergast, daughter-in-law of the founder of Jamestown, funded the building's construction as well as a continuing endowment for the purchase of books and the creation of an art gallery. It was a wonderful boon to the cultural and educational life of the community.

    This was Jamestown in its earliest years as a city. A writer of that time summarized its condition:

    With a picturesque and healthful location, with a well-organized city government, and a prosperous and progressive citizenship...Jamestown proudly claims a place at the head of the list of the enterprising municipal cities of the state, and who shall say the claim is not well-founded?

04/27/2004