A Curious Story: Lillian Pagett Hobson

 by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

While our country was founded almost 250 years ago by immigrants, attitudes about immigrants and immigration have always been complicated. In Elmira in 1930, the citizenship of Miss Lillian Pagett Hobson was challenged on the grounds that she hadn’t lived in the country long enough to meet the residency requirements. My research seemed to confirm the objection was valid, but it was overruled, and Hobson became a US citizen on January 31, 1930.

Each country determines by law who is eligible to become a citizen. Requirements for becoming an American citizen have certainly changed over the years. The first US immigration and naturalization act was passed less than 15 years after the United States was founded. It excluded women, Blacks, and Native Americans from becoming citizens. Since then, more than 55 laws and 18 policies have been adopted to regulate who can and who cannot become a citizen. (Read this blog on a specific immigration law passed in the 19^th century.)

Today’s applicants for US citizenship must pay a fee, pass a civics test, meet residency requirements, prove they’re proficient in English, and if it applies, register for selective service. In Hobson’s day, the rules were much the same. Applicant names were printed in the local newspapers. If the person met the requirements, they were given the oath of citizenship. If they did not meet the requirements, reasons were given why not. Hobson’s case revolved around whether or not she had lived in the United States continuously for five years.

Lillian Pagett Hobson was born in Ireland. Her connection to Elmira was through her grandfather, William Pagett, called “one of the oldest of Elmira’s residents.”  In 1847 Pagett had left England for the United States. In 1855 he settled in Elmira. He and his wife, Anna, had a son and a daughter, Lillian’s mother.

Pagett owned and operated a successful tannery business. When the Civil War broke out, he was awarded a lucrative contract to feed prisoners at Elmira’s Civil War Prison Camp. With his earnings, he bought multiple oil wells in Pennsylvania and properties in Elmira, New York City, and Brooklyn. When he died in 1918, the properties passed down to his remaining heirs: his wife, a niece, and his granddaughter, Lillian Pagett Hobson. His wife died two years later.

Ten years after this, Lillian Hobson moved to Elmira. Two years later, she filed for US citizenship, claiming she had been living here with friends for five consecutive years. Her application was challenged by the District Director of Naturalization of Western New York, Leroy N. Kilman. Kilman determined that Hobson had gone back and forth between Ireland and the United States during the years she said she was living in Elmira. His objections were overruled by Supreme Court Justice Joseph D. Senn, and Chemung County Clerk John A. Matthews administered the oath of citizenship to Hobson on January 31, 1930. Right away, she applied for a passport to return to Europe to visit her father.  The district director filed another appeal, and that is the last mention of the issue in the papers.

Hobson’s name does show up again connected to another issue, and it may have influenced the judge’s decision to override the challenge. As one of two heirs to valuable property owned by her grandfather, Hobson already had invested in Elmira.

In early January of that same year, the Gorton clothing store and a nearby pharmacy, located at 105-107 East Water Street, were heavily damaged by fire. While they never determined how the fire began, both businesses continued to operate. Then less than 30 days later, just after Hobson had become a naturalized citizen, the company announced they would be constructing a larger, quarter-million-dollar, state-of-the art building and expanding their business. It would be located on property owned by the Pagett family at the corner of Main and Water Street. The building would be designed by distinguished architects Pierce and Bickford. The Gorton Company had agreed to lease the property from Hobson and her cousin Frederica Pagett Gates for 99 years at the cost of $20,000 per year.

The new building would be an economic boost to the city as the country had just entered into the Great Depression. However, not everyone thought it was a good thing. In April and through the beginning of June there was a contentious controversy over the new building’s footprint. The difference was 3 feet 4 inches and both the city and the developers did not want to budge. It affected how far into the sidewalk the building encroached. The developers claimed that construction was already set in motion and they couldn’t change anything. Opponents insisted that they change, which would mean a $140,000 to $200,000 debt to the city. The hearing was full of accusations, threats, and shouting. Only ten days later, things got much worse.

At rush hour on June 13, the construction’s temporary sidewalk collapsed, killing two people and injuring dozens more. After intensive investigations, the coroner declared that it was an accident and Gorton’s was not at fault. Construction continued. Many of the injured filed civil action suits against the Gorton Company and investors Hobson and Gates. Eventually, all cases were settled out of court.

The Gorton-Pagett building operated for 58 years, closing in February 1975.

