M&T
Bank - Table of Contents
St.
James Hall and the Buffalo Library
1850
- Group of eight businessmen from across the state formed Marine
Bank.
1856
- Manufacturers
& Traders Bank receives
charter with $200,000. and Bronson
Case Rumsey and Pascal
Paoli Pratt are
the founders' Pratt was the first president. Pratt's businesses
included Pratt and Co. Hardware and Pratt and Letchworth Ironworks.
1856
- Office space leased at 2 E. Swan St. for $100 per month.
1856
- Buffalo's ten grain elevators handled 19.7 million bushels of
grain, making it the world's largest grain port.
1900
- Pascal
Paoli Pratt was
president of M&T when it moved into its own Green and
Wicks-designed bank near the southwest corner of Main and Swan
streets.
1913
- Previous to the merger with Fidelity
Trust Bank, M&T built a new bank at Main and Swan
streets which occupied the entire historic Townsend and Coit site. Robert
Livingston Fryer was
president. After
the merger with Fidelity Trust this building became the Federal
Reserve Bank. It was demolished in 1959.
1914
- Harry T. Ramsdell was the fourth president of the bank.
1919?
- Lewis G. Harriman became the fifth president of M&T.
Originally,
One M&T Plaza was part of Inner
Lot No. 104 of
the Holland
Land Company's Survey,
which was reserved by the local agent, Joseph
Ellicott, for his residence and private estate.
Consisting of 100 acres, it was on the west side of Main Street,
extending from Swan to Eagle, and down to Jefferson.
Eagle
Street has
retained its name from 1804 to the present day. On July 13, 1826, Van
Staphorst Avenue, named to perpetuate the name of Nicholas Van
Staphorst of the Holland Land Company, was changed to Main
Street north
of Shelton Square, and Onondaga became Washington
Street.
The Ellicott tract was subdivided by Jacob S. Otto, successor to Joseph Ellicott as local agent, and in 1825 he laid out North Division from Main to Washington: it was extended in 1831 to Jefferson.
Eagle
Street Theater: Buffalo's
first theater building, the Eagle
Street Theater, was built by Albert Brisbane of
Batavia on the southwest corner of Washington and Eagle. Opened on
July 20,1835, it was constructed in the style of the leading
theaters of Europe. The auditorium a semicircle, with four tiers of
boxes and a gallery. The tiers were one directly over the other. The
theatrical season was the period of navigation on the lakes and
canal, from May 1st, when the ice had disappeared from the lakes,
until the close of navigation about December 1st.
St. James Hall
/ Bunnell's Museum: The Eagle
Street Theater, was
destroyed by fire on May 11, 1852. The walls of the building were
used in construction of St.
James Hall in
1853. The hall was used for all manner of entertainments from
poultry shows to grand opera. Many famous men, Ralph Waldow Emerson,
Henry Ward Beecher, Kentucky's Tom Marshall and a host of others
spoke from its platforms. Old Settlers' dances were held there as
well as firemen's balls and sparring matches. In its last six years
it was known as Bunnell's Museum.
St.
James Hotel / Young Men's Association: Albert
and George Brisbane built the St. James Hotel on the southeast
corner of Main and Eagle in 1855. They sold the hotel and St. James
Hill for $112.500 on March 24, 1864 to the Young
Men's Association. Members of the association moved to
their new home in the St. James Building on January 10, 1865. Rooms
were provided for the Buffalo Historical Society, Buffalo Society of
Natural Sciences, Buffalo Fine Library, Young Men's Christian
Association, Erie County Medical Society and the Firemen's
Benevolent Association.
The Young Men's Association, five years after moving to the site of
One M & T Plaza, established a fund for large purchases of
books, and within two years increased its total from 16,000 to
25,000 volumes available to Buffalonians. In 1886 the YMA changed
its name to Buffalo
Public Library. The move to the present location on Lafayette
Squarewas completed February 1, 1887.
Abraham
Lincoln:
On Thursday, April 27, 1865, Abraham
Lincoln lay
in state in St. James Hall on the site of One M&T Plaza. A
report of the times estimates that 100,000 heartsick Buffalonians
passed through the hall to view the body of the martyred President.
