Cary Family - Table of Contents .............. Rumsey Family - Table of Contents

Dr. Charles Cary
1852-1931


The text below is excerpted from

Buffalo's Delaware Avenue: Mansions and Families, by Edward T. Dunn. Pub. by Canisius College Press, 2003, pp. 96-97

Dr. [Walter] Cary's third son Charles, after public and private schools, attended Professor Briggs' classical school, on the estate of its sponsor, Bronson C. Rumsey. It was a select school, which prospered for a quarter of a century under Horace Briggs, a fine classicist, responsible for the secondary education of many of the leaders of the generation then rising.

Charles studied medicine at U.B., receiving his M.D. in 1875. After a year of medical study in France and eighteen months in Belgium, probably at Liege, he did more post-graduate work in New York at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and at Bellevue.

Unlike his father, Charles did something with his medical degree.

In 1879, the year he returned to Buffalo, he was appointed attending physician at Buffalo General and joined the medical faculty at U.B. There he was Professor of Anatomy, Materia Medica, Therapeutics, and Clinical Medicine until 1911. Until retirement in 1921, he remained on the staff of Buffalo General.

In 1879 he married Evelyn Rumsey, daughter of Bronson C. Rumsey of #330 Delaware. A women's. suffragist, artist, and patroness of the arts, she painted The Spirit of Niagara, official emblem of the Pan American Exposition in 1901, and the portrait of Charlotte Mulligan in the Twentieth Century Club, which Charlotte founded.

Charles and Evelyn first resided at #210 Delaware (PHOTO above), former home of Julius Movius, and 1867-1870 the first site of the Buffalo Club, a few doors north of Castle Cary. By the 1890s they were at #340 Delaware next to where Evelyn had been born and raised.

Charles Cary was not only a first rate-physician but one of America's leading sportsmen. With brother Thomas and brothers-in-law Laurence D. and Bronson Rumsey, and John N. Scatcherd, he played against the first polo team in America at Newport, Rhode Island. Buffalo lost the first match and won the second, which took place at Driving Park on East Ferry Street. He also promoted golf in America and was an organizer of the Aeronautical Club of America, the second oldest aviation club in the world.

He died at 240 Delaware Avenue in 1931 at seventy-nine. His wife predeceased him, having died there in 1924.





Source: Men of Buffalo, Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Co, 1902


1965 photo of Charles Cary's boyhood home, "Castle Cary" Source: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, Jack Boucher, photographer; May 1965



Dr. Charles and Mrs. Cary's first home at 210 Delaware Avenue, former home of Julius Movius, and 1867-1870 the first site of the Buffalo Club, a few doors north of Castle Cary



Tracery in the Dr. Charles Cary House, 340 Delaware Ave. where both he and his wife died



Balustrade in the Dr. Charles Cary House, 340 Delaware Ave. where both he and his wife died



Source: The Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, Frank H. Severance, ed. Pub. by the Buffalo Historical Society, Vol. 16, 1912, p. 200



Source: The Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, Frank H. Severance, ed. Pub. by the Buffalo Historical Society, Vol. 16, 1912, p. 201



Source: Views of Old-Time Buffalo, pub. by The Express, Jan. 1, 1916



Plaque in front of 836 Main Street, on the southwest corner of Main & Virginia.
Demolished for the Buffalo Catholic Institute Public Library



The Spirit of Niagara, by Evelyn Rumsey Cary (wife of Dr. Charles Cary)






Color photos and their arrangement © 2005 Chuck LaChiusa
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