Wilson's Oldest Business
Jerome Cooper, who moved
to Wilson in 1852, founded the Hamilton and Clark Funeral
Chapel, the oldest on-going business in the village of
Wilson, in 1869. He started the business under the name
of the Cuddeback and Cooper Furniture Store and Funeral
Home.
Kate Cuddeback was Jerome Cooper’s daughter and she also
operated the business, When her father died in 1914 at
the age of 88 she continued to operate the business until
1918. That was the year she decided to sell out to
LaMotte Hamilton, who worked for her, and Ray Clark, a
Wilson native who worked as a salesman for the Friends’
Manufacturing Company in Gasport. LaMott and Ray borrowed
the money to purchase the business, and they took
possession in the spring of 1918.
Ray and his wife, Doris
Fittro Clark, took up residence in the apartment above the
store, and it was also the year the business became
established as Hamilton and Clark.
America was as war, and
Ray Clark enlisted in the army and was sent overseas to
France. Doris, in the meantime, accepted a teaching
position in Pendleton. LaMott Hamilton’s wife, Gertrude,
died during the big influenza epidemic that fall, so Doris
also worked at the store on Saturdays to help him out.
When Ray Clark returned
from France in 1919, Doris gave up her teaching position
and again joined her husband in the apartment above the
store. Ray then attended Syracuse University where he
received his embalmer’s license.
In the early 1920’s,
Hamilton and Clark operated a thriving upholstering trade,
and finished goods were transported throughout the east on
the now defunct “Hojack” railroad. Also, in the early
twenties, Kenmore was developing as a fast growing suburb
of Buffalo and it was decided to open a branch of the
business there.
Ray
Clark died in 1926 at the early age of thirty-three, and
neither Dayton Hardison, an employee, or LaMott Hamilton
had the heart to embalm his, so a Niagara Falls connection
was used. Doris Clark and her daughter, Virginia Klaiber,
and her son, Donald, remained in Kenmore, while LaMott
Hamilton continued the business in Wilson. He married
Carrie Pierce, but they never had any children.
When LaMott Hamilton
died in 1958, Jack Naslund, who had married LaMott’s
niece, purchased the business. Donald Held, his partner
since 1978, bought the business from Jack in 1987.It
was quite common in bygone years to combine a furniture
store with a funeral parlor because caskets as well as
furniture were often made at the establishment
This photo circa 1910 is
of the bridge spanning the West Branch of the Twelve
Mile Creek at Roosevelt Beach. This was an iron
framed one lane bridge which has an interesting sign at
the top of the bridge on both ends. It reads $10
FINE FOR DRIVING FASTER THAN A WALK ACROSS THIS BRIDGE.
The floor of the bridge would have been wooden planks and
the width was one lane wide. I don’t know when this
bridge was built and I assume that there was most likely
an earlier span of all wood construction prior to the
building of this bridge shown in the photo. The
bridge that is in use today was built in the 1930’s when
the state paved the road with concrete. I suppose
some day there will be a modern high bridge similar to the
one at Olcott Beach.
Charles F. Horton—Town of
Wilson Historian
One of Niagara County’s oldest landmarks, the Reuben
Wilson home, stands on the north side of Young St. near
Twelve Mile Creek. The principle structure was a log
house started in 1818, and the original logs are still
intact under the clapboards. Additional construction was
completed in 1825 when Luther Wilson and his wife Sara
Stephens moved in with his father.
The old house boasts several first. Foremost is the fact
that it was the first dwelling, other than log cabins,
built within the Village. It was also the site of the
first Post Office when Reuben was appointed Postmaster in
1824. About that same time a store was added and in 1829,
a tavern. Reuben’s last three children were probably born
in the house that was started the same year the Town of
Wilson was set apart from Porter by the act of the State
legislature. Many parties and several weddings were held
there while the Wilson family owned the house, and it was
the center of much of the business and social activity of
early Wilson. Today there is no indication that a
gristmill, sawmill and distillery were once located on
Twelve Mile Creek near the house.
The property was purchased from the Wilson estate by
Benjamin Dearborn, and his daughter and her husband, A. H.
Ackerman, lived there for many years. Mrs. Ackerman
recalled as a child she remembered seeing store shelving
still in place around their front living room. She loved
to tell stories she had learned about the place, and could
point out a spot in the yard where a monument is buried
beneath the sod from which all the first surveys in Wilson
were taken.
In 1938 it was suggested that a historic marker should be
erected by the house to commemorate the iniative and
industry shown by Wilson’s most prominent pioneers, Reuben
and Luther Wilson. However, it wasn’t until April 1976,
that the Wilson Bicentennial committee elected to place a
marker by the house.
.jpg)
