Teasers and curiosities in old Rochester, New York newspapers

When Dee and I visited Rochester, New York for the first time in 2006 we dabbled in land records, held Staats Springsteen’s 1825 will in our hands, found card catalog indexes to newspaper articles at the Rochester Public Library, and discovered Dinosaur Bar-B-Que out the library window (it was well worth the walk across the street).

In the brief time available at the library, we looked on microfilm for newspaper articles pertaining to Staats and Anna Springsteen, finding the former but not the latter. I printed page 3 of the Monroe Republican for October 25, 1825, containing a testimonial for an eye operation performed on Staats by Doctor George B. Taylor. This was probably paid for by the doctor as an advertisement for more patients.

We don’t know what this operation entailed or when it was performed. This testimonial, dated October 18, 1825, dates his loss of sight to about 1781 in the waning days of the American Revolution. One of the witnesses cited in the article, Robert Chambers, was Staats’s son-in-law and one of the executors named in his will written July 5, 1825. What prompted his will? I wonder if it was written before or after the referenced operation.

Searching from home

Recent sleuthing online sheds some light on our failure to find the second newspaper article in 2006. Rochester Public Library now has images of the newspaper surname card catalog online: https://roccitylibrary.org/rochester-newspaper-index/. The cards related to Staats and Anna appear at the top of image 141 in the unpaginated PDF file for SMI-TRI, 1818-1850.

I think I have previously shared Dee’s spin on these references: Anna, who had endured enough of the crusty old codger, ran away while he couldn’t see her go. This is purely entertaining speculation, but might it be a case of woman’s intuition? Perhaps I should take note.

Many old newspapers can now be found online, but coverage is still spotty. The Library of Congress provides extensive information about newspapers in the United  States and where they can be found, including the Monroe Republican and the Rochester Telegraph.

I searched old New York newspapers online at NYS Historic Newspapers. They provide images of the Rochester Telegraph but not the Monroe Republican. Hopefully more historical papers will be added in the future. The Rochester Telegraph portal provides links to images: https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84026327/. I used the Calendar View link for navigation. Many issues are missing, and some links are in the wrong year or are for the wrong newspaper, but this provides insight to Rochester in the 1820s.

Where is Anna?

The 1824 calendar of Telegraph issues reveals that the paper was published weekly on Tuesdays. This presents a small problem: May 8, recorded on the index card for Anna’s article, was on a Saturday. The Telegraph was not published on that date. The May 4 issue was number 45 of volume 6, being whole number 305 of publication. The May 11 issue was number 46 of volume 6 and whole number 306, so it is evident that nothing was published between those issues. No wonder I couldn’t find the article on microfilm in 2006. I wonder if the article was published in another paper or on another date that I have not found, perhaps because no image is available. I browsed Telegraph issues for several years with no success in finding the article about Anna.

I did find many notices for indentured servants, wives, sons, and at least one husband running away. These were generally published either to advise the public not to honor debt incurred on the subscriber’s account or to seek return for completion of an indenture. I also found many other articles of interest, a few of which I share here.

More about George B. Taylor

Doctor Taylor apparently arrived in Rochester in the spring of 1825. He took out an advertisement in the Telegraph for his services on April 10. This was published on page 3, column 4 of the April 12 issue.

The operation on Staats Springsteen’s eye likely occurred after April 10, 1825.

Doctor Taylor’s advertisements were prolific for several months. Here are two published on page 3 of the May 10 issue of the Telegraph:

Here’s an advertisement for students on page 3, column 5 of the August 2 issue:

Matters of probate

Estates are handled in New York by the Surrogate’s Court. This is where we were able to retrieve the will of Staats Springsteen, which was admitted for probate July 12, 1826. Orrin E. Gibbs, the Monroe County Surrogate at the time, had recently moved his business and office in Rochester. Notice was given on page 1, column 1 of the March 28, 1826, issue of the Telegraph.

Notices to interested parties of some probate matters were published in local newspapers, including the Telegraph. Here is an example.

I found no notices related to Staats’s estate. His probate file gave no indication of publication.

Other legal matters

John Smith, whose daughter Margaret married Jacob Springsteen, son of Staats and Anna, probably died in 1823. His will was probated August 13, 1823, in Monroe County. This notice of intention to sell property that John had mortgaged was published on page 3, column 6 of the February 11, 1823, issue of the Telegraph. It was subsequently published weekly through August 12. John Greig was one of the executors of John Smith’s will.

The following court notices were given to creditors of insolvent debtors with surnames that might be of interest in our extended family.

This notice to creditors of Joseph Chamberlin was published on page 4, column 6 of the August 16, 1825, issue of the Telegraph.

This notice pertaining to Augustus Springstead was published March 28, 1826, on page 4, column 6.

Miscellaneous items

Weekly newspapers of the nineteenth century are full of interesting advertisements, reports of legislative proceedings, news from papers in other communities, merchants’ advertisements, and many other topics. One regular feature was notice of letters at local post offices in days before home delivery. Here is an example, published on page 1, column 1 of the April 15, 1823, issue of the Telegraph in which the Kidder surname caught my eye.

This article about progress in the Canadas is an example of items reposted from other papers, in this case the Albany Daily Advertiser. This was published on page 3, column 1 of the June 7, 1825, issue of the Rochester Telegraph.

The Canadas referenced here were Upper and Lower Canada, provinces in British Colonial America that correspond to early settlement areas of the modern Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It had been less than fifty years since New York’s provincial days. Staats and Anna Springsteen had lived in the Niagara peninsula of Upper Canada for many years before moving to the vicinity of Scottsville, New York around 1808.

Here are some miscellaneous items from the Rochester Telegraph of June 8, 1824.

The Genesee Valley of New York is a nice place to visit for any reason. We were back in Scottsville and Rochester in 2015 but I need to return again for more research.