In the spring of 1837, Dr. Spencer Ward purchased the first of his properties in the Silver Creek area. By the time of his death he had become one of the largest land owners in northern Chautauqua county.

Born in East Poultney, Vermont in 1806 and graduated in the first commencement class (1832) of the Vermont Academy of Medicine at Castleton, Dr. Ward arrived in Silver Creek in 1836 to visit his brother, Judge Elisha Ward. During his stay, a delegation representing the village called upon him to urge his staying in Silver Creek since the town physician, aging Dr. Burgess was able to carry on only a limited practice.

Tall, erect, severe-looking, wearing a high hat, skirtcoat, and high leather boots, Dr. Ward made his calls mounted on a tall, black steed. His devotion to his patients and his fine character soon made him a very busy physician.

In 1837 the doctor purchased a large corner lot facing Dunkirk Street (Central Avenue) and extending along Howard Street, then known as “Puddin’ Lane” because of its soupy nature most of the year. On this lot he built what was to be his home and office for the rest of his life. The house was long and low and included a wing to be used as woodshed, washroom, and shop. A white board fence with square, flat-topped posts surrounded the house, barn, well-house, drying yard, a small building delicately referred to as “the necessary” and a large lawn. A wide, vine-covered trellis screened off much of the back section. This made an attractive corner in the center of town; the low-lying rambling white clapboard house with its driveway on one side and its wide stretch of green lawn on the other was a veritable bit of transplanted Vermont.

To this home Dr. Ward brought his wife of four years, Ann Wilmot Rice Ward, their small son, Wilmot, and their new baby, Martha. Lucy Wilmot, Mrs. Ward’s daughter from her previous marriage, remained for the time being in Vermont with her maternal grandmother.

Ann Ward died in 1854, and two years later the doctor married Helen Gates, whose father was prominent in public affairs as was the doctor himself. In 1860 a daughter, Harriet Wells Ward was born.

Dr. Spencer Ward died in 1874 after a reprieve of ten years. In 1864, he courageously underwent an operation for a face cancer. In that early day, cancer was a little-known disease and operations were in the experimental stage. The surgery was performed in a Buffalo hospital by a surgeon who came from New York for that purpose. It was the first instance of skin grafting in western New York. A triangle of skin was cut from the forehead and lapped over the upper nose and affected area. This sounds too rudimentary to be true, but the fact remains that the doctor survived the ordeal and lived ten full years afterward.

Upon the death of Dr. Ward, Martha Ward Hiler and her husband made their home in the house which her father had built for her mother. This they occupied until 1888 when the Hilers moved to Rochester. From that time on Dr. Ward’s home was used by the Hilers as a summer home, and the family of Harriet Ward (the Thomases) and Mrs. Ward used it as a winter home -- a delightful arrangement all around. This was especially true for the Thomases and Mrs. Ward who lived on upper Main Street and appreciated being nearer the Dunkirk Street school and the church when the snow drifts were almost as high as the little girls.

For ninety-eight years, from 1837 to 1935, the Ward house was occupied by no one but members of the family. The original builder and owner, Dr. Ward, was a very outspoken and positive person, and during the Civil War period he earned for himself many a political enemy with his stoutly avowed belief in slavery. He had no sympathy for the Abolitionists and lost no opportunity to declare his sentiments.

From 1935 to 1945, the Ward house was rented to the late Mr. Fawdrey, Chief of Police of the Town of Hanover. It was during this period that some hinged floor boards were discovered, and it was realized that this must have been the well known but never located Silver Creek underground station. These hinged boards could be opened up and laid back like covers of a book. Underneath was space sufficient in depth for a person to lie with plenty of breathing and stretching space. The man who experimented and demonstrated this came up with a stone waterbottle in his hand. Doubtless many a black man was sped on his way to freedom during the days when the good doctor was declaiming against liberty for the same. With proximity to the creek and the lake beyond, it was the ideal location for escape to Canada. And who would question any muffled person entering a doctor’s office?

