Rochester, Monroe, NY
Union Advertiser
Tue July 10, 1888
 
HIRAM SIBLEY SINKING
 
The Well-Known Citizen Lying at The Point Of Death
Sketch of the Career of a Self-Made Man --
Numerous Enterprises in Which He has been Engaged --
Reminiscences of His Life
 
(Sketch of Hiram Sibley)
    Hiram SIBLEY, the aged citizen whose name is as familiar as a household word in Rochester, and whose fame extends throughout the country, is at the point of death. For three or four weeks he has been far from well and has kept in his house most of the time, only going out for an occasional carriage ride. Sunday evening he went out for a short time and after returning was taken with severe neuralgic pains. These continued all night and yesterday. Last evening he suffered a stroke of apoplexy and became unconscious. He remained in that condition all night. At 9 o'clock this morning a reporter called at the house, 220 East Avenue, and was informed that there was no change in Mr. SIBLEY's condition, although his wife thought there were signs of returning consciousness.
     Dr. T. C. WHITE remained at Mr. SIBLEY's bedside all last night, and was relieved this morning by Dr. W. A. KEEGAN. At 10 o'clock no hope was entertained for the patient's recovery, and the time of his death is believed to be only a question of hours.
    At 8 o'clock this afternoon Mr. SIBLEY's condition was reported unchanged.
    The following excellent sketch of Mr. SIBLEY is taken from the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Biography:
    "Hon. Hiram SIBLEY of the city of Rochester, a man of national reputation as the originator of great enterprises, and as the most extensive farmer and seedsman in this country, was born at North Adams, Berkshire county, Mass., February 6, 1807, and is the second son of Benjamin and Zilpha DAVIS SIBLEY. Benjamin was the son of Timothy SIBLEY of Sutton, Mass., who was the father of fifteen children -- twelve sons and three daughters; eight of these, including Benjamin, lived to the aggregate age of 677 years, an average of about seventy-five years and three months. From the most unpromising beginnings, without education, Hiram SIBLEY has risen to a position of usefulness and influence. His youth was passed among his native hills. He was a mechanical genius by nature. Hunter with a neighboring shoemaker led to his attempt to make a shoe on the spot, and he was at once place on the shoemaker's bench.
     At the age of sixteen of sixteen he migrated to the Genesee valley, where he was employed in a machine shop, and subsequently in wool carding. Before he was of age he had mastered five different trades. Three of these years were passed in Livingston county. His first occupation on his own account was as a shoemaker at North Adams; then he did business successfully as a machinist and wool carder in Livingston county, N. Y.; after which he established himself at Mendon, fourteen miles south of Rochester, a manufacturing village, now known as Sibleyville, where he had a foundry and machine shop. When in the wool carding business at Sparta and Mount Morris, in Livingston county, he worked in the same shop, located near the line of the two towns, where Millard FILMORE had been employed and learned his trade; beginning after a farewell ball was given to Mr. FILMORE by his fellow workmen.
     Increase of reputation and influence brought Mr. SIBLEY opportunities for office. He was elected by the Democrats Sheriff of Monroe county, in 1843, when he removed to Rochester; but his political career was short, for a more important matter was occupying his mind. From the moment of the first success of Prof. MORSE with his experiments in telegraphy, Mr. SIBLEY had been quick to discern the vast promise of the invention; and in 1840 he went to Washington to assist Prof. MORSE and Ezra CORNELL in procuring an appropriation of $40,000 from Congress to build a line from Washington to Baltimore, the first put up in America. Strong prejudices had to be overcome. On Mr. SIBLEY's meeting the chairman of the committee having the matter in charge, and expressing the hope that the application would be granted, he received the answer: "We had made up our minds to allow the appropriation, when the professor came in and upset everything. Why ! he undertook to tell us that he could send ten words from Washington to Baltimore in two minutes. Good heavens ! Twenty minutes is quick enough, but two minutes is nonsense. The professor is too radical and visionary, and I, doubt if the committee recommend the sum to be risked in such a manner." Mr. SIBLEY's sound arguments and persuasiveness prevailed, though he took care not to say, what he believed, that the professor was right as to the two minutes. Their joint efforts secured the subsidy of $40,000.
     This example stimulated other inventors, and in a few years several patents were in use, and various lines had been constructed by different companies. The business was so divided as to be always unprofitable. Mr. SIBLEY conceived the plan of uniting all the patents and companies in one organization. After three years of almost unceasing toil he succeeded in buying up the stock of the different corporations, some of it at a price as low as two cents on the dollar, and in consolidating the lines which then extended over portions of thirteen states. The Western Union Telegraph Company was then organized, with Mr. SIBLEY as the first president. Under his management for sixteen years, the number of telegraphic offices were increased from 132 to over 4,000, and the value of the property from $220,000 to $48,000,000.
