There and Back Again: The Journey of the Dunker Bible

By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

 

On September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam raged near Sharpsburg, Maryland, between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee and the Union Army of the Potomac under General George B. McClellan. At the southern tip of the Confederate line was a small Dunker church. At the end of the battle, the church was badly scarred from bullet holes and an artillery shell had done serious damage to the walls and roof. The day after the battle, a truce was arranged there for the collecting of the wounded and dead. While searching for the missing men of his regiment, Corporal Nathan Dykeman of the 107^th New York Volunteers ventured inside. There, he helped himself to the large bible resting on the lectern, setting off a 40-year odyssey that would take the bible from Sharpsburg to Elmira and back again.

Truce at Dunker Church by Alfred Waud (Courtesy of National Park Service) 

The Dunkers, also known as the Schwarzenau Brethren or the German Baptists, are a Christian sect founded in Germany in 1708. Their nickname comes from their practice of triple full-body immersion adult baptism. After suffering religious prosecution, a group settled in Pennsylvania in 1720 and soon spread into Maryland, Ohio, and Virginia. They eschew drinking, swearing, war, slavery, and, today, certain aspects of modern technology. The church in Sharpsburg was established in 1852 on land donated by local farmer Samuel Mumma. At the time of the battle, the congregation consisted of a half-dozen local farm families. It would take them several years to repair the battle damaged church and many more to recover their stolen bible.

Its thief, Nathan Dykeman enlisted in the 107^th New York Volunteers at age 24 in July 1862 along with his younger brother James. They both joined Company H in Havana (now Montour Falls), Nathan as a corporal and James as a private. Both fought with the regiment for the rest of the war with Nathan being promoted to sergeant in 1863. He was killed on May 29, 1865 when he was struck by a train just outside Washington, D.C. following a victory celebration. His comrades saw to it that his personal effects made it home to his sister, including the stolen bible.

The bible remained with the Dykeman family until 1903 when Nathan’s sister gave it to James H. Arnold, one of her brothers’ former comrades in arms. He presented it to his fellow former soldiers at the annual reunion of the 107^th New York Volunteers on September 17, 1903 at the Elmira Armory and they agreed to pay the sister $10 for it. The original plan was to add the bible to the records of the regimental association, but it was ultimately decided that someone would contact the church in Sharpsburg instead. But who?

Enter John T. Lewis of Elmira. Mark Twain buffs might better know him as the man who saved Twain’s sister-in-law and niece from an almost certain death by runaway carriage in 1877. Lewis was a Black man who was born free in Carroll County, Maryland on January 10, 1835. He was baptized as Dunker at a church in Pipe Creek, Maryland in 1853. He first came to Elmira in 1862 where he owned a 64-acre farm and occasionally worked as a coachman for the Langdon family. Although he had long been separated from his religious brethren, he kept in touch via church publications and personal correspondence. Lewis used his contacts in the wider Dunker church to track down the pastor John E. Otto of the Sharpsburg church and arrange the return of the bible. It was officially returned to its proper place in the church by the hands of Elder Daniel Miller on December 4, 1903.

 

Mark Twain and John Lewis, ca. 1900

The bible still resides in the church today…after a fashion. After the war, souvenir hunters kept taking bricks off of the building. Fearing that someone might try to take the bible again, it was placed in a vault for safe keeping in 1917. In 1921, the church collapsed following a particularly violent storm. By then, the congregation had built a new church in town and the land and ruins we sold to new owners. In 1951, the site was donated to the National Park Service to be part of the larger Antietam battlefield historic site. In 1962, a restored church was built atop the original foundation using as much original material as possible. The bible was also donated to the Park Service where it rests on display at the Antietam National Battlefield visitor center…in a case so it can’t be stolen again. 

Dunker bible (Courtesy of National Park Service)

 

A Case of Measles

By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

 

Earlier in the year, I had a researcher who came every Friday for a month to look at our collection of reports of the Elmira Board of Health. I asked her what she was looking for. She explained that she was an ER nurse and was looking at historical records to see what the hospital might be in for if people stopped vaccinating their kids. “It’s going to be bad,” she said, looking over her notes. “It’s going to be really bad.”

