Strayed, Stolen or Run Away: Missing Elmira's Indentured Servants

by Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

I was reading through the Elmira Republican & General Advertiser from 1836 the other day when I found an unusual notice.  

6 cents reward. Strayed, stolen, or run away, from the subscriber, on the 5^th instant, Gilbert Wilcox, an indented apprentice to the farming business, aged about 13 years. Whoever will return said boy to the subscriber shall receive the reward, but no charges will be paid. All persons are hereby forbidden from harbouring or trusting said boy on my account. JEREMIAH HALL.  Elmira, June 6, 1836.

Aside from the bit about not trusting the boy on the subscriber’s account, it is disturbingly similar to notices for missing livestock. 

Who was this Gilbert Wilcox kid and why was Jeremiah Hall advertising his disappearance like he was a missing cow? The notice itself gives us some clues. Gilbert Wilcox, age about 13, was an indentured laborer belonging to Jeremiah Hall and, when I say belonging, I mean that literally. Mr. Hall had some sort of legal contract granting him temporary ownership of Gilbert and his unpaid labor for a set period of years. People in this position were sometimes called indentured servants, bond boys, or bound or indentured apprentices.

There is a long history of indentured servitude in this country. Before the American Revolution, over 60% of all immigrants from the British Isle came as indentured servants. Too poor to afford the cost of the journey, they would sell themselves to ships’ captains who would then auction them off at the docks. The average cost of the voyage was £10 to be paid off over a period of servitude ranging from 3 to 7 years. The law offered no protections against cruel or abusive masters and it was not unusual for unhappy indentured servants to try to run. Although some states promised former indentured servants free land along the frontier, most began their free lives in America utterly destitute. The expansion of the slave trade in early 1800s spelled the end of large-scale indentured immigration, although it persists to this day, especially among the undocumented. 

Native-born Americans might have indentured themselves or their children for any number of reasons. In New York State, the children of enslaved Blacks born after July 4, 1799 were technically free, but indentured to their mother’s owners until their 25^th (for females) or 28^th (for males) birthday. In 1817, the state abolished slavery altogether effective on July 4, 1827. Since Gilbert Wilcox was 13 in 1836, it is possible he could be the indentured child of a Black woman who was still enslaved at the time of his birth. On the other hand, he could also be the son of an impoverished white family who indentured him in exchange for a debt forgiveness or a lump sum payment. Some families also indentured their sons to tradesmen so that they might learn said trade.

There are no good statistics on the numbers of indentured servants who lived and worked in Chemung County, but they were there since the beginning of white settlement. John Hendy, the first white man to plant corn in what is now the Town of Elmira, did so with the help of his bond boy, Dan Hill, in the spring of 1788.  There were at least two other indentured servants living in Elmira in 1836. We know because there are runaway notices for them too. I haven’t been able to find what happened to any of them, but I like to imagine they lived the rest of their lives happy and free. 

 

The LaFrance Carnation Company

by Erin Doane, Curator

When you hear the name LaFrance in Elmira, most people think of fire engines but the name was also associated with flowers. The LaFrance Carnation Company operated here from 1906 to 1915. The company was founded by T. Everett LaFrance and Frederick L. LaFrance, sons of Truckson LaFrance who was one of the cofounders of the famous fire engine company.

T. Everett was a machinist and engineer before getting into the watchmaking and jewelry business in the late 1880s. In 1895, he was a partner in LaFrance & Swarthout Jewelers at 100 W. Water Street in Elmira. His brother Frederick started out as a coppersmith before taking a job at a florist on Maple Avenue in 1897.

In the spring of 1906, the brothers formed the LaFrance Carnation Company and announced that they would be constructing a 30,000 square foot greenhouse on E. Miller Street. In early June, they broke ground for the greenhouse where they would grow carnations for the wholesale market. The entire product of the new venture was already promised to two firms in New York City and Philadelphia. The company was officially incorporated in 1907 with F.L. LaFrance, T.E. LaFrance, and Della A. Kent (their sister) listed as the owners.

Tragedy struck on July 28, 1907 when Frederick died unexpectedly of a heart attack. His father had died ten years earlier in the same manner. Frederick left behind his wife Sarah, and two children, 11-year-old Eleanor and 9-year-old Delia. 

T. Everett and his sister Della continued to operate the Carnation Company and expanded the business into retail sales. In 1909, they opened an office at the Longmate Jewelry store at 139 W. Water Street to sell cut flowers for all occasions. They also sold tomato plants out of the greenhouse on Miller Street. Business seemed to be going well at that time. Several help-wanted advertisements appeared in the local newspaper seeking workers. The company sought to hire two boys, 16 or 18 years old, to work at the greenhouse for 75 cents a day and two good strong men for $1.50 a day.

Elmira Star-Gazette, Feb. 11, 1909

When Walter Longmate decided to close his jewelry store and move out of the city in 1910, T. Everett made arrangements to lease a storefront at 100 E. Water Street. They were able to make the move and open LaFrance Florist in time for Easter, a major flower holiday. At that time, Della served as president of the LaFrance Carnation Company and T. Everett was secretary and treasurer. Two years later, the city directory listed T. Everett as vice president of the company and manager of LaFrance Florist. Della no longer appeared to be involved in the business.

