Carol Fisher Linn
Sometimes there are people who were not born in the geographic region but who profoundly left their mark on communities or places that give prominence and fame to this part of NYS. Two of those people who joined forces to co-found Chautauqua Institution in 1874 were Lewis Miller and Bishop John Heyl Vincent. First founded as Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly, their goal was to improve the training of Sunday School teachers. Akron, Ohio native and inventor, Lewis Miller was most famous for his invention of the Buckeye mower and reaper. Although involved in the industrial world, he had an interest in religious education. He served as the first president of Chautauqua. His other claim to fame was that his daughter, Mina Miller, married Thomas Edison. The Miller-Edison Cottage, built in 1875 on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution became their summer home when they married in 1886. The property is now how to the Chautauqua Bird, Tree, and Garden Club.
State Park – Letchworth : Nicknamed the
“Grand Canyon of the East,” New York’s Letchworth
State Park is considered one of the most
scenic areas in the Eastern United States.
Letchworth State Park, founded by William P.
Letchworth, born in Brownville, NY (near Watertown).
He was raised a Quaker and credited
his values of hard work, charity and development
of the intellect to his family roots.
John Heyl Vincent was a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He started the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle in 1878. The CLSC was a four-year course of required reading that was open to those who were unable to attend college. His words said it all: “Education, once the peculiar privilege of the few, must in our best earthly estate become the valued possession of the many.” Those words are from the opening paragraphs of his book, The Chautauqua Movement, and represent an ideal he had for Chautauqua. (Thank you to Phil Zimmer and Emily Carpenter Education Department at Chautauqua for information about these founders.)
Letchworth State Park, founded by William P. Letchworth and was voted USA Today’s No. 1 State Park in the United States in May 2025. It marked the second time 10 Best voters crowned Letchworth the top state park (first in 2015). We owe the existence of this park to William Pryor Letchworth who was born in 1823, in Brownville, NY (near Watertown). He was raised a Quaker and credited his values of hard work, charity and development of the intellect to his family roots. At 50, he was appointed to the NYS Board of Charities. In this role he inspected all the orphan asylums, poor-houses, city alms houses, and juvenile reformatories in the state which had an aggregate population of 17,791 children. Following his investigation, he recommended that all children under 2 years of age be removed from these institutions. In 1878, Letchworth was elected as President of the Board and resigned in 1897. He traveled the world at his own expense exploring the treatment and condition of the insane, epileptics and poor children. He built himself a retreat estate on former Seneca Territory in NY. Letchworth visited the Sehgahunda Valley of the Genesee River in western New York. In 1859 he purchased his first tract of land near Portage Falls.
Letchworth hired landscape architect William Webster to design the grounds of the estate, and named it Glen Iris. He reportedly spent $500,000 improving the land. In 1906, he bequeathed his 1,000-acre estate to New York state with the provision that the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society serve as custodian of the land and allowing himself a life tenancy. It now makes up the heart of Letchworth State Park.
Letchworth died at Glen Iris on December 1, 1910 and is buried in Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery. To find more information about Letchworth, including which trails are open and what activities are offered, visit Letchworth’s website.
Taylor Caldwell (1900-1985) was a novelist who wrote more than 40 works of fiction. Her books sold an estimated 30 million copies. Mrs. Caldwell was born in Manchester, England. In 1907 she emigrated to Buffalo NY with her family. Between 1918 and 1919 she served in the US Naval Reserve. From 1923 to 1931 she was a court reporter in the NY State Department of Labor in Buffalo and a member of the Board of Special Inquiry at the Department of Justice in Buffalo. In 1931 she graduated from the University of Buffalo. So famous and renowned is Taylor Caldwell, that it is difficult to visualize her as a wan, depressed, and frightened young mother; alone, jobless, nearly destitute, and having to face the bleakest Christmas of her life. She had almost lost faith in God Himself.