A Suggestion for St. James’, 1829

“The village is very pretty, and many houses in that, and at a distance on the borders of the lake, are built with taste and environed by shrubbery, as houses in the country always should be.

“But there was one grand mistake made in building this village, which has marred its beauty exceedingly. The main street was laid out so as to sweep round the margin of the lake, at its foot. On the northern side of the street and fronting on the lake, the houses of the citizens were erected; and one would have supposed even the Goths & Vandals would have had good taste enough to have preserved an open view to the lake, by having a smooth lawn of green-sward, planted with locusts and the willow, between the road and the lake.

“But contrary to every principle of taste or beauty, one of the churches and several blocks of stores and artisans’ workshops, have been erected upon the shore which in most cases entirely intercept the water-prospect! So that but for the privilege of taking now a sail, and now a mess of fish, the good people might as well have no lake at all. The stores should be burnt by the common hangman, and the church taken quietly down and reared in a more suitable place.”

From New York to Niagara: Journal of a Tour, in Part by the Erie Canal, in the Year 1829 by Col. William Leete Stone

While in Skaneateles, the author dined, walked and visited with the Burnett family of our congregation.

St. James, 1830

“Your missionary reports, that since entering upon his present station, the churches under his care have improved to such an extent, as to leave it no longer doubtful that respectable congregations may be sustained in this interesting section of the country. The parish of St. James’ Church, Skaneateles, has successfully accomplished that most difficult undertaking for a small congregation, the building of a neat and commodious church, supplying it with an organ and other conveniences, without the contracting of debt to any amount.”

– From the report of the Rev. Algernon S. Hollister, Missionary at Skaneateles, Onondaga County, and parts adjacent, “Missionaries in New-York” in Episcopal Watchman, January 1830

St. James’ in the 1950s

St. James’ in the upper right-hand corner. Note the old jetty, and to the left, the old firehouse, torn down by people who had no respect, no taste, no love for the Village.

Make Way for Ducklings

About a month ago, workmen at the Creamery, the museum of the Skaneateles Historical Society, found a duck sitting on eggs in a dark corner, hidden by construction materials from the new expansion. It was not the quietest of spots for a nest, but the workmen made every effort not to disturb the mother-to-be while they created a new home for historic boats.

Yesterday, Laurie Winship, director of the Creamery, and David Bates, an Historical Society board member, found that three ducklings had hatched and that the mother was trying to get them down to the creek behind the museum.

But there was a step up that the ducklings could not negotiate. And so Winship and Bates, both members of our St. James’ congregation, did the right thing by the ducklings; they found a box, lifted the little ones into it and, allowing the nervous mother always to see what they were doing, carried them outdoors.

Outside, they sat the box down and ushered the ducklings back into their mother’s care. The father duck was waiting at the water’s edge, where he had been keeping vigil for the past month, and in a moment the family of five was together, and paddled off.

I am sure that Heaven Points have been lavished upon Mr. Toppie, husband of our Assistant Rector, and upon Laurie Winship, an alto in the choir.

Gen. Jonathan Wainwright

Gen. Wainwright at St. James’, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 1945

In September of 1940, with World War II already engulfing Europe, Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV, a career Army officer, was promoted to the rank of Major General and sent the Philippine islands, seemingly a world away from the war. But in the spring of 1941, Wainwright put his wife, Adele Holley Wainwright, on a ship bound for home, and told her, “If you’re in San Francisco the first day of June, I’ll be very much relieved.”

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor; they attacked the Philippines the next day. The Japanese could not be stopped with the small force the U.S. maintained there, and the city of Manila fell on January 2, 1942, leaving only the peninsula of Bataan and the island of Corregidor in U.S. hands, strategically guarding the entry to Manila Bay.

General Douglas MacArthur, the highest ranking U.S. officer in the Pacific, was ordered to leave the Philippines for Australia on March 11th, at which point the defense of Bataan and Corregidor “devolved” to Gen. Wainwright.

MacArthur had visited the front lines once; Wainwright went every day. A writer in Time magazine noted, “His indifference to snipers became a legend. With his headquarters on Corregidor, he continued to cross to Bataan to encourage his troops. He was ravaged by beriberi, emaciated. He could barely use his right leg; he dragged himself along with a cane.”

Bataan fell on April 8, 1942, but Corregidor held out. Wainwright was urged to leave, but he said, “I have been with my men from the start, and if captured I will share their lot. We have been through so much together that my conscience would not let me leave before the final curtain.”

For another month, under constant artillery and air bombardment, the island resisted. It was estimated that on the day and night of May 4th alone, Corregidor was struck by more than 16,000 shells. The defenders had scant food and water, and had not slept in a month. Medical supplies and ammunition were gone. No relief was coming.