     In the project of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific by a line to California, he stood nearly alone. At a meeting of the prominent telegraph men of New York a committee was appointed to report upon his proposed plan, whose verdict was that it would be next to impossible to build the line; that, if built, the Indians would destroy it; and that it would not pay, even if built and not destroyed. His reply was characteristic that it should be built, if he had to build it alone. He went to Washington, procured necessary legislation, and was the sole contractor with the government. The Western Union Telegraph Company afterward assumed the contract, and built the line under Mr. SIBLEY's administration as president, ten years in advance of the railroad.
     Not satisfied with this success at home, he sought to unite the two hemispheres by way of Alaska and Siberia, under P. McD. Collins' franchise. On visiting Russia with Mr. COLLINS in the winter of 1864 -5, he was cordially received and entertained by the Czar, who approved the plan. A most favorable impression had preceded him. For when the Russian squadron visited New York in 1868 -- the year after Russia and Great Britain had declined the overture of the French government for joint mediation in the American conflict-- Mr. SIBLEY and other prominent gentlemen were untiring in efforts to entertain the Russian admiral, LUSOFFSKI, in a becoming manner. Mr. SIBLEY was among the foremost in the arrangements of the committee of reception. So marked were his personal kindness that, when the admiral returned, he mentioned Mr. SIBLEY by name to the Emperor ALEXANDER, and thus unexpectedly prepared the way for the friendship of that generous monarch.
     During Mr. SIBLEY's stay in St. Petersburg he was honored in a manner only accorded to those who enjoy the special favor of royalty. Just before his arrival the Czar had returned from the burial of his son at Nice; and, in accordance with a long honored custom when the head of the empire goes abroad and returns, he held the ceremony of "counting the emperor's jewels;" which means an invitation to those whom his majesty desires to compliment as his friends, without regard to court etiquette or the formalities of official rank. At this grand reception in the palace of TSARSKOZELA, seventeen miles from St. Petersburg, Mr. SIBLEY was the second on the list, the French ambassador being the first, and Prince GORTSCHACOFF, the prime minister, the third. This order was observed also in the procession of 250 court carriages with outriders, Mr. SIBLEY's carriage being the second in the line. On this occasion Prince GORTSCHACOFF, turning to Mr. SIBLEY, said: "Sir ! if I remember rightly, in the course of a very pleasant conversation had with you a few days since, at the State department, you expressed your surprise at the pomp and circumstances attending upon all ceremony. Now; sir: when you take precedence of the prime minister, I trust you are more reconciled to the usage attendant upon royalty, which were so repugnant to your democratic ideas." Such an honor was greatly appreciated by Mr. SIBLEY, for it meant the most sincere respect of the "Autocrat of all the Russias" for the people of the United States, and a recognition of the courtesies conferred upon his fleet when in American waters.
     Mr. SIBLEY was duly complimented by the members of the royal family and others present, including the ambassadors of the great powers. Mr. COLLINS, his colleague in the telegraph enterprise, shared in these attentions. Mr. SIBLEY was recorded in the official blue book of the state department of St. Petersburg as "the distinguished American," by which title he was generally known. Of this book he has a copy as a souvenir of his Russian experience. His intercourse with the Russian authorities was also facilitated by a very complimentary letter from Secretary SEWARD to Prince GORTSCHACOFF. The Russian government agreed to build the line from Irkootsk to the mouth of the Amoor river. After 1,500 miles of wire had been put up, the final success of the Atlantic cable caused the abandonment of the line at a loss of $3,000,000. This was a loss in the midst of success, for Mr. SIBLEY had demonstrated the feasibility of putting a telegraphic girdle round the earth.
     In railway enterprises the accomplishments of his energy and management have been no less signal than in the establishment of the telegraph. One of these was the important line of the Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana Railway. His principal efforts in this direction have been the Southern States. After the war, prompted more by the desire of restoring amicable relations than by the prospect of gain, he made large and varied investments at the South, and did much to promote renewed business activity. At Saginaw, Mich., he became a large lumber and salt manufacturer. He bought much property in Michigan, and at one time owned vast tracts in the Lake Superior region, where the most valuable mines have since been worked. While he has been interested in bank and manufacturing stocks, his larger investments have been in land. Much of his pleasure has been in reclaiming waste territory and unproductive investments, which have been abandoned by others as hopeless. The satisfying aim of his ambition incites him to difficult undertakings that add to the wealth and happiness of the community from which others have shrunk, or in which others have made shipwreck. Besides his stupendous achievements in telegraph and railway extension, he is unrivaled as a farmer and seed grower, and he has placed the stamp of his genius on these occupations, in which many have been content to work in the well worn ruts of their predecessors.