Eventually Dr. Ward’s descendents sold this house more than a hundred years after its construction to Dr. C. S. Barresi for the location of the doctor’s brick office on Central Avenue near Howard Street.

About 1839, Dr. Ward had built a second, more simple house facing Howard Street. This was to be a home on his property for the Vermont grandmother who had been taking care of his little step-daughter and who was reluctant to relinquish her. The backdoors of both houses opened upon the garden directly opposite each other. Communication was simple and constant.

Upon the grandmother’s death, the Wilmot house became a rental property. Today the house can be recognized by its simple lines, heavy cornices, Christian door, and single step leading to it from the Howard Street sidewalk.

After building the Wilmot house, Dr. Ward had added another next to it. This was to be an income property and was occupied by various renters including a Mrs. Weston whose son later became a governor of Wyoming. In 1894, when it was occupied by Mrs. Blanding and her two daughters, it became the town’s first telephone office with Susie, one of the daughters, acting as switchboard operator.

Housewives now ordering groceries by phone (order boys gone forever), women exchanging confidences and extending invitations by phone (husbands no longer carrying notes to husbands at their places of business to be relayed to their wives) and matters of importance being attended to without delay, the town life took on a whole new complexion. So busy was Susie at her switchboard (about a yard wide) that one day she had a nervous breakdown, and this they realized when she shouted Hello” down a lamp chimney instead of lighting the wick! Later on the house was sold to the Scalices for their home and store.

A fourth building was erected by Dr. Ward on his property on Howard Street. It was a sturdy, one-room building used as a commercial building. Paul Evarts’ shoe repair shop was among the early businesses it housed. There Paul, a tall, rangy, graying man, filled his days with shoe repairing while the neighborhood children (the Thomases, Van Duzer, and Lipsys being the most frequent), paid him long visits and watched him put copper toes on sturdy shoes, straighten spring heels, and put on missing buttons. With what pride and interest those same children applauded Paul Evarts as he marched in G. A. R. uniform on Decoration Day!

Later this same building became the insurance office of Dr. Ward’s son-in-law, Mr. Thomas. This shop is now to be seen on the property of Louis Mangano on Monroe Street where he had it moved when it was to be demolished for the erection of  the Esso gas station.

Dr. Ward acquired properties in addition to his down town locations because of his interest in sheep-raising. As his sheep interests grew, he steadily acquired more farms including his second wife’s homestead, the Gates-Ward property on upper Main Street. This he purchased in 1869 at the death of her father. Dr. Ward left this property to his wife, Helen Gates Ward, and to her daughter, Harriet. After the doctor’s death, this property was used as the family’s winter home and then as its permanent home. It is still owned by his descendents.

So it was that the young physician who came from Vermont in 1836, had at the time of his death, deeds recorded at the County Clerk’s office in Mayville, indicating he was one of the largest landowners in northern Chautauqua County and one of Silver Creek’s more colorful citizens.

Published August 1967

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Among the earliest of the old plank houses which comprised the settlement of Fayette there still stands one which claims a distinction all its own: that of being the first tavern. The unobtrusive, rambling old house which stands close to the walk at 53 Man Street is none other than that Blue Eagle Tavern.

The home of Mrs. Daphne Wilde is replete with history, with its picturesque past and wealth of drama stored within the handhewn beams and rafters of its structure. Built in 1821 by Lyman Howard, it had the simplest of beginnings as his modest home. Then he realized the opportunity its location offered, with the main thoroughfare passing its door, and the Erie Canal about to open. In 1825, he had his house extended in front to the point where it now stands, providing sufficient capacity for the opening of a fairly commodious tavern which he named the “Blue Eagle”.

The Blue Eagle was the congregating place of Fayette, and the center of town life. There the villagers gathered of an evening to discuss the coming election, political platforms, and the more intriguing items of local gossip.

The dramatic moment of the day which brought men hurrying from their labors, curious women to their doorways, and noisy children from play, was the arrival of the stage. Swinging and lumbering creakingly past on its leather hinges and wooden wheels, the driver’s whip cracking and his voice bawling stentoriously, the stage pulled up in a cloud of dust at the door of the tavern.

