UNITED STATES | EZRA CORNELL | |
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Slave trade
outlawed Robert Fulton builds first succesful steamboat. |
1807 |
Born, Westchester Landing, son of Elijah and Eunice Cornell. |
James Madison wins presidential election | 1808 |
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War with Great Britain | 1812 |
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James Monroe wins presidential election | 1817 |
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Spain cedes
East Florida to the US. Panic of 1819 |
1819 |
Family relocates to DeRuyter. Elijah Cornell operates pottery. |
Missouri compromise: Missouri and Maine are admitted to the Union keeping the balance between free and slave states. | 1820 |
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Monroe doctrine against further colonization of the Americas by European nations. | 1823 |
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John Quincy Adams wins presidential election | 1824 |
Elijah has new pottery building constructed. Ezra Cornell learns the carpenter's trade. |
The Erie Canal, linking the Midwest with the Hudson Valley, is completed. | 1825 |
|
1826 |
Syracuse, works as a journeyman carpenter. Moves to Homer, works as a mechanic. | |
Andrew Jackson wins presidential election | 1828 |
Arrives in Ithaca. Works as a mechanic at Otis Eddy's cotton mill on Cascadilla Creek. |
1829 |
Begins working for Jeremiah S. Beebe overhauling and repairing plaster mill on Fall Creek. | |
1830 |
Plans and supervises construction of Fall Creek tunnel. | |
1831 |
Fall Creek tunnel completed. Marries Mary Ann Wood. Builds the Nook at Fall Creek and begins housekeeping. | |
Samuel F. B. Morse developes the first practical telegraph. | 1832 |
First child, Alonzo B. Cornell born. Cornell takes charge of Beebe's concerns at Fall Creek. |
Oberlin is the
first college to admit women students. Steel plow manufactured by John Lane. |
1833 |
Second child, Charles Carrol Cornell born. Cornell working for Beebe and speculates in real estate. |
Cyrus McCormick patents automatic grain-reaper. | 1834 |
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Rise of the Whig party | 1835 |
Elizabeth Percival Cornell born. |
Creation of
the independent Republic of Texas Martin Van Buren wins presidential election. |
1836 |
|
Panic of 1837 | 1837 |
Builds new mill for Beebe
and constructs stone dam on Fall Creek (forming Beebe
lake). Active in local politics and is delegate to Tompkins County convention of the Whig Party. Charles Carrol Cornell dies. |
1838 |
Son Franklin Cuthbert Cornell born. | |
EXHIBIT: MAINE TO GEORGIA AND BEYOND | ||
The establishment of the Liberty Party signals the entry into politics of antislavery forces. | 1839 |
Cornell leaves Beebe's
employment and turns to farming. |
William Henry Harrison wins presidential election. | 1840 |
Son Charles Carrol Cornell (second child with this name) born. |
1841 |
Ithaca's prosperity
declining. Cornell makes two trips East representing
Ithaca as a center for trade and industry. Charles Carrol Cornell dies. |
|
1842 |
Purchases patent rights to
Barnaby and Mooers side hill plow for the states of Maine
and Georgia. Travels to Maine. Meets F.O.J. Smith,
publisher of the Maine Farmer. Son Oliver Hazard Perry Cornell born. |
|
Beginnings of political nativism: anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant movement. | 1843 |
Travels to Georgia. Does much on traveling on foot, 40 miles a day. |
EXHIBIT: THE TELEGRAPH | ||
1843 |
Returns to Maine, meets with
F.O.J Smith and becomes associated with the infant
telegraph industry. Cornell designs a machine to lay a
test telegraph cable underground. Samuel F. B. Morse goes to Maine for demonstration of pipe-layer and approves the design. Cornell goes to Baltimore and Washington to begin work on laying the telegraph line. |
|
Test line in operation between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Morse sends first telegraph transmission: "What hath God wrought?" James K. Polk wins presidential election |
1844 |
Cornell presents telegraph exhibitions in Boston and New York during the summer and autumn. |
EXHIBIT: THE BUSINESS OF THE TELEGRAPH | ||
Annexation of Texas | 1845 |
Magnetic Telegraph Company organized for the extension of the telegraph from Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York. |
War with Mexico | 1845 |
New York, Albany & Buffalo Telegraph Company builds line from New York to Buffalo, Cornell erects portion of line between New York and Albany. |
Telegraph industry expands as incorporated companies. In the next three years lines are extended to nearly every important town in the United States and Canada. | 1846 |
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Settlement of Oregon question with Great Britain | 1846 |
Employed as the Superintendent of the New York, Albany & Buffalo Magnetic Telegraph Company. |
1847 |
Submits resignation to