     The seed business was commenced in Rochester thirty years ago. Latter Mr. SIBLEY undertook to supply seed of his own importation and raising and other's growth, under a personal knowledge of their vitality and comparative value. He instituted many experiments for the improvements of plants, with reference to their seed-bearing qualities, and has built up a business as unique in its character as it is unprecedented in amount. He cultivates the largest farm in the state, occupying Howland Island, of 3,500 acres, in Cayuga county, near the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad, which is largely devoted to seed culture; a portion is used for cereals, and 500 head of cattle are kept. On the Fox Ridge farm, through which the New York Central Railroad passes, where many seeds and bulbs are grown, he has reclaimed a swamp of six hundred acres, making of great value what was worthless in other hands, a kind of operation which affords him much delight. His ownership embraces fourteen other farms in this state, and also large estates in Michigan and Illinois.
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     The largest farm owned by Mr. SIBLEY, and the largest cultivated farm in the world, deserves a special description. This is the "Sullivant Farm," as formerly designated, but now known as the "Burr Oakes Farm," originally 40,000 acres, situated about 100 miles south of Chicago, on both sides of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific railroad. The property passed into the hands of an assignee, and, on Mr. SULLIVANT's death in 1879, came into the possession of Mr. SIBLEY. His first step was to change the whole plan of cultivation. Convinced that so large a territory could not be worked profitably by hired labor, he divided it into small tracts, until there are now many hundred of such farms; 146 of these are occupied by tenants working on shares, consisting of about equal proportions of Americans, Germans, Swedes and Frenchmen. A house and a barn have been erected on each tract, and implements and agricultural machines provided. At the center, on the railway, is a four-story warehouse, having a storage capacity of 20,000 bushels, used as a depot for the seeds grown on the farm, from which they are shipped as wanted to the establishments in Chicago and Rochester. The largest elevator on the line of the railway has been built at a cost of over $20,000; its capacity is 50,000 bushels, and it has a __ capable of shelling and loading twenty-five cars of corn a day. Near by is a flax mill, also run by steam, for converting flax straw into stock for bagging and upholstery. Another engine is used for grinding feed. Within four years there has sprung up on the property a village containing one hundred buildings, called SIB_ by the people, which is supplied with schools, churches, a newspaper, telegraph office and the largest hotel on the route between Chicago and St. Louis. A fine station house is to be erected by the railway company.
     Mr. SIBLEY is the president and largest stockholder of the Bank of Monroe, at Rochester, and is connected with various institutions. He has not accured wealth simply to hoard it. The SIBLEY College of Mechanic Arts of Cornell University, of Ithaca, which he founded and endowed at a cost of $100,000, has afforded a practical education to many hundreds of students. SIBLEY Hall, costing more than $100,000, is his contribution for a public library, and for the use of the University of Rochester for its library and cabinets; it is a magnificent fire-proof structure of brown stone trimmed with white; and enriched with appropriate statuary. Mrs. SIBLEY has also made large donations to the hospitals and other charitable institutions in Rochester and elsewhere. She erected at a cost of $25,000, St. John's Episcopal Church in North Adams, Mass., her native village. Mr. SIBLEY has one son and one daughter living, Hiram W. SIBLEY, who married the only child of Fletcher HARPER, Jr., and resides in New York, and Emily SIBLEY AVERIL, who resides in Rochester. He has also lost two children, Louise SIBLEY ATKINSON and Giles B. SIBLEY.
     A quotation from Mr. SIBLEY's address to the students of SIBLEY College, during a recent visit to Ithaca, is illustrative of his practical thought and expression, and a fitting close  to this brief sketch of his practical life;  "there are two most valuable possessions, which no search warrant can get at, which no execution can take away, and which no reverse fortune can destroy; they are what a man puts into his head -- knowledge; and into his hands -- skill."
     Mr. SIBLEY, it may be mentioned, did not cease his benefactions to Cornell University with the gifts mentioned in the above sketch; Since then he has given $55,000 for the further development of the mechanical department, making in all over $200,000 donated by him to the university.