Miss Hobson ended up staying in the area. Her name appears periodically in the paper, identified as a donor to charitable causes. Then in 1970 and 1972, two letters to the editor appear in the Star-Gazette. In both she complained about having to pay school taxes when she had no children. She is listed in the Elmira City Directory until 1976. In 1978 her name shows up one last time. It is printed in the paper for failure to pay property taxes on the East Water Street property.

 

 

 

 

“Clothes of Charm” - The Gorton Coy

by Erin Doane, Curator

The Gorton Coy, northeast corner of Main and Water Streets, 1949

For 56 years, the Gorton Coy was Elmira’s leading specialty shop. Women of discerning taste shopped there for all of their fashion needs. On July 3, 1916, Warren A. Gorton of Batavia purchased E. N. Crandall’s store, a small shop at 127 West Water Street in Elmira. Within days of the purchase, Gorton announced he would be selling off all of Crandall’s stock in order to make way for the new Gorton Company fashions. Gorton’s partner and co-owner of the store, Morris A. Black, was president of the Lindner Company of Cleveland and the manufacturer of “Wooltex” clothing. Their store in Elmira became the area’s exclusive seller of the Wooltex line. In 1917, they moved the store to 107 East Water Street.

Elmira Star-Gazette, July 10, 1916

George H. Danzig became manager of the store in 1919 and worked to transform it into a fashion center for the city. He had a second floor added to the single-story building and brought in a shoe department and a millinery department, the Charm Hat Shop. He built the store’s reputation among fashionable, discriminating women in the 1920s by stocking exclusive brands.  He was also the one who decided that the company’s name would be abbreviated to the Gorton Co’y, as was common in England. A sign painter, not understanding the abbreviation, produced a sign for the store that simply read “Gorton Coy” and the name stuck. In 1923, Danzig purchased 51 percent of stock in the company and took effective control of the business. Six years later, when his health began to fail, he sold his share of the store to Morris Black.

Elmira Star-Gazette, September 19, 1928

In the late 1920s, plans started being made to move the Gorton Coy to a new, larger building. A desirable location at the corner of Main and Water Streets was selected and a lease was secured. Then, the work began on building the store’s new home. On June 13, 1930, as excavation at the site was just nearing completion, tragedy struck. A wooden walkway that had been constructed along the west side of the work area collapsed under more than twenty pedestrians. Eleven-year-old Maria Smolka died in the accident and Effie W. Corey died the next day from her injuries after spending 45 minutes pinned in the wreckage. Nineteen others were sent to the hospital. Twenty lawsuits were subsequently filed against the Lowman Construction Company, which was in charge of the building project.

Building site after the walkway’s collapse, June 1930

The project continued, however, and on March 12, 1931 at 9:30am the new Gorton Coy store opened for business. The building was one of the last projects designed by Pierce and Bickford and is one of the only known examples of Art Deco architecture associated with the firm. The building’s three floors were filled with fashion, from coats and dresses to sportswear and undergarments. There was a beauty salon conducted by M. Henri of Paris on the third floor and a modern tearoom with two private dining rooms. The general offices were also on the third floor and the building was plumbed with a pneumatic tube system for transporting paperwork.

Pneumatic tube carrier used at the Gorton Coy

In 1938, Richard G. Raitt moved to Elmira to work as manager of the Gorton Coy. In 1941, he purchased the company outright and became the sole owner. In the mid-1940s, a department with electrical appliances for the home was added, the beauty salon was renovated and enlarged, and five toddler, child, and teen departments were combined to form Gorton’s Youth Center. Two new stores were also opened in Penn Yan and Geneva.

Electric City shop at Gorton Coy, 1946

Younger Set Shop at Gorton Coy, 1950

In 1967, Lane Bryant Inc. purchased Gorton Coy. Two years later, $250,000 was spent on a modernization program to make improvements to the entire store. Two new departments catering to tall women and larger women were added and one of the two manual elevators was replaced by a self-service elevator.

Buttons from one of the Gorton Coy’s manual elevators

Gorton Coy hatboxes, c. 1940s-1960s

The flood of June 1972 did considerable damage to the basement and first floor of the Gorton Coy. As a result, the store closed and its forty employees were laid off. In September of that year, Lane Bryant announced that the store was closing for good. In October, Luckey-Platt & Co. purchased the company and continued operating the store with marginal success under the Gorton Coy name until 1975 when it finally closed its doors for the last time. In 1988, the words “Gorton Coy” were removed from the building and in April 1991, the building was renamed the Komer Center.

Elmira Star-Gazette, November 6, 1972