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Paul Gorn 1878 - 1939

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Paul Gorn — The Man Who Broke Quarantine This stop tells the story of Paul Gorn , a man whose actions during a smallpox outbreak briefly put an entire community on edge. In July of the early 1900s, Tonawanda was dealing with several cases of smallpox — a disease feared not just for its mortality, but for how easily it spread. Homes with infected residents were placed under strict quarantine. No one was supposed to enter or leave. Paul Gorn lived on Wall Street in Tonawanda. His brother, Charles Gorn , was one of those suffering from the disease. That meant Paul Gorn’s home was under quarantine. On a Saturday evening, Paul Gorn ignored it. He left the house, traveled to Kenmore , and made several stops there — potentially exposing countless people to the disease. On his way back, he went even further, stopping at the armory of the 25th Separate Company , where he took a bath. When questioned, Gorn told the officer on duty that he had been vaccinated and was allowed inside. He was ...
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Daniel Rundell 1838—1887 A Veteran’s Sudden Death

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This stop tells the story of Daniel Rundell , a well-known local veteran whose death shocked the community — not on a battlefield, but during a routine meeting among comrades. On a winter evening in January, members of the Grand Army of the Republic gathered at Scott’s Post headquarters in Tonawanda to conduct ordinary business. Among those present was Daniel Rundell, an active and respected member of the post. As the meeting continued, Rundell began to cough violently. Within moments, he was spitting blood. Witnesses described a horrifying scene: large quantities of blood, choking, gasping for air. Bright red blood streamed from his mouth as he struggled to clear his throat. A post physician rushed to his aid, but by the time help arrived, Rundell was semi-conscious. Nothing could be done. Within minutes, he was dead. Doctors later explained that Rundell suffered a sudden rupture of a blood vessel — likely an aneurysm — a condition that could strike without warning. One moment he was...
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Urial Driggs 1802 - 1884

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 This grave marks the resting place of Urial Driggs , one of the oldest and wealthiest early residents of Tonawanda. Urial Driggs died at his home in the village at the age of eighty-one. Until shortly before his death, newspapers noted that he remained active and enterprising — a description rarely given lightly to a man of his age in the 19th century. Driggs was born on November 15, 1802, in Marcellus, Onondaga County, New York. As a boy, he moved west with his father, Roswell Driggs , first to Ontario in Wayne County, and later to the Niagara frontier. His life followed the path of early western expansion. Before the Erie Canal was built, the family moved to Grand Island , and later settled in the village of Tonawanda. Driggs became a successful landowner and businessman, accumulating extensive real estate holdings as the village grew around him. For many years, he was closely connected with the Tonawanda House , an important early hotel and gathering place in the community....
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David R Kohler 1819 - 1902

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David Kohler The Man Who Dug the City  This portrait shows David Kohler , a man whose lifetime of labor is buried beneath the streets you walk on today. Kohler arrived in the Tonawandas in 1836, when the area was little more than mud, timber, and canal traffic. Over the next sixty years, he became one of the community’s most familiar figures — serving as tax collector, canal collector, town supervisor, street commissioner, and assessor for North and South Tonawanda. But titles only tell part of the story. Late in life, Kohler pointed out a ditch running beneath Goundry Street and quietly told a reporter, “I helped dig that ditch over sixty years ago.” Long before pavement and sidewalks, he cut drainage channels by hand — shaping the ground that would later be built over, widened, and paved. By the time this photograph was taken, Kohler was nearly eighty years old. He walked the city with a quick step, startling younger men with his energy, moving through streets he had once he...
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Franklin Holdridge 1844 - 1923 A serial killer walked here

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This grave belongs to Franklin Holdridge , a largely ordinary man whose name survives today because of the unsettling legend attached to his daughter, Ella Holdridge — sometimes called Ellie in later retellings. In the late 19th century, Ella Holdridge was known for wandering cemeteries alone. While other children played in streets and schoolyards, Ella preferred places of mourning. She walked the paths of City Cemetery , as well as St. Francis Cemetery and Salem Cemetery , lingering near fresh graves, watching funerals from a distance, memorizing names and dates carved into stone. Newspaper accounts and later retellings describe her as fixated on death — not frightened by it, but comforted by it. She reportedly learned funeral schedules. She knew which bells meant burial. She understood how grief gathered people together. And according to period press stories that later became infamous, that knowledge turned dangerous. Ella’s obsession with cemeteries and funerals allegedly escala...
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William Cook and Rose Cook Died December 20, 1897

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On a cold December evening, William and Rose Cook came here together—just as they left the world together. They were part of a small skating party on Ellicott Creek: two brothers and two sisters enjoying the winter ice. Friends warned them the ice was unsafe, but the surface looked solid, and they skated on. Beneath them, hidden by snow and darkness, was a deep excavation where the water plunged more than fourteen feet. The ice broke without warning. In the chaos that followed, the two young men did not think of themselves. Each fought to save his sister in the icy water. Michael Coleman managed to hold his sister above the surface long enough for neighbors to hear her screams and pull her to safety. Exhausted and numb, he then slipped beneath the ice and drowned. William Newman never let go. Witnesses later said that when the bodies were recovered, William and Rosa were found locked tightly in each other’s arms , carried together by the current beneath the ice. Even in death, it was d...
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Lost Lancaster

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One morning, visitors to this cemetery noticed something strange. A man stood alone among the graves, digging into the frozen earth with an old, broken spade. He was not preparing a burial. He had no coffin. No name. No permission. He was looking for a village. The man was Thomas Mullen , an escaped inmate of the Buffalo State Hospital. After slipping away from the institution, Mullen wandered until he reached Tonawanda—where he was found digging here, in this very cemetery, by Patrolman John Kreher. When questioned, Mullen gave an explanation that chilled those who heard it. He said he had come from Lancaster seven years earlier—and that the village had since been submerged . According to Mullen, the only way to find it was to dig. So he did. Using nothing but a damaged spade, he cut into the cemetery soil, searching beneath the dead for a place that existed only in his mind. Hospital attendants later identified him by markings on his clothing. He was known at the asylum only as Pati...
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