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A MOST SAD ACCIDENT
 
On June 17th, Mr. Albert E. PURDY, one of Warsaw's most promising young men, together with Miss Lettie STRAUS, his intended bride, was boating on Silver Lake. The boat accidentally tipped over and both were drowned. Mr. PURDY was carrying $11,000 life insurance in different companies, he having a policy for $2,000 with the Flour City Life Association of this city. Proof of Mr. PURDY's death being forwarded to said association on July 5th, and on the 6th, Mr. F. J. BUTLER, secretary of the association, went to Warsaw and paid the claim, $2000, in full, his company being the only one that had paid.--
another evidence of the character and stability of the above company.
     A letter from Mr. Samuel D. PURDY:
         Warsaw, N. Y., July 5, 1888
C. F. UNDERHILL, President Flour City Life Association, 187 East Main st., Rochester, N. Y.
     Dear Sir -- I am just in receipt of a certified treasurer's check for $2,000 being in full payment of policy No. 2,04_, held by my son, Albert, in your Association. A company that pay their losses in full and on presentation of proof of loss, should be held in the highest position in the minds of the people.
     My son carried insurance in a number of companies, but the Flour City Life Association is the first to pay. It is but another demonstration of the advantages of holding an advance assessment. It puts the company in a position to pay their losses promptly.
    Thanking you for your promptness and again indorsing your Association, I remain,
                       Yours,                            Samuel PURDY
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Rochester, Monroe, NY
Union & Advertiser
Thurs July 12, 1888
 
HIRAM SIBLEY DEAD
 
The Well-Known Citizen Gone to His Last Rest
 
    Hiram SIBLEY, the aged and well-known citizen whose death had been hourly expected since Monday evening last, passed quietly away at 10:35 o'clock this morning. Mr. SIBLEY did not regain consciousness after he suffered the stroke of apoplexy, so that the transition from life to death was gradual and scarcely apparent. His family were about his bedside for the last three days and up to his last moments. A complete and accurate sketch of Mr. SIBLEY's life was published in Tuesday's Union and Advertiser. Mr. SIBLEY was a millionaire many times over and was a remarkable instance of a self-made man. From humble beginnings he rose to a position of wealth and influence. In his seed business, in farming on a large scale and in the telegraph business during its infancy he displayed financial and executive ability of a high order. As a friend of Mr. SIBLEY's said this morning: "He was a man who thoroughly mastered the details of any business he went into. He usually went into some branch of business which nobody else would take hold of and made a grand success of it. He succeeded in everything he undertook. There seemed to be money in everything he touched. In mercantile transactions he was strict. When he gave anything he gave it freely, as, for instance, his gifts to Cornell University."
     Mr. SIBLEY leaves besides his wife, one son, Hiram W. SIBLEY, and one daughter, Mrs. I. S. AVERELL. Arrangements for the funeral have not yet been made.
Rochester, Monroe, NY
Union & Advertiser
Sat July 14, 1888
 
