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67 9 Syracuse: The Young City Not a city at all but still possessing only a village organization, was Syracuse when the stagecoach which bore me rolled into it, in the latter part of September [1844]. I was received by my father at his boarding place, the American House, on the site of which the First Presbyterian Church was afterwards erected. It was a grand experience to eat supper in so big a hotel, but a larger one came next morning when I went down with him to the bookstore of Stoddard and Babcock. The latter was a Cortland County man, from Truxton, the home of the Dixons and Whites, and I at once took a liking to him. Just how much of railway track had at that date been constructed, I do not know, but a vast, hollow, smoky railway depot stood in the middle of the village. It reached all the way through from Salina Street to Warren Street. Next to it, on Salina Street, the longest and most important thoroughfare owned by the corporation, was William Winton’s Hotel and next to that was our store. At the upper side of that square was Canal Street and the canal itself, spanned by bridges, there and elsewhere. Of the store, I need as yet say nothing, nor of the depot, for I was at once turned over to the care of friends with whom I was to visit. The first of these were Horace White’s family and Andrew White in particular. Then began the treasured friendship which has lasted to the present day. Of his father, then the cashier of the Onondaga County Bank, I saw but little, except at meal times, but I took to him, for he was full of fun and tried hard to make me like Congress water, of which he was using freely. I drank some of it and then broke off, much preferring what was called “Teall water,” from Mr. Oliver Teall, the originator of the village water works. 68 syracuse: the young city One of my first explorations of the municipality led me, in company with Andrew, his younger brother Horace, and some of our friends, to see a walking match at Winton’s Hotel. Two planks had been set upon barrels in the long front room of the tavern and upon these a pair of pedestrian rivals were pacing back and forth. It looked to me like boy’s play and I promptly offered to walk against any boy in Syracuse but the challenge was not taken up. Only a few evenings afterwards, however, I might have suspected, if I had been wiser, that Andrew and his crowd, including Jeff Hall and Carroll Smith and some older fellows, were inclined to let me follow my own lead, if it would but lead me into fun for the people. There was to be a great temperance meeting in a public hall and they went with me in a swarm. They gathered near a small table, well forward. An eloquent orator had spoken and subsided and hardly had he seated himself before there came an unexpected addition to the program. His successor may not have been quick enough in arising to fill the vacancy and it was filled for him. I had avowed a conviction that I could beat that speaker and in an instant I was standing upon the table. The crowd may not have recognized me correctly but they cheered enthusiastically and I spoke right along. When afterwards I became a young citizen of Syracuse, man after man shook hands with me as the youngest temperance orator he had ever heard and favored me with choice quotations from my address. I have made more than one speech since then that was not so well received by the audience. After spending a few pleasant days with the Whites, I was transferred to Judge Johnson Hall’s, on Warren Street, for the Hall family also were almost as if they had been kindred. Where else I went and what I saw or what I saw or did is a kind of far-off mist now. What I was really doing, nevertheless, was of importance, for I was making the acquaintance of a town into which my entire family was soon to find its way. Only one year more was left of my Homer life, for when the leaves began to wither in the following Autumn, our household goods were in wagons...

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