At present, the State of New York requires that all students be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, hepatitis B, and chickenpox in order to attend public schools (unless they have a medical exception). Additionally, students in grades 7 through 12 are required to have the meningococcal disease vaccine while kids in day care or pre-k must have haemophilus influenzae type b and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Any one of these diseases can cause lasting debilitation or even death. Since the measles are in the news again after a series of deadly outbreaks, I’m going to focus on that one.

Measles is a highly-contagious disease which is spread through coughing, sneezing, etc. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes, white spots in the mouth called Koplik spots, and a red rash which spreads from face to feet. The symptoms appear within 10 to 12 days after exposure and usually last about a week. Common complications include diarrhea, ear infection, and pneumonia, but some unlucky sufferers can get inflammation of the brain resulting in seizures, blindness, and lasting brain damage. The virus causes patients’ immune systems to reset, making them susceptible to other illnesses, even ones they’ve already had, for several years after. Approximately 2.5 of every 1,000 modern cases results in death.

Looking at the historical record, measles was consistently the most common communicable illness in Chemung County. The exact numbers fluctuated from year to year. In 1925, there were just 49 reported cases in the City of Elmira. In 1949, there were 2,395 cases resulting in 2 deaths. In the days before antibiotics, patients were more likely to die of complications, especially pneumonia. In October 1869, an outbreak of measles at the Southern Tier Orphan’s Home resulted in 14 cases. Two children died. In an interview with the newspaper, the home’s matron said, “It is a comfort to think that these little ones, whose early life had been so darkly shadowed, are now safely gathered in a permanent Home, where sickness never enters, where want and orphanage are unknown, and where they may enjoy all the privileges of heirship in that beautiful land on equal footing with the children of wealth and nobility.” 

 

Elmira Board of Health, Annual Report, 1949

When cases were reported to the local Board of Health, officials would placard and quarantine the homes of patients in hopes of stopping the spread. In June 1897, there was a bit of a mystery surrounding the removal of a health placard placed at the multi-family home at 604 East Water Street. Mrs. Martha Tuttle, originally of North Chemung, was renting rooms there so her 15-year-old son might attend Elmira Free Academy. When he contracted measles, the home was placarded and quarantined. Mrs. Tuttle took her son home to North Chemung to recover and someone at the house removed the sign so the other residents could go back to school and work. The removal of a health placard without the approval of the health department was technically a crime, but no one was ever charged. While it was rare for people to just remove signs, it was apparently not uncommon for people to not report cases so as to avoid being placarded in the first place.

Elmira Gazette, June 30, 1897

The measles vaccine was first approved for use in the United States in 1963. There were subsequent improvements to the vaccine in 1968. A few years later in 1971, it was combined with vaccines for mumps and rubella to form the MMR vaccine. Children must receive two doses to be fully immunized. Thanks to the vaccine, measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, but, since then, it has made a resurgence thanks to vaccine hesitancy among certain groups. According to the CDC, as of May 22, there were 1,046 confirmed cases of measles in 2025 across 31 states. 96% of those patients were unvaccinated, 12% required hospitalization, and three have died.

Knowledge of the past is essential for understanding the present. It’s also important for predicting possible future outcomes of our decisions. Most American’s Gen X and younger have never had measles, let alone known someone who died from it. And yet, a quick look at the historical record proves my researcher is right. Stopping vaccination will result in more infections and more death. The good news is, by arming ourselves with that knowledge, we still have time to make better choices.  

Going up?

By Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Elevator call buttons from Gorton Coy building

In the late 1800s, one of the newest technological marvels started showing up in Elmira. Or to be more accurate, showing up and down, as the marvel in question was the passenger elevator. Elevator platforms lifted by a set of pulleys and cables, had around since Roman times. They were found to be useful when moving heavy objects. As buildings got taller, many were put to use but they were slow and dangerous. In Elmira, companies like the Elmira Stamping and Paper Manufacturing Company and the LaFrance Fire Engine Company relied on freight elevators to move equipment. They occasionally experienced mishaps or tragic accidents so the idea of using elevators to move people seemed unthinkable.

Attitudes changed with a simple demonstration at the first American World’s Fair in 1852. Raising a platform elevator before an anxious crowd at the Crystal Palace Exhibition, the lone passenger cut its retaining rope. Instead of crashing to the floor as expected, the platform held fast as its safety brake prevented it from falling. “All safe, gentlemen, all safe,” its passenger called out, and the crowd cheered. That man was Elisha Otis, and his company, Union Elevator and General Machine Works by Elisha Otis, went on to change its name to the Otis Elevator company, and is still in business today, over 170 years later.