Theodore Faxton. Sick with typhus, Daughter Mary Emily Cornell born. Erects telegraph line from Troy through Vermont to Montreal, under contract with the Troy & Canada Junction Telegraph Company. Cornell produces an assignment from Smith making him and J.J. Speed sole agents for the Morse Patent in the five western states. Organizes the Erie & Michigan Telegraph Company to provide a telegraph line between Buffalo and Milwaukee, by way of Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago. |
|
California
Gold Rush War with Mexico ends with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. New Mexico and California ceded to the U.S. Seneca Falls Convention under the leadership of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Zachary Taylor wins presidential election. |
1848 |
Erie & Michigan line completed. Cornell organizes the New York & Erie Telegraph Company for the purpose of building a telegraph line from New York to Dunkirk through the southern tier of counties of New York. |
1849 |
New York and Erie line
completed. Son Ezra Clayton Cornell born. Daughter Elizabeth Percival Cornell dies. |
|
Compromise of 1850, settling differences between North and South, including the organization of the territories aquired from Mexico and a controversial Fugitive Slave Act. | 1850 |
|
1851 |
New York & Mississippi
Valley Printing Telegraph Company started by Hiram Sibley
and Judge Samuel L. Selden. Cornell's son Ezra Clayton Cornell dies. |
|
Franklin Pierce wins presidential election. | 1852 |
New York & Erie
Telegraph Company fails, Cornell buys it back and renames
it the New York & Western Union Telegraph Company.
Cornell works as Superintendent of the company. Daughter Emma Pettit Cornell born. Cornell family leaves the Nook and moves into the village of Ithaca. |
Introduction
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which implicitely repealed
the Missouri Compromise Creation of the Republican party. Lincoln's "Peoria Speech," his first public denunciation of slavery. |
1854 |
|
1855 |
Has accident and severely injures his arm. | |
James Buchanan wins presidential election. | 1856 |
Cornell joins interests with
Sibley and associates to form Western Union Telegraph
Company. Goes to Pittsburgh as New York State delegate to the first Republican National Convention. |
EXHIBIT: TOWARDS A NEW AGRICULTURE | ||
Dred Scott Decision, the Supreme Court declares Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. | 1857 |
Purchases and moves to
"Forest Park." Conducts agricultural experiments, and raises short horn cattle, and sheep. Organizes Ithaca Farmers' Club. |
First commercial oil well drilled in Titusville, PA | 1859 |
|
Abraham
Lincoln wins presidential election South Carolina starts secession crisis |
1860 |
Visits oil wells in Titusville, involved in telegraph business, coal oil business, and the New York State Agricultural Society. |
EXHIBIT: CIVIL WAR | ||
Confederate
constitution adopted at the Montgomery convention. Civil War begins with confederate attack on Ft. Sumter. Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph. |
1861 |
At home in Ithaca, involved
in the Tompkins County Agricultural Society, the Farmers
Club, raising sheep and cattle, and collecting
agricultural statistics. Travels to Washington and attends Lincoln's inauguration. |
EXHIBIT: A MAN OF POLITICS | ||
Morrill Act provided for federal grants of land to states for the establishment of agricultural colleges. | 1862 |
Serves in the New York State Assembly. Also elected president of the New York State Agricultural Society. Attends the Great International Exposition at London and travels extensively through England, Scotland, and Wales as well as through France, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, and Austria. |
EXHIBIT: "TO THE POOR AND TO POSTERITY" | ||
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. | 1863 |
Serves second year in New York State Assembly. Construction of Cornell Library underway. Nominated and elected State Senator. |
EXHIBIT: THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY | ||
Assasination
of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. End of the Confederacy and the Civil War Proclamation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. |
1865 |
Andrew Dickson White
introduces bill in the Senate to establish the Cornell
University and to appropriate to it the income of the
sale of public lands granted to New York State. Cornell University Bill formally passed in the Assembly and Senate. |
1866 |
Takes trip to Wisconsin to
locate lands. Involved in University. Dedication of the Cornell Public Library Building. |
|
1866 |
||
U.S. buys Alaska from Russia. | 1867 |
Cornell declines reelection to State Senate. |
Ulysses S. Grant wins presidential election. | 1868 |
Cornell University opens. |
U.S. transcontinental railroad completed. | 1869 |
Construction starts on Cornell villa. Cornell moves downtown to the corner of Tioga and Seneca. |
1869 |
Cornell involved in photo-lithography business, Albany Agricultural Works, and development of the University. | |
1874 |
Death of Ezra Cornell. |