The Cortland Democrat, Friday, February
28, 1890.
President's Report.
Pursuant
to the requirements of Section 1, Title VI of the Charter of the Village of Cortland,
I respectfully submit my report as president for the year commencing March 20th, 1889, and ending with the date of this
report.
The
disbursements of the village with a few unimportant exceptions hereafter given in
detail appear in the report of the trustees of the village and the report of
the Board of Education to which reference is respectively made for the items
and amounts. The bonded indebtedness of the village incurred for the
construction of buildings and the purchase of a site for the Normal School, now
outstanding, is as follows:
The amount of principal falling due Oct. 1st, 1890
is, $3,000.
And bears interest at the rate of 3 and 5 percent,
and falling due Oct. 1st, 1891, bearing interest at 3 and 5 percent $4,000.00.
Falling due Oct. 1st, 1895, bearing interest at 3
5/8 percent $10,000.
Falling due Oct. 1st. 1896, bearing interest at 3
5/8 percent $10,000.
Total $27,000.
During my
term [one year] of office I have received from P. H. Neill for rent
of house $55.00.
For use of steam fire engine, $2.00.
" Use of street scraper, $15.00.
" Licenses, $91.00.
" Sale of scrap iron, $5.70.
" Rent of Fireman's Hall, $40.00.
" Special work done on streets, $94.90.
" Dirt removed from streets and sold, $109.47.
" Fees of police to Nov. 1st, 1889, $247.60.
Deposited by policemen and not passing through my
hands, $56.65, $304.25.
Recovered in action against W. U. Telegraph Co.,
unpaid tax, $26.38.
Total $748.74.
All of
which was deposited with the Treasurer at the date of my report except the sum of $12.20 now in my hands. I am unable
to give the total sum realized from the sales of dirt removed from the streets
because the Street Commissioner collected and deposited monies received for
dirt sold of which I have no items or data. The same is true in respect to
monies deposited by members of the police force.
A better
practice than that heretofore pursued would be to pass these monies through the
hands of the clerk of the village to the Treasurer requiring the clerk to credit
the sums received to the proper fund or account and give his receipts therefore
to the persons from whom the same are received. No time should be lost in
adopting some rule or practice better adapted to protect the interests of the
village against errors and peculations than that now in vogue.
The
assessed valuation of the taxable property in the village, as shown by the last
assessment roll is $1,727,685.00, on which was collected the sum of $32,302.81.
Reported uncollectable, $118.27. Not collectable on account of errors in the
assessment, $429.88. Poll tax collected $495.00.
The
amount of poll tax assessed and not collected was not ascertained at this date.
Many
persons have applied to the board of trustees for relief from taxes which they claimed
were erroneous, for various reasons, a majority being firemen and claiming exemptions
which had not been allowed, notwithstanding the Assessor was furnished with a
list of all the active firemen in the department before taking the assessment.
The board could afford no relief in these cases for want of authority. This
want will be provided for in the future by the bill amending the charter when
it becomes a law. Most of these errors could, and probably would, have been prevented
or corrected on the review day had the assessment roll been published so as to
advise taxpayers of their existence and enable them to apply to have them corrected
on or before the completion of the assessment roll, the publication of which,
in a local newspaper, would also tend to produce a more equal and impartial assessment
and thereby accomplish a much needed reform in the administration of public
affairs.
The
publication of a notice of the completion of the assessment roll and of the place
where it may be examined and of the time and place when and where it will be
reviewed, revised and corrected as provided by law, gives no practical
opportunity for one in ten of the taxpayers to inform themselves of the errors
or inequalities of the assessment and results in instances of enormous
injustice, which the publication of the assessment roll in a local newspaper would
prevent.
The
pressing demands for public improvements have increased many items of the
appropriations proposed for next year in spite of the earnest wishes and
persistent efforts of the board of trustees to economize in the public
expenditures.
There is a
pressing need of a comprehensive and thorough system of public sewers, but it
is believed the taxpayers are now contributing more than they can well afford to
maintain public improvements without assuming additional burdens in the present
paucity of profits from business. This belief has deterred the present board of
trustees from any attempt to inaugurate this much needed improvement although convinced
that it cannot, with safety, be much longer delayed.
Economy
and cleanliness as well as better facilities for moving, delivering and shipping
merchandise, the increased dispatch, ease, comfort and convenience with which
business could be transacted with better streets, all unite in favor of better roads
and more improved methods and materials for constructing and maintaining them.