Otis installed the first passenger elevator in the E. V. Haughwout department store in New York City. Although the building was only five stories high, the elevator’s novelty attracted crowds of curious people. Many of them admired the contraption’s noteworthy speed --one foot per second. Today the average elevator travels 5 to 10 feet per second. Inspired by its success and novelty, other businesses contracted to install their own elevators by retrofitting them into existing buildings.

The first mention of a passenger elevator in Elmira shows up in 1891 in the Star-Gazette newspaper. 
Unfortunately, it wasn’t for the best reason. The paper reported that late in the evening the elevator in the Robinson building got stuck for over an hour, and stranded the elevator operator. He was eventually freed by Mr. George Brooks, who worked in the building.

Other newspaper articles explained how elevators worked, what to expect when riding an elevator, and how to conduct oneself around others while riding an elevator. Unlike social expectations when men and women passed each other on the street, it was advised that while riding in an elevator men should keep their hats on to avoid catching colds.

Then there were reports of people coming down with a mysterious elevator sickness. Speculation was the motion of the elevator made some people feel ill.  

In 1897 the City Hall elevator made its first trip, and by the early 20^th century, many buildings around town had elevators, including the YMCA building, the Langwell and Rathbun hotels, and the Women’s Federation Building. 

By 1909, the city was soliciting bids to install a new elevator in City Hall.

While elevators became more common, accidents still happened and weren’t always as simple as just being stuck between floors. Reports of gruesome elevator accidents may have sold papers, but didn’t do much to reassure the public. 

Diagrams of how elevators worked were printed in the papers, and many buildings employed a dedicated elevator operator to assist passengers with opening and closing their heavy doors. It also became customary for operators to wear military-style uniforms to emphasize they were reliable and well-trained.

We can thank Alexander Miles, the father of young Grace, for one of the biggest improvements in elevator safety. When his daughter accidentally fell down an elevator shaft and survived, Miles, an African American inventor from Ohio, designed a device to prevent this kind of accident from happening again. Now when an elevator reached a floor, and only after it had stopped, the doors would automatically open and close. Not only was it a reassuring new safety feature, it saved businesses money by eliminating the need for operators. In 1919, the Second National Bank added Chemung County’s first automatic elevator.

Today the papers rarely publish reports of elevator accidents or elevators getting stuck. And no one wonders if they should leave their hat on or take it off.   

 

 

An American Manufacturing Story: American LaFrance

 By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

Last week I spent two days cataloging a collection of 163 photographs of the final assembly process for an American LaFrance fire truck. Paul Walker, the company’s Director of Engineering from 1983 to 1985, had taken the photos in January 1985 in order to document the process and see how it might be improved. It wasn’t like a modern auto plant with robots on an assembly line. It was just a team of guys working together to assemble a series of pre-fabricated parts to make a fire truck. 

 

The LaFrance Manufacturing Company, founded by Truckson LaFrance, built its first fire engine in late 1873. In those early days, the company made all sorts of things: rail fence machines, cotton pickers, corn shellers, and even railroad locomotives. By the 1880s, however, it was strictly focused on fire engines. In 1903, the company merged with serval other companies to found the American LaFrance Fire Engine Company. For the next 80 years, the company was the premier name in American firefighting equipment and a major Chemung County employer. Then the company left Elmira in 1985 for points south. For the next few decades, it dwindled in size and quality before being picked apart by vulture capitalists. The once-proud company filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and ceased operation altogether in 2014.

At its peak, the American LaFrance plant covered over 48 acres on Elmira’s Southside. The plant included a machine shop, paint shop, warehouses and a main office, plus buildings for pump assembly, cab & body assembly, frame and ladder assembly, engine assembly, and truck assembly. In 1957, 975 people worked at the plant itself with another 1,200 employed as salesmen throughout the country. At the time, they had an annual payroll of $6,500,000 (approximately $73,974,857 today). They completed two trucks a day.