It was with breathless eagerness that the assembled group and hangers-on greeted the driver, Sid Imus — long legged, lean and lank, as he threw off the mail, wrapped his lines around the whip in its socket, climbed down over the high wheels and swaggered importantly into the tavern for his pint. He was an emissary from the outside world, rich with information.

But the Blue Eagle was not a loafing place and news center only; it was the center of Fayette’s growing social life. It was the scene of many a dance and lively social occasion. It had not the size or distinction of Chicken Tavern* with its incomparable meals and famous ballroom with its “Swing” floor. However, the simple attractions of the Blue Eagle were not to be underrated.

The candles dripped, the wicks sputtered, voices ran high and spirits higher as the fiddler scraped and swayed and stamped, spitting and hawking and shouting his calls. Gay and rollicking was the scene, with its “Swing your partner” and “Allemand left”.

Other taverns, yet to be, were more pretentious and with greater elegance. The Keith House was to become famous for its New Year’s Ball at four in the afternoon, replete with its gilt-edged invitations. The Lee House was to acquire fame, too, for the splendour of its holiday balls.

The surroundings were to become more costly and the dancing more stately, but nothing the years had to offer could ever replace the charms of the smoky precincts of the Blue Eagle when in its dancing prime.

All went well with the Blue Eagle, but Lyman Howard found it not too congenial an occupation. He was too much of a gentleman and a scientist to be whole-heartedly a tavern keeper. After four years he was just as glad to part with it, his knowledge of the traveling world and human nature much extended. He was happy to confine his interests to the metals of the blacksmith shop and the rocks of the creek beds and cliffs.

During the years that followed, the Blue Eagle changed hands more frequently than any other tavern in the township, due to the variety of characters who aspired to run it. In that list were a deacon, a doctor, and a businessman; but until Baruch Phillips came on the scene, no one had any knowledge of the calling. Baruch Phillips was an experienced tavern keeper who brought it back to an even keel. The life which had slipped a bit renewed its vitality and became as rollicking and raucous as in earlier days.

The last tavern keeper of the 32 years of the life of the Blue Eagle, and the best known, was Morrell Brand. He was father of the well-known George Brand whose long-established hardware-shop building on Main Street was taken down to make room for the present M & T parking lot.

The coming of the railroad in 1858 marked the advent of a new era and the passing of the old. The decline of stage coach travel led to the complete disappearance of the stage coach and the demise of the stage house.

The railroad sounded the knell of the Blue Eagle as a stage coach station. However, during the construction of the railroad, the Blue Eagle was the center for all the dignitaries connected with this tremendous project. It provided living quarters for all the engineers, track builders, and other hands during the protracted period of construction. The tavern never knew such affluence.

It was in a blaze of glory, then, that the Blue Eagle closed its doors on a lost era which tapered away with the weeks after the railroad was in operation. The Blue Eagle sign was taken down in 1858 and tossed into the discard pile, never again to creak on its hinges of a windy night. The horse trough, a scooped-out hollow log, bordering the street, would alone remain to testify for years to the life that once had been. The stage coach tavern was no more.

The Blue Eagle days over, Lyman Howard’s house saw several changes before Dr. Cole bought the house in 1897. It was in 1891 that Dr. Wesley W. Cole of Baldwinsville, New York, drove into town with his spanking team of shining black horses.

He was an energetic, well-built widower with red hair and accompanying high temperament. He proved to be a fine homeopathic physician, and before long was an accepted member of the community. Soon his household was rounded out by the arrival of his mother and small son, Harold.

In 1893 he married Miss Belle Morrison, a member of one of the prominent local families, the Babcocks. The wedding took place in the old Victorian family home on Central Avenue, later the Livermore home. The Coles took up their marriage in the present Kornprobst home and added spice to the life of the village. It was in this home that Daphne was born three years later, under the most tragic of circumstances. Her stunning young mother died in childbirth.