A large
percent of the money expended in graveling our heavy traffic streets is wasted.
But again economy and good sense require that our sewers should be laid before
our streets are paved and our water and gas mains should be tapped and brought
to the curb on either side, so that a street once paved may not be torn up for
any cause whatever. The importance of good roads to our business interests to render
travel and transportation easy, convenient and cheap for ourselves and those we
invite to trade with us, cannot be over estimated. Rapid, easy and cheap
transit for men and merchandise is the most essential condition for profitable
and successful commerce. Nearly everything from ponderous machinery and heavy
building material to a paper of pins, is at some time carted over our roads and
their good or bad condition varies the time and expense required to move it.
Experience
has repeatedly illustrated how extremely unsatisfactory is the condition of a
municipal corporation, dependent upon the caprice or greed of organized capital
for its supply of water. Water works companies inherently possess all the essential
elements of monopolies, which is an irrefragable [sic] reason why we should own and
control the plant from which our supply of water is derived.
Besides,
a municipal corporation can much better afford to own its waterworks when it
can borrow the money they would cost at 3 percent, than to pay in water rents the
equivalent of six percent, upon the actual and fictitious capital invested and
inflated as represented by the capital stock of a corporation. The difference
between 3 percent of the actual cost of the plant which supplies us with water
and the sum collected for the water service afforded by it would defray running
expenses and repairs and create a sinking fund which would pay the first cost
of the plant within twenty-five years, at the end of which time the property
would not only belong to the village but would be worth four times its first
cost.
The foregoing
suggestions, though not necessarily a part of my report, are deemed timely and
of prime importance.
Numerous
other subjects worthy of attention calling for discussion and action, await
treatment at other hands.
Dated
Feb. 26, 1890.
IRVING H.
PALMER, President.
Notes: 1885 History of Cortland County, The Bench and Bar, H. P. Smith:
“Admitted in the same year as Mr. Mantanye, at the November General Term, was
Irving H. Palmer. He was born in Virgil in 1841, and was graduated at the
Cortland Academy. His law studies were pursued in the office of Duell &
Benedict, after which he began practice in Cortland. In 1882 he was elected
district attorney, which office he still retains.”
Grip’s 1889 Historical Souvenir of Cortland, Practicing
Attorneys: “Irving H. Palmer, attorney for the Erie & Central N. Y.
railway, and at one time elected district attorney on the Democratic ticket.”
[I. H. Palmer was elected to the office of village president in 1881 and 1889--CC editor.]
Village Election.
Notice is
hereby given that the annual election of officers of the Village of Cortland will
be held on the 11th day of March, 1890.
The polls
will be open from 9 o'clock A. M. to 4 o'clock P. M. of that day.
The
polling places fixed and provided by the Board of Trustees in the respective wards
of the village are as follows:
First Ward—The shop of St. Peters & West, Squires Block,
Main street.
Second Ward—Firemen's Hall, Main street.
Third Ward—The office of Harrison Wells, Clinton
avenue.
Fourth Ward—Nottingham's shop, Main street.
The
officers to be elected at said election are:
A President
in place of Irving H. Palmer.
A Trustee
in the second ward in place of David C. Beers (to be elected by the electors of
the second ward only).
A Trustee
in the fourth ward in place of Henry Kennedy (to be elected by the electors of
the fourth ward only)
Three
Assessors in place of Samuel Freeman.
A
Collector in place of George T. Latimer.
A Treasurer
in place of Fitz Boynton.
Three
Commissioners of Union Free School, District No. 1, for the term of three years
each, in place of D. F. Wallace, George L.Warren and F. W. Kingsbury.
The
Commissioner of Union Free School, District No. 1, for the term of one year, in
place of Charles E. Selover, resigned.
A Police
Justice for the term of three years.
Three
Inspectors of Election for the 1st ward (who shall be elected by the electors of
the first ward only).
Three
Inspectors of Election for the 2d Ward (who shall be elected by the electors of
the second ward only).
Three
Inspectors of Election for the 3d ward (who shall be elected by the electors of
the third ward only).
Three
Inspectors of Election for the 4th ward (who shall be elected by the electors of
the fourth ward only).
I. H. PALMER, President.
HENRY KENNEDY,
DAVID C. BEERS,
CHARLES H. MANN,
CHARLES T. PECK, Trustees.
Death of Jacob M. Schermerhorn.