When Japanese tanks and soldiers pushed the defenders back to within a few yards of a tunnel that held 1,000 wounded troops, with doctors and nurses, Wainwright chose to save the lives of the surviving men and women. He surrendered the Corregidor garrison on May 6, 1942, and spent more than three years in Japanese prison camps, in the Philippines, on Formosa, and in Manchuria, believing that he was in disgrace back in the United States.

His wife, Adele, had come to Skaneateles from California in April of 1942, to live with her mother, Elizabeth Holley, who was born in Skaneateles. Also married to an Army officer, she had lived all over the world, but had come back to Skaneateles at various times. In 1928, she moved here to be closer to her grandson, Jack Wainwright, who was a student at the nearby Manlius Academy. Now, in 1942, mother and daughter, together in Skaneateles again, would await news of General Wainwright, doing Red Cross work in Skaneateles and Syracuse.

Mrs. Wainwright wrote letters to her husband as often as regulations would permit, sending more than 200, of which the General received six. The General was allowed to write 40 letters during his captivity; his wife received 13. From April to August of 1945, there was no word at all, until a 5 a.m. phone call from an Associated Press reporter telling Adele that her husband had been found alive, and freed.

On August 25, 1945, the prison camp in Manchuria that held Wainwright was liberated. When told that he was thought of as a hero, he was stunned. Back in uniform, he witnessed the formal Japanese surrender in Tokyo, accepted the surrender of the Japanese commander in the Philippines, and was flown to Washington, D.C., where he was reunited with his wife and received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Truman, who said, “Take it easy. We don’t want to fatigue you.” To which Wainwright replied, “That’s all right. I’m pretty tough or I wouldn’t be here.”

Next, he was honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City and then flown to Hancock Field and brought to Skaneateles where he would spend four days.

While here, Gen. Wainwright, his wife and her mother attended services at St. James’ Episcopal Church. Gen. Wainwright’s great-grandfather was the Rev. Jonathan Wainwright (1792-1854), who served as Episcopal Bishop of New York (1852-1854). Gen. Wainwright and Adele had been married in an Episcopal church in 1911, and it was in an Episcopal church that they gave thanks together again.

Meanwhile, the Village, in the words of the Skaneateles Press, “became a throbbing, pulsating community with newsmen and radio announcers flocking in. The general’s military body guard were frequently seen about the streets and the village took on the aspect of a top military headquarters.”

On the 25th, the Village of Skaneateles subjected the General to a homecoming parade that included 35 marching bands, followed by an evening banquet and speeches at the Sherwood Inn. If the General would rather have been resting, he was too polite to say.

The General did receive a watch, which he made it point to wear when next he visited the Village. He was that kind of guy.

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“General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV” — website of the Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Hospital in Walla Walla, Washington, with some wonderful material.

Cover Story, Time, May 6, 1942

“Gen. Wainwright’s Death Recalls His Return to Village” Skaneateles Press September 4, 1953

Thanks to Wikipedia for information on the General, Bataan and Corregidor.

A Tale of Two Parks

Between St. James’ Episcopal Church and Legg Hall are two parks, both gifts to the Village of Skaneateles.

In the 1860s, both plots of land were in a wild state, sloping from an unpaved Genesee Street down to the water. The St. James’ seawall ended at the church’s western boundary. In 1873, the people of St. James’ built a new church, but the land to the west remained in its natural state.

Joel Thayer, a member of the St. James’ congregation, owned the parcel of land next to Legg Hall, across Genesee Street from his home (today The Thayer House condominiums). In 1874, he built a seawall, filled in the slope and created a park.

When his park was complete, he opened it to the public. In 1922, his granddaughters, May and Eva Webb, formally deeded Thayer’s park to the Village.

That same year, Frederick Carleton Austin, a native of Skaneateles and a graduate of the Skaneateles Academy who had gone on to business success in Chicago, visited Skaneateles and saw the overgrown land between St. James’ and Thayer Park. He promised that if the land came up for sale, he would buy and donate the land to the Village. When he did make the purchase, he offered an endowment of $25,000 to maintain the land, provided the Village would build a seawall to link the walls already raised by St. James’ and Joel Thayer.

Frederick C. Austin knew construction. He was the founder and president of Municipal Engineering and Contracting Company of Chicago, and of the F.C. Austin Drainage Excavator Company. When the United States was building the Panama Canal (1904-1914), Austin’s firms provided excavation equipment and concrete mixing machinery. His companies also made earth movers, road graders and paving machines. (In the Village of Skaneateles, an F.C. Austin sprinkler helped to keep down the street dust in the summer.)