It was during this sorry period that the doctor made his purchase of the home on Main Street. In 1897, the story of the Cole house had its beginning. To this house he transferred his office, as well as his dwelling place. The commodious stables and deep lot, a perfect playground for young children, further recommended the purchase.

Here the doctor, Harold, and the current housekeeper, took up life. Little Daphne was shuttled back and forth between home and her grandmother Cole’s in Ohio. When it was possible for her to be properly cared for at home, she was with her father. This sprawling old house lent itself admirably to all the needs of this unfortunate family, each member of which was of strikingly definite individuality.

It was to this house that Dr. Cole later brought his third wife, Mrs. Ina Maureeners Van Schoonoven, a young widow and popular teacher in the local school.

It must have been with interest and not a little wonder that the old walls watched this assorted household assemble and gradually meld into a united family. Grief further united the family when death claimed Harold after long months of illness, for at that time, there was no cure for consumption. Daphne’s happiest hours were those spent with Harold and her pony.

The old house knew romance as well as domestic struggles and grief, for here Daphne was courted by her soldier husband-to-be, Joseph Wilde. It must have been with real feeling that the walls witnessed the marriage of Daphne and Joseph.

Dr. Cole’s sudden death occurred in April, 1919, after a knee injury from which blood poisoning developed with appalling rapidity. He was buried from the house which had experienced with him just about every human emotion. Fortunately for Daphne, her husband was then stationed in this country, and was able to be with her during this grief. The following November, Daphne’s son Cole was born in Rhinehart Hospital. The old house was to shelter a new generation of the Cole family.

The old house which became Daphne’s was her solace as well as her abode, and generously implemented her income. With the advent of “Tourist Homes”, this old tavern lent itself with enthusiasm to the comfort of the motoring public. The “Blue Eagle” sign (an imaginative replica) beckoned vigorously as in an earlier era.

Astrologers claim that houses, as well as people, have horoscopes. If true, what an amazing chart would be that of the Cole-Wilde home! Surely every aspect would point to human interest, human experiences, adventures, tragedies -- all would be there in great numbers. The stage coach, the sailing vessels, and the shipyard life of the “Blue Eagle”; the horse and buggy days of Dr. Cole, and the trolley days beginning with 1908; the Cole relatives; the domestic help and chore boys who were ever a part of the scene; what a panorama! And the “Tourist Home” days of Daphne’s period, and the renters and lodgers -- surely, no chart could be more crowded than that of the Cole-Wilde home.

The marvel is that the house, with its one hundred fifty-four years behind it, still stands; but stand it does, and firmly. It creaks at times, but that is with pride, not disability. The narrow stairs with their shallow treads are the same as then, with their black walnut railing, smooth as velvet from the hands that have passed over it. The ballroom is no more, having been partitioned into smaller areas, but the arched ceiling is still there.

Partitions have been taken out, put in, taken out and put in again; doors have been sealed, and new ones cut. Windows have been enlarged, others clapboarded over, but it is still the Lyman Howard house. Front porches have been put on, taken off, enlarged, and finally glass enclosed -- but basically the house is unchanged since the days when it was enlarged for public use. There is still a door with its iron latch and clumsy safety guard; the office windows are still the small paned wavy glass ones of tavern days; the floors and baseboards are the original ones. The low ceilings are very low -- even where they have been raised; and in each of the four corners is the inevitable square post characteristic of every Silver Creek house built in the 1820’s or earlier. This old house is so authentic that it takes little imagination to envision it as the “Tap Room” of long ago.

Published November 1965

* Chicken Tavern was a famous eating place and underground railway station in nearby Arkwright.

In 1827 Oliver Lee a Westfield merchant of tremendous vitality and keen vision first discovered the bay of Fayette while walking along the shore line from Westfield east. Viewing it from the upper point he realized what a valuable opportunity it presented. The natural harbor needed only a wharf to make it a veritable gold mine of commerce.