HIRAM SIBLEY'S FUNERAL
 
To Take Place This Afternoon -- Resolutions Adopted
 
    The funeral of Hiram SIBLEY will take place at 4 o'clock this afternoon. There will undoubtedly be a large assemblage of citizens present. Ex-Gov. A. B. CORNELL will probably be one of the bearers, but the list of bearers is not yet definitely known. Friends have been requested not to send flowers, and the funeral, in accordance with the wishes of deceased, will be unostentatious. The burial will be private.
    At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Mechanics' Institute held yesterday afternoon, the following committee was appointed to draw up appropriate resolutions on the death of Hiram SIBLEY, one of the members of the board: Messrs. LOWE, GRAHAM, GILLIS, MICHAELS and LOMB. The following memorial was reported by the committee and adopted:
     The trustees of the Mechanics Institute having learned of the death of Hiram SIBLEY, a member of this board, adopt the following as an expression of their sincere views and feelings regarding that deplorable event.
     By the death of Hiram SIBLEY the city of Rochester has lost one of its most enlightened progressive and enterprising citizens, a man of vigorous intellect, sound judgment and far-seeing wisdom; the cause of education in the mechanical arts has left one of its earliest, most zealous and liberal promotors; and the Mechanics institute of Rochester, of whose board of trustees he was a member, has lost one of its sincerest friends and most valued benefactors. By his prin_ely generosity in establishing a school of mechanic arts at Cornell University, and by his liberal contributions to the Mechanics Institute of Rochester, Mr. SIBLEY has shown his profound interest in the highest welfare of the laboring c__es of this country. In a communication to the secretary of this body he has himself said: "To elevate labor, make it intelligent and useful, this will dignify and improve the laboring classes so indispensible to the prosperity of our great and growing country.
    As members  of the board of trustees of the Mechanics Institute we hereby record our sense of the great misfortune the cause of mechanical education and of intelligent labor throughout the country has suffered through the death of our late venerable associate. Furthermore, it is
     Resolved, That the secretary be instructed to forward a copy of this memorial to the surviving members of the family of the deceased, and also that a copy be forwarded to each of the daily papers of the city.
    At a meeting of the Trustees of the University of Rochester held last evening, Dr. ANDERSON was _rected to draft a suitable memorial on the death of Mr. SIBLEY, for years a member of the board and a benefactor of the University.
Rochester, Monroe, NY
Union & Advertiser
Tue July 24, 1888
 
A TRIBUTE TO HIRAM SIBLEY
 
Among the many tributes to the memory of the late Hiram SIBLEY will you kindly give place to a word of acknowledgment from an old friend. When Mr. SIBLEY was in Washington, twenty-five or more years ago, he sent me a check for $100 for St. Mary's Hospital, and each year thereafter, so long as I remained in that institution, this generous gift was repeated. His note accompanying the first donation was so beautiful in sentiment and expression that your readers may be pleased to see how noble and generous a man he was at heart:  "In sending you this check for $100 I have acted on the suggestion of my good wife, whose advice I always feel safe to follow. Please make no acknowledgment of it, as I do not as much in this way as I should."
     Last year when I purchased the property for the new  "Home of Industry" from Mr. SIBLEY I spoke of the fear some expressed as to the depreciation in value of neighboring real estate resulting from the building of the institution. He said:  "Nothing that is good can depreciate the value of adjoining property."
     No monument can be reared in his memory so beautiful as the prayers of grateful hearts who have received favors from this noble man.
                        Mother HIERONYMO
                        Rochester, July 23, 1888.

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DEATHS AND FUNERALS
 
--August, infant son of John and Barbara ZIMMERMAN, died last night at his parents' residence on Bernard street. Funeral to-morrow at 7:30 a.m., from the Holy Redeemer Church.
 
--Frederick ZIEMS died yesterday at No. 26 Rhine street at the age of 76 years. The funeral will be held at 2 p.m. to-morrow from the house and at 2:30 p.m. from Zion's German Lutheran Church on Grove street.
 
--Otto Albert RANDTKE, aged 5 months, died at the residence of his parents, John and Henrietta RANDTKE, last night. Funeral at 2 p.m. from the house.
 
--The funeral of the late Malachi O'BRIEN will take place from St. Mary's Church at 9 a.m. to-morrow.
 
--Mrs. Catherine REAGAN died this morning at No. 149 Jones street, aged 68 years. Funeral will take place from the house Thursday at 8:30 a.m. and at 9 a.m. from the Cathedral.
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COURT NOTES
 
--Deputy Marshal BARDWELL arrested Gottleib APFEL yesterday on a charge of sending an obscene letter through the mail. He will be examined Saturday morning.
 
--Special County Judge WERNER handed down the following decisions yesterday:
     Frank B. SHERMAN vs. Lucy A. CUMMINS. Reference ordered.
 
    Richard EARL vs Sarah C. WILKIN et al. Judgment for plaintiff.
 
    People vs. Andrew DOWD. Judgment affirmed.
 
--The will of John A. CLINE was admitted to probate in the Surrogate's Court this morning. The estate amounts to about $60,000, and by the provisions of the will is to be divided among the testator's children.
 
--The will of Andrew DRAGGER, which was contested on the usual grounds, by Adaline REGENAUER, a daughter, was admitted to probate by Surrogate ADLINGTON this morning. The will of John METZGER was also probated.
 
--Charles M. WILLIAMS, as referee in a partition action, sold the Wakeman Y. ANDREWS property on North avenue this morning. One parcel went to M. OETTINGER for $4,215, and the other to Adam BASS for $5,000.
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