Jacob M.
Schermerhorn, an old and highly respected citizen of Homer, died at the residence
of his son, J. Maus Schermerhorn, Jr., No. 801 James St., Syracuse, last Sunday
morning, aged eighty-five years. For some years past he had spent the winters with
his son in Syracuse and the summers were spent at his handsome home in Homer.
Mr.
Schermerhorn was a direct descendant from the original Schermerhorn family which
came to this country in 1638, and was born at Schenectady on November 12th,
1804. He was graduated from Union college in the class of 1824 and in 1828 began
the practice of law at Rochester. He was president of the Monroe county bank for
four years. In 1831 he married Miss Louisa A. Barber, daughter of the late Jedediah
Barber of Homer, where be made his home in 1842.
Mr. Schermerhorn was president of the
Syracuse, Binghamton & New York Railroad company for about ten years and
his personal efforts went a long way toward making that corporation a success.
He was a corporate member of the A. B. C. F. M., and during his life was
prominently identified with many public movements in Cortland county.
He
retired from active business many years since, because of his impaired health
which had never been of the best. He was a man of large means, much of which he
had accumulated in his earlier years by judicious investments. While he mingled
little in society, he was a well informed man and most excellent
conversationalist. Besides his widow, two sons, George J. of New York, and J.
Maus Schermerhorn, and two daughters, Mrs. John M. Fisher, of Philadelphia, and
Mrs. Louis B. Henry of East Orange, N. J., survive him.
The
funeral services were held in Syracuse, on Tuesday at 8 P. M. , and the burial was
made in the family lot in Mount Hope cemetery in Rochester on Wednesday.
Miss Ormsby's School.
This is
the fifth year of Miss Ormsby's select school, and she has met with such excellent
success that she is forced to seek more roomy quarters. Consequently she has
leased the premises at No. 18 Court street, and at the beginning of the half term,
April 23, she will take possession of the same, where she will have ample room.
There will be three departments, Kindergarten, Primary and Intermediate, each
is in charge of competent and experienced teachers, the whole to be under Miss Ormsby's
supervision. Arrangements have been made with the Normal, whereby graduates
from her school will be received in the C. class of that institution without further
examinations. Scholars will be prepared to enter the normal department and will
be received on her examinations, and the same course will be pursued with reference
to the Primary and Intermediate departments. The school term, text books, line
of work and examinations will be the same as those of the Normal School.
There is
great need of such a school in this village and Miss Ormsby's splendid success
in the past five years is a sufficient guarantee that the school will be
conducted in the best manner possible. The building is to be thoroughly
overhauled and fitted up for her use.
Miss Olof Krarer.
Miss Olof
Krarer, the native esquimaux lady will deliver her lecture on "Greenland,"
or "Life in the Frozen North," at the Cortland Opera House, Friday
evening, March 7th. Miss Krarer, is the only representative of her race in this
country, and is creating a decided sensation wherever she appears. Here is what
Rev. Dr. John Hemphill, of Philadelphia, says of her:
Having
heard of Miss Olof Krarer's wonderful gifts, we engaged her to deliver her
lecture in the West Arch Street Presbyterian Church, not without some scruples on
the part of some. Before the little lady had spoken five minutes, the scruples
were all scattered. Her lecture was a most decided success. Her voice is strong, yet musical; her
manner dignified, yet easy and natural, and her way of putting things pointed and pungent, always interesting
and often amusing. Any church can
afford to have her. There is no
cheap sensationalism about her
lecture. It is high-class throughout.
I was delighted with it. So were
my people.
Reserved seats for sale at Wallace's, where parties
having general admission tickets can exchange for reserved seats by paying the
difference.
Cortland
County Agricultural Society.
At the annual meeting of the society held at
the Cortland House last Monday, the following
officers were chosen for the ensuing year:
President—C. F. Wickwire.
Vice President—J. J. Murray.
Treasurer—W. J. Greenman.
Secretary—F. N. Harrington.
The following Board of Directors for the
ensuing year was elected: T. H. Wickwire, O. U. Kellogg, A. P. Rowley, F. N. Harrington,
H. Wells, J. J. Murray, D. N. Hitchcock, James H. Tripp, D. K. Cutler, and Seth
Hobart.
The society will expend several hundred dollars
in repairing the [county fair] grounds and track. The new officers are energetic business men
and they propose to do everything needful to make the society a paying
institution.
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