He lost no time in articling an extensive acreage from the Holland Land Company, lake frontage extending far back over the hills. His first endeavors were confined to the building of the pier the winter of 1828 to have it ready for business the following summer.

The summer of 1828 had been devoted to the building of the family home. It still stands on Central Avenue and is fully as commanding as in earlier days. The site Mr. Lee chose for this home was on the crest of a high knoll which rose gradually from the lake level. The house of large proportions and simple dignity, faced directly east. Its view commanded the unbroken wooded meadow stretching out infinitely below it and the highway which Mr. Lee proposed to build leading to the harbor and his wharf. The house was well over a year in construction. By the time it was ready for occupancy the proposed Jackson Street was already an oxcart road leading directly to the pier completed during that second winter.

Mr. Lee’s commodious home with its widespread acreage was a shelter for his growing family of eleven children and a point of vantage from which he could survey his extensive holdings.

The beams from the lighthouse on his upper point lighted up the black expanse of water and gave the sailing vessels a warning of the dangerous cliffs. Needless to say, there were no railroad trestles or arches in that day -- nothing to obstruct the view.

From his north windows Mr. Lee could command a full view of the lake front, the harbor, his wharf, warehouse, and “Steamboat Hotel.” (The warehouse occupied the present site of the Firemen’s Social Hall at the foot of Jackson Street.) From his front door he could see just as clearly his shipyard, located on the creekside near the mouth of Silver Creek.

Soon Mr. Lee realized he must connect his holdings and business ventures with the Erie Road and the little Mill settlement if they were to succeed to their fullest. He promptly laid out another crude highway extending east from Jackson Street to the Erie Road. Further he persuaded the Town Board of Fayette to survey the Erie Road from the Blue Eagle Tavern in a straight line to the creek (end of Main Street) resulting in the present four corners adjoining the park.

He built a store for general merchandise and a brick hotel next to it. This was the historic Silver Creek House, the first building in town. It was destroyed by fire in 1955. He established the first bank, one of the earliest in the county, and soon had a real business center there at the intersection of the Erie Road and Dunkirk Street -- as his new highway had come to be called. This he proceeded to have extended westward beyond Jackson Street up the steep knoll, the Lake Road (or Route 5) of today.

It was through the efforts of Oliver Lee that a post office was established in 1833 under the name of Silver Creek, although the name of Fayette prevailed for many years. The town was not incorporated as Silver Creek until 1848. However, before this occurred, the one-time Mill settlement had developed into a busy little industrial mart.

It goes without saying that Oliver Lee became an immensely wealthy man. With his vitality, business genius, foresight and original capital, it couldn’t have been otherwise. Oliver Lee’s name remains familiar if only from the frequency with which it appears on property searches. His holdings must have been tremendous.

He was a man of few words and equally few social interests. He would seem to have been almost grim in his firmness with his family. The ultimate welfare of his children was of greater importance to him than their happiness of the moment. On one occasion his oldest son, Charlie, who had been sent to Fredonia for further schooling, was so overcome with homesickness that he walked home during the week This, of course, was not in the curriculum.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Mr. Lee when his son appeared. “What brings you home in the middle of the week?”

Rather than admit he had come without permission, Charlie tried to stammer out something which would satisfy his father.

“Very well,” pronounced his father in no uncertain terms. “You can WALK back. When we need you here, you’ll be sent for.”

Charlie finished his education with no further aberations. It was he who in his adult years gave the land in the center of the town as a “commons”; the park around which Silver Creek life has always revolved.

Oliver’s wife, Eliza Downer Lee, was a New England woman of very fine character and gentle nature. She was never a rugged person, and of such limited strength that she was practically an invalid for many years. She was a very religious woman, and of a most generous spirit; her charities were boundless.

Mr. Lee was not particularly social in his inclinations, but never opposed Mrs. Lee’s charitable projects or hospitality. The maxim of his home throughout the years was, “Make your word as good as your bond.”