Business seemed to have taken a turn for the worse in those years. In May 1913, and again in August of the same year, the LaFrance Carnation Company greenhouse on E. Miller Street was listed as part of a tax sale. The United State Cut Flower Co. purchased the greenhouse and continued its operation through 1919. T. Everett run LaFrance Florist until 1915 when Mrs. C.W. Mathews took over the business. The next year, LaFrance Florist was purchased by Katherine Jackson who ran the business for 26 years until 1942. T. Everett does not appear in any city directories after 1915.

Sherlock Holmes in Elmira

by Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator

May 22 is Sherlock Holmes Day, a celebration of the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the genius detective. That got me thinking: are there any local Sherlock connections? Happily, yes, yes there are!

On November 22, 1894, Arthur Conan Doyle delivered a speech in the chapel at Elmira College. Although a reporter from the Elmira Daily Gazette and Free Press stated that "knowledge of his books in this city is not as deep and broad as it might be," people filled the chapel to hear Doyle speak. Doyle shared some of his work, recounted his path to literary fame, and justified his decision to kill Sherlock so that the character didn't overstay his welcome.

If Doyle's work wasn't too popular in Elmira in 1894 as the reporter claimed, it didn't take too long for it to catch on. In fact, soon after, the local newspapers were filled with Sherlock references, jokes, and updates about the detective stories and plays. 

Advertisement from Star-Gazette, 3/2/1901

Advertisement from Star-Gazette, 10/19/1905

 In 1914, Elmira's Gosper-Kelly Shoe Store used the detective in one of its ads.

Elmira Star-Gazette, June 26, 1914.

There were also references to local Sherlock-like detective work (or the need for it). A satirical piece in early 1894 recounted a man's Holmes-esque attempts to solve the mystery of odd footprints in the snow in Wisner Park. In 1897, the Owego Record suggested the city might want to get a version of the famed sleuth to deal with its unsolved murder problem.

In perhaps the oddest story, in 1913, Elmira Humane Officer John Dilmore was hailed as a local Sherlock Holmes for his deductive skills. Investigating a residence on John Street, Dilmore confronted the owner about not feeding his duck. The owner asked how Dilmore knew he hadn't fed it and Dilmore replied that it hadn't snowed since five days past and there weren't any duck prints in the snow to the feeding area. Dilmore said the man needed to feed the duck or kill it, so the man killed it.

Well Born?: America's Troubling Fascination with Eugenics

By Rachel Dworki, Archivist

As part of their quest for more ‘scientific charity,’ the Elmira Federation for Social Services published a genealogical study of 67 impoverished local families as part of their 1912 annual report. The study tracked instances of alcoholism, criminality, blindness, deafness, feeble mindedness, insanity, epilepsy, tuberculosis, and sexual immorality amongst Elmira’s poor. “Since we are not a large manufacturing center, this problem of degeneracy rather than that of industrialism, is the chief cause of our poverty,” the report concluded. The main problem then was not a lack of quality housing, education or employment, but the fact that degenerates kept breeding with other degenerates. The question was what to do about it. “Has a community any right to allow the bringing into the world of offspring which it must in self-defense and for the children’s own sake, take away from the parents?” As far as the Federation was concerned, the answer was no. 

Genealogical chart from Elmira Federation for Social Services study. Alcoholic dad with feeble-minded brother produces feeble-minded kids & grandkids.

Eugenics, or the science of breeding better humans, was all the rage in Elmira in the first quarter of the 20th century. In fact, it was all the rage throughout the Western world. The term was first coined by British scientist Sir Francis Galton in 1883. Galton and his supporters argued that superior humans should breed more and inferior breed less. The cause was taken up in the United States by Charles Davenport, who established a eugenics laboratory and records office at Cold Spring Harbor, New York in 1904. 

For the next few decades, Americans on both sides of the political spectrum turned to eugenics as a cure for social ills. Eugenics, supporters claimed, would reduce infant mortality, save tax payers money, and reduce crime. In a 1919 study of repeat offenders incarcerated at the Elmira Reformatory, Superintendent Dr. Frank L. Christian concluded that nearly 50 percent of habitual criminality was caused by medical conditions like epilepsy and congenital insanity or feeble-mindedness. He was just one of many Elmirans calling for a program of practical eugenics. Other local supporters included Dr. Arthur Booth (founding member of CCHS), social worker Anna Pratt of the Elmira Federation, Elmira College professor Charles Reitzel, Rev. Arthur B. Rudd of Grace Episcopal Church, and the editorial staff of the Elmira Star-Gazette. 

The laws based on eugenic theory were deeply troubling. They impacted everything from immigration policy to marriage to reproductive health care. In 1896, Connecticut became the first state to mandate pre-marriage health screenings and ban people with certain conditions from marrying. Many other states quickly followed suit. Indiana became the first state to pass an involuntary sterilization law in 1907 and, once again, others soon did the same. Although the laws were aimed at the intellectually disabled and mentally ill, they were often used as population control against Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and the poor. The practice of forced sterilization continued well into the 1980s and many of the laws are still on the books.

Poor Elmira family, ca. 1920.

During the 1930s and 40s, Nazi Germany took American eugenic theory and practices to their horrifyingly logical conclusion by systematically murdering ‘unfit’ individuals like the physically and mentally disabled, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and ethnic minorities. For American eugenicist, it was a sobering mirror to look into and the movement fell out of favor in the 1950s. Despite now being considered ablest, racist junk science, many eugenics-based laws still remain on the books.