Given the company’s long history in Elmira, it’s no surprise we have quite a bit of it. Here’s a quick rundown of our collections related to the American LaFrance Company:

1.    Two motorized and one horse-drawn fire engines
2.    Collection of 150^th American LaFrance anniversary celebration material, 1982
3.     4.5 linear feet of American LaFrance promotional literature and product guides
4.     2 linear feet of Blazes, the American LaFrance newsletter from 1919-1928, 1940-1954
5.    2 linear feet of photographs of American LaFrance facilities, products, and employees
6.      2 linear feet of glass-plate negatives of American LaFrance products, 1890s-1910s
7.      Nearly 100 technical drawings of American LaFrance products
8.     Papers of former American LaFrance employees including Carol A. Hall, Marshall Cecce, and John Darrow

While none of this material is currently on display, most are available upon request during our regular research hours from 1pm to 5pm, Monday through Friday. The fire engines are stored off-site and researchers must make an appointment at least a week in advance if they want to see them.

The last American LaFrance truck produced in Elmira rolled off the line on June 28, 1985. Paul Walker had a photo of that too. Thank you to his son who donated it along with all the others. If you have American LaFrance material or stories you’d like to share, we would love to hear from you. Contact me at (607) 734-4167 ex. 207 or archivist@chemungvalleymuseum.org. 

Last fire truck from the Elmira American LaFrance plant & team who built it, June 28, 1985

 

Birthright Citizenship

By Rachel Dworkin

Birthright citizenship has been in the news lately thanks to President Trump’s recent Executive Order 14156. The order ends birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and legal migrants in the country on temporary work, student, or tourist visas. At present, nearly every country in North and South America has birthright citizenship, but the practice is rare in the rest of the world. Historically, its application in the United States has been…complicated.

Like most things about the American legal system, birthright citizenship in the United States has its roots in English common law. Traditionally, anyone born in the king’s domain was automatically a subject of the king, including anyone born in the Colonies. Following the American Revolution, a series of court cases confirmed that people born in the United States or its territories were automatically citizens…with exceptions. In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), the Supreme Court held that the U.S. Constitution only granted citizenship to whites and no one of African descent, whether free or enslaved, born here or not, could ever be citizens.

Today, the Dred Scott decision is widely regarded as one of the worst rulings the Supreme Court ever made. It was effectively overturned by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (adopted July 9, 1868). The clause states: 

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." 

Even following the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, there were questions about just who qualified when it came to birthright citizenship. In 1873, Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, California to Chinese immigrant parents who were ineligible to become citizens themselves thanks to the Naturalization Law of 1802 which offered naturalization only to free whites. As a young man, Wong left to visit China and was subsequently denied re-entry to the United States upon his return thanks to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and a customs official’s refusal to acknowledge his citizenship. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court as United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). The court decided that the children of foreigners born on American soil were American citizens, whether the parents were eligible to become citizens or not. They made just four exceptions: children of foreign diplomats; children born on foreign public ships; children of enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country’s territory, and children of Indian tribes (which were effectively considered sovereign peoples). This last exception was subsequently removed by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which granted citizenship to all Native Americans.  

 

Wong Kim Ark, ca. 1904 (courtesy of Wikipedia)

So how does one prove American citizenship? These days, with a birth certificate, but it’s a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, for much of American history, birth records were held by churches, assuming there were even records at all. During the mid-1800s, different states began making a concerted effort to record births. New York State, for example, began collection birth records in 1881. Some counties and municipalities across the state began doing it earlier. New York City began recording births as far back as 1847. Chemung County has records going back to 1875, although not at the Historical Society.

The U.S. Public Health Service has a standard form for registering births, although many states have their own as well. The forms are completed by the attendant at birth or a hospital administrator and forwarded to the state and local health departments. In Chemung County, birth certificates are issued and held by the Chemung County Vital Records office at 103 Washington Street in Elmira. Parents receive a free copy of their child’s birth certificate and additional ones can be ordered for a fee. Everyone should have a copy of their birth certificate. You will need one when applying for a passport, driver’s license, or non-driver’s ID. You can request historical birth certificates for genealogical purposes from the Chemung County Vital Records office as well. 

Form for attendants at birth, ca. 1910s

 

Executive Order 14156 was signed on January 20, 2025. It was immediately challenged by the attorneys general of 22 states (including New York) and multiple organizations. Although it was initially slated to go into effect on February 19, 2025, it may never go into effect at all if the courts find it unconstitutional.