Mr. Lee established the Lee Bank of Buffalo in 1844 and moved his family to that city where his death occurred in 1846. Mrs. Lee outlived her husband by many years which she spent in retirement in her Silver Creek home until her death in 1882.  In the meantime, her home had become that of her daughter, Marie Lee Talcott.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Talcott were profoundly interested in the Presbyterian Church. When the church was remodelled, they gave the pipe organ and the rose window over the main entrance in memory of Oliver and Eliza Lee.

In 1864 in the Lee homestead Helen Abell was born. She was the daughter of Eliza Lee Abell who had come home for her confinement which seemed to have been an established family custom. Mrs. Abell, a frail person, died a few weeks later. Mr. and Mrs. Talcott adopted their infant niece and brought her up as one of their own children.

Helen Abell was married in 1896 to Jesse D. Denny, a Buffalo pharmacist. Although the Dennys made their home in Buffalo for a number of years, they spent much time in Silver Creek at the “St. Nicholas,” as the Lee home was commonly called.

Upon the death of the Talcotts, the Dennys made the homestead their permanent home. They established the Silver Creek National Bank in 1912 with Mr. Denny as president. Mr. Denny was president of the School Board for many years and one of the promoters of the Motor Boat Club. Mr. and Mrs. Denny also founded the library, thus perpetuating the name Lee. Mr. Denny died in California in 1921 and Mrs. Denny died in 1955 at the age of 91.

The Dennys took a lively and active interest in the social life of the town as well as in the business affairs. Mr. Denny was a most genial person and particularly enjoyed young people. The “St. Nicholas” became the scene of much life and frequent entertaining. Not only were young people encouraged and invited to the home, but the children of the vicinity were welcome to pick spring flowers growing wild under the trees. In winter the children slid down the wide, gently rolling slope within the confines of the iron gates and fence just as in the days of Mr. Talcott when he would draw them back up the hill with his horse and cutter, the sleigh bells jingling gleefully.

Like all other homes, the Lee home has undergone various changes, but the greater part of it is very much like it was originally. Heavy double doors opened into the unusually large front hall with the formal parlor and the library opening off it. The wide graceful stairway with its polished handrail contrasting with the white enamelled woodwork gave an effect of gracious spaciousness.

The stately parlor featuring a white marble fireplace and woodwork contrasted with the small paned windows and simple white enamelled mantle of the library.

The middle part of the house was extended toward the south. Modern window were introduced and the woodwork done over in natural wood which unfortunately was the vogue of the nineties.

However, its portraits of Oliver Lee and Mrs. Lee over the fireplace, the full length peer glass mirror frame and marble shelf, the Ami Farnham oil paintings and etchings, the mahogany love seat, Bible stand, Empire chairs and oriental rugs provide a unity with the rest of the house. In fact, this was the heart of the house, the center where the family lived, callers were received, and guests entertained.

The back part, however, has retained much of the flavor of early days. It is a large room with old fashioned doors, some with their original hardware -- clattering latches and sliding metal bolts. These lead to back pantries, storage rooms, a woodshed and other regions once so vital to everyday living. One door on the north wall opens onto an enclosed veranda which sports one of the most choice features of the house, Corinthian columns, that should be where they can be seen and admired, not lost except to frequenters of the back door.

These columns were demoted to their present location when they were taken down to enlarge and modernize the front veranda. How fortunate that they were preserved, though with loss of status!

The first floor is all on one level; but like so many old-time homes, such is not true on the second. Here, floor and ceiling levels vary with their location. The rooms over the front of the house are very dignified. However, as one progresses to the rear of the house, it is a step down here, two down there. The ceilings drop steadily lower and become more slanting with each step down.

There is much to admire in this old-time home, much quaintness to intrigue and certain renovations to deplore. But for the most part, it is the Lee House as Oliver Lee built it. It stands as a home of great priviledge. (Note: Mrs. Denny bequeathed the home to her niece, Mildred Abell Horton of Buffalo, who shortly sold it to Charles Sullivan. He, in turn, sold all the Jackson Street frontage for the construction of the Acme Market, open in 1960.)

Published December 1959

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