Austin was as generous as he was successful. In Chicago, he planned a major gift to Northwestern University. In January of 1929, he donated the F.C. Austin Building, an 11-story “skyscraper” valued at $3,000,000, and also promised to leave the remainder of his estate to fund scholarships to the business school. In return, Northwestern agreed to assume responsibility for any bequests made by Austin in his will.

One of those obligations was the $25,000 gift to the Village of Skaneateles, which was so far unclaimed. In the six years since Austin’s offer, the Village had made no progress on the seawall. In 1929, Austin stipulated that the Village had just five years to build, or there would be no $25,000.

In 1931, when F.C. Austin died, the Village still had not begun construction. Work finally started in December of 1933; thirty men on the relief roles were employed by street commissioner William Hennessey and paid by the Civilian Works Administration. The lake was low, so it was an ideal time to work on the wall. But it was not until 1935 that the trustees of Northwestern University were informed of the wall’s completion, a full 14 months after Austin’s five-year deadline had passed.

Fortunately for Skaneateles, the University trustees were good sports, and in 1936 they wrote the check to honor F.C. Austin’s wishes. In 1939, after another three years had passed, the Village placed a small marker in F.C. Austin Park to honor its creator.

Today, the land between Legg Hall and St. James’ is one expanse of green, thanks to the generosity of the Thayer-Webb family and F.C. Austin. Austin’s contribution, however, has been overshadowed by that of his distant cousin, Clarence Mason Austin, who in 1927 died and left his land for Austin Park, thought by many to be the only Austin Park in the Village. But at Northwestern University, more than 770 students have benefited from F.C. Austin Scholarships and the benefactor’s name lives on.

* * *

The Book of Chicagoans: a biographical dictionary of leading living men of the city of Chicago (1911) by Albert Nelson Marquis

History of the Panama Canal, Its Construction and Builders (1915) by Ira Elbert Bennett

Letter to the editor of the Skaneateles Press, June 5, 1943, by Spencer L. Adams

Hand-written notes from Helen Ionta, Village Historian, from the files of the Skaneateles Historical Society.

Website of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management

St. James’, Circa 1873

A photograph of St. James’ taken shortly after it was built; note the dirt road and board sidewalk, the original doors, as well as the carriage entrance on the left, and the picket fence.

Laurie Branson’s Garden

Laurie Steckel Branson grew up on Onondaga Hill and spent her summers in Skaneateles, in and on the water. She went to Westhill High School, Ithaca College and Syracuse University, married and had two children. She loved to ski, she loved her family, and she loved St. James’ Episcopal Church. When she died of leukemia at the age of 35, she was remembered with this memorial garden, a sheltered spot between the church and the lake she loved, a quiet place for prayer, meditation and conversation.

Laurie Steckel Branson’s garden in early autumn

A Grand Wedding

A plaque on a pew, dedicated to the memory of Cornelia Tyler Longstreet Poor, recalls an extraordinary family and a famous St. James’ wedding

Born in New York City, Cornelia Tyler Longstreet was the daughter of Cornelius and Caroline Longstreet. Her great-grandfather was Comfort Tyler, who built the first home in Onondaga County. Her father, a merchant, donated the land on which Syracuse University was built, including his mansion, Yates Castle, where Cornelia had spent her girlhood. In 1871, she married Charles Henry Poor II (1844-1910), and her father made them a present of a “country house” in Skaneateles. The house, then as today, was Willowbank, a beautiful home on Genesee Street with a yard stretching down to the lake.

The setting prompted one writer to rhapsodize, “The velvety greensward reflects the shadows from maples and elm trees that have guarded the place for a century or more, and blossoming shrubs and flowers here and there add just the right touch of color to the cool dark green. The grounds slope down in billowy waves of green to the very lake shore and off across the sparkling waters and beyond the wooded edges of the lake rise the hills of Onondaga, arched by a blue June sky.”

Charles Poor II was the son of Admiral Charles Henry Poor (1808-1882), who served in the U.S. Navy from 1825 to 1870, including 23 years at sea and service in the Civil War in the attack on Charleston and in the blockade of the Confederacy.

Like his father, Charles Poor II served in the Navy, but resigned his commission in 1873. The family’s main residence was in Washington D.C., where they were very much a part of military high society. They had four children: a son, Charles Longstreet Poor, and three daughters, Mattie Lindsay, Anita Tyler and Callie Marvin Poor.