Lincoln's funeral staff told Buffalo leaders that the reception here
was the most favored accorded the President on his last, long trip.
Half-hour
guns were fired by a battery in Court
House Park (Lafayette
Square) throughout
the day, and during the marching of the funeral procession to and
from the hall minute guns were fired. The cortege moved from the
Exchange Street Station in Exchange Street to Main, up Main to
Niagara, to Delaware, to Tupper, to Main, to Eagle, and to the hall.
Samuel
F. Pratt, Warren Bryant, Gibson T. Williams, Thomas
J. Dudley, George R. Babcock, William Wildeson, Jacob Heimlich and
Isaac Holloway were the pall bearers. Among the citizens whose
carriages were used to accompany the escort guarding
the remains were these incorporators and first directors of the
Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company: Stephen
V.R. Watson, Myron
P. Bush, Pascal
P. Pratt and Sherman
S. Jewett.
Mayor
William G. Fargo was
chairman of the Buffalo committee on arrangements. His committee
included the following M & T incorporators and directors: Bronson
Rumsey, Francis
H. Root and Sidney
Shepard.
The
Buffalo committee which rode the funeral train from Batavia to
Buffalo was headed by Millard
Fillmore and
included Henry Martin, president of M & T, Sherman
Jewett and
John Wildeson, Incorporators and first directors of M & T;
Nelson K. Hopkins, Isaac A. Verplanck, Joseph
G. Masten, Frederick P. Stevens, James Sheldon, Philip
Dorsheimer and S.H. Fish.
William Henry Harrison: A log cabin was built in 1840 on the
southeast corner of Main and Eagle. It was part of the successful
Whig campaign to elect William Henry Harrison as President and John
Tyler, Vice President. Over the cabin was a banner, "Tippecanoe and
Tyler too."
A
barrel of hard cider was on tap most of the time. Keepsakes, tokens
and ornaments in the form of log cabins and other devices were given
to potential voters.
1887 Richmond Hotel fire.
Source: Victorian Buffalo, by Cynthia Van Ness
Source: Victorian Buffalo, by Cynthia Van Ness
Richmond Hotel: Another floor was added to St. James Hotel and the name was changed to Richmond Hotel. It was ready for guests on February 20, 1887, and was destroyed by fire, along with St. James Hall on March 18, 1887, with a loss of 22 lives. The hall at the time was occupied by Bunnell's Museum.
The hotel and museum were replaced by the Hotel Iroquois, the pride of Buffalo from its opening on August 3, 1889, until closing the doors at 2 p.m. on May 19th, 1923, with the opening of the Hotel Statler on Niagara Square. Three floors were added to the Hotel Iroquois in 1899. It was operated by William H. Woodley and H. Montgomery Gerrans.
From the very beginning of Buffalo, Main Street, from North Division to Eagle has been called "Men's Row." More men pass along that block than in any other in the city.The Gold Dollar Hotel / Strand Theater: The Gold Dollar Hotel at 355 Main Street was remodeled in 1911 into the Strand Theater.
Charles W. Evans: The theater auditorium was on the site of the Washington Street home of Charles W. Evans.
James Cary Evans / King and Eisele Jewelry: The home of James Cary Evans at the northwest corner of Washington and North Division was replaced in 1891 by the wholesale jewelry building of King and Eisele.
Bijou Dream / Bank of Buffalo: Buffalo's first nickelodeon, the Bijou Dream, was on the northeast corner of Main and North Division from 1907 to 1914, and razed for erection of the Bank of Buffalo building.
The Iroquois Hotel
Source: "A History of the City of Buffalo," published by the The Buffalo Evening News, 1908
1856
Block to the south of M&T Plaza. Source: Buffalfo Evending news 6/16/65
1912
Source: The Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, Severance, Frank H., ed. Buffalo Historical Society, Vol. 16, 1912, p. 504
1916
Source: Views of Old-Time Buffalo, pub. by The Express, Jan. 1, 1916, back cover
1916 ad
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