The family summered in Skaneateles, where Charles could continue to be a sailor. He sailed his Pollywog in an 1874 regatta in Skaneateles; circa 1880, he acquired a cat boat, Pumpkinseed, and then around 1885, a yawl, Perhaps So, built by the Bowdish Boat Company here in the Village. From 1894 to 1896, he was in charge of the neighborhood sailboat races, which began with the boats lining up between his dock at Willowbank and the seawall at St. James. Charles was also an amateur photographer; albums of his photographs are in the collection of the Skaneateles Historical Society.

Charles Poor’s Perhaps So, with Harry S. Abbott at the tiller

In 1882, Charles and Cornelia’s youngest daughter, Callie Marvin Poor, died at the age of two and a half; she is remembered by the gold cross on our altar. But Charles, Lindsay and Anita thrived.

When not in Washington or Skaneateles, Lindsay Poor was educated in private schools including one in France, Millien, Thavonet & Taylor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where she was sent for “finishing.” In 1899, Lindsay was engaged to Marion Perry Maus (pronounced “Moss”), a Lieutenant Colonel on the staff of Gen. Nelson A. Miles. Maus was a West Point graduate, famed as a fighter in the Indian Wars. He had, in fact, been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery.

“Captain Maus” by Frederic Remington (who traveled with Maus in the West)

Maus fought in three Indian campaigns, against the Nez Perce, the Apaches and the Sioux. In 1877, he served as Chief of Army Scouts under Colonel Nelson Miles in the campaign against the Nez Perce, whose nation once spread from Idaho to northern Washington.

In 1885-1886, Maus took part in an expedition into Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains in pursuit of Geronimo, whose renegade Apaches had been waging a guerilla war against the military and civilians. The force was made up mostly of Apaches from a tribe other than Geronimo’s, scouts in the employ of the U.S. Army, and it was Maus’s job to command them. They were not Boy Scouts; in fact, one of the scouts was wanted for murder, and was more than happy to get away for a while.

In the mountains, this expeditionary force was attacked by Mexican “irregulars,” also hunting Apaches. The Mexican government was paying 200 pesos per Apache scalp, and these freelancers felt that scalps from Maus’s Apaches would serve just as well as scalps from Geronimo’s Apaches.

The leader of the U.S. expedition, Captain Emmett Crawford, stepped out in the open with Lt. Maus and a scout named Tom Horn, to show that this was a U.S. expedition and to reason with the attackers; Crawford was shot in the head for his trouble; Horn was wounded; Maus took cover, assumed command, and after two hours of gunfire, finally persuaded the Mexicans to hold their fire long enough for everyone to treat their wounded. Twice more, Maus went out into the open to parlay with the Mexicans; on the final occasion, he was held prisoner until the war cries of his scouts prompted the Mexicans to reconsider.

Escaping that peril, the expedition made contact the next morning with Geronimo, and Maus again went forward to parlay. When Geronimo asked him why he had come, Maus told him, “I came to capture or destroy you and your band.” Geronimo commended his honesty, shook his hand, and agreed to surrender. He eventually relented, slipping into the night on the return journey, but Maus brought back most of Geronimo’s party, as well as his own Apache scouts, and was commended for his bravery.

In his third campaign, Maus fought the Sioux, and was twice wounded. In 1894, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. While historians can argue the causes and conduct of the Indian Wars, one cannot question Maus’s courage.

From 1897 to 1899, Maus was stationed in Washington, D.C., serving as an aide to Gen. Miles, and it was in Washington that he met Lindsay Poor, a society belle. In 1899, when this Army hero was to wed their daughter, Charles and Cornelia Poor did not keep this news to themselves. They mailed out 3,400 invitations to the wedding, and another 1,800 invitations to the wedding reception at Willowbank.

The groom and seven of his ushers came from Washington in the private railroad car of Gen. Miles. The Best Man was Col. Francis Michler, also on Gen. Miles’ staff, and a polo player with Maus when they were stationed in Chicago (1893-1894). (Michler was a founder of the Chicago Polo Club, and Outing magazine observed “Captain Maus and Michler by the nature of their professions well used to the saddle, dashed into the sport with spirit.”)

Six bridesmaids came from Washington; they were joined by Miss Amy Willetts, daughter of Joseph Willetts of New York, whose summer home adjoined that of the Poors in Skaneateles, and Miss Charlotte Wright of Cincinnati.

The wedding ceremony took place at St. James’ Episcopal Church. A reporter for the Skaneateles Free Press wrote:

“One of the most brilliant social events in the history of Skaneateles occurred Wednesday, June 28, 1899, the occasion being the wedding of Miss Mattie Lindsay, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Poor, to Lieutenant-Colonel Marion Perry Maus, U.S.A. The marriage ceremony was held at St. James’ church, Rev. Frank N. Westcott being the officiating clergyman.

“The bridal party entered the church at high noon, Miss Poor upon the arm of her father, the ushers leading. The bridesmaids came out of the vestry room at the left to meet the bride, followed by the groom, who met the bride at the chancel steps, the bridesmaids marching down the aisle to meet the party coming up.

“The wedding march was rendered by Mrs. A.F. Presley, the organist of the church… The chancel was decorated with the best that local green-houses could put forth. Over the head of the bridal pair hung a huge bell of evergreens with a tongue of daisies. Four festoons of evergreens hung from the bell support. At the reading desk and pulpit were towers of palms and ferns and among them hundreds of lilies and elderberries innumerable. And added to these thousands and thousands of daisies completed the floral picture. Annunciation lilies were on the altar.”

– From the Skaneateles Free Press, Friday, June 30, 1899

The bridal party at Willowbank: Marion Maus and Lindsay Poor Maus; Anita Poor, the bride’s sister and maid of honor, and the best man, Col. Francis Michler. The ushers on the steps: Maj. John J. Pershing (the smiling man on the left with all the braid), Col. James Allen, Maj. I.H. Strothers, Lt. William B. Lassiter, Dr. L. Mervin Maus (brother of the groom), Robert Bohlen, Richard Merrick and Fred S. Young.

After the ceremony, a wedding breakfast was served at Willowbank, catered by Teall of Rochester; an orchestra, Kapps of Syracuse, played; boxes of wedding cake, provided by Demonet of Washington, were given to the guests. White of Skaneateles provided the floral decorations for the church and reception; the bride’s bouquet of white sweet peas came from Loosee of Washington. All of the gowns, along with the bride’s trousseau, were by Barton of Washington.

There was dancing on the tennis courts, and 19 years after the wedding, when General John J. Pershing was the commander of the American forces in France in WWI, guests would recall that he had walked down the aisle of St. James’ and cut a dashing figure on the great lawn of Willowbank. “He danced with the bride,” one account noted. “He danced with Miss Celia Miles, daughter of the general… He danced with Miss Helen Ffoulke, another bridesmaid… Miss Elizabeth Glover, a cousin of the bride… Miss Nita Poor… Miss Mary Sheridan, daughter of Gen. Philip Sheridan.” In all, young Pershing had quite a day.

Lindsay’s brother, Ensign Charles Longstreet Poor, could not attend the wedding; he was on the Yosemite bound for Guam. Those present included many you will recognize from other stories of St. James’ and Skaneateles: Mr. & Mrs. Henry T. Webb and their daughters; Mr. & Mrs. William A. Loney; Frederick Loney; George McKesson Brown; Mrs. Nicholas Roosevelt; Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Roosevelt; Mrs. T.Y. Avery; Harry Roosevelt; and many members of the Kellogg, Thorne, Leitch, Fitch, Brainard, Petheram and Cobane families.

After the reception, the newlyweds left in a shower of rice to catch a train for the west coast and their new home at The Richelieu Hotel in San Francisco, from which Maus would serve as Inspector General of the Department of California and Columbia. From 1904 to 1906, he served in the Philippines. Upon his return to California, he was called to San Francisco, where, in the first days after the earthquake of 1906, he was instrumental in maintaining order in the quake- and fire-ravaged city. He retired from the military, as a General, in 1913.

Brigadier General Marion Perry Maus

Charles Henry Poor died in Washington in 1910, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse. Cornelia Tyler Longstreet Poor died in Washington, D.C., in 1921. She is buried in Oakwood, and is remembered with a plaque on an endowed pew at St. James’.

Charles Longstreet Poor died in New Orleans in 1926, and is buried in the Longstreet vault in Oakwood. Lindsay Poor Maus died in Baltimore in 1936, and is buried at the side of her husband, Gen. Marion P. Maus (who died in 1930) in Arlington National Cemetery.

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My thanks to the Skaneateles Historical Society for the loan of Sailing on Skaneateles Lake: 1812-1934 (1934) by Sedgwick Smith of our congregation; the photo of the Perhaps So is taken from this volume. Also, for the use of the Poor family file.

Other sources include Personal Recollections & Observations of General Nelson A. Miles (1896); “The New Indian Messiah,” by Lt. Marion P. Maus, U.S.A., in Harper’s Weekly, December 6, 1890 (an article about the Ghost Dance religion); “Polo in the West” by J.B. Macmahan in Outing magazine, August 1895; numerous clippings from the Skaneateles and Syracuse newspapers, and the New York Times on the Web.

St. James’ Seen from Shotwell Park

Another view of St. James’, from a postcard mailed in 1949.