This week, we’ll look at some events that took place in Niagara County during the 19th century to ring in the New Year. When the first Europeans came here in the late 17th century, New Year’s Day was often more celebrated than Christmas Day, which was considered a holy day.
No public record remains of how the New Year was ushered in during the first 150 years of limited European occupancy in this area. By the early 19th century, with people moving in and establishing farms and communities, New Year’s Day became a special occasion for socializing with friends and neighbors, some of whom may have lived a distance away. At that time it was customary to either call on or receive guests (or both if you lived close enough) on New Year’s Day.
In December of 1813, those early settlers of Niagara County may have been anticipating a day of social visiting despite the threat of war on their doorstep. Instead, they found themselves fleeing for their lives into the eastern part of the state. Some were still on the road on New Year’s Day 1814. Following the war, and with the news that the long-awaited Erie Canal would finally be built, people returned to Niagara County.
From the 1820s through the 1850s, Niagara County’s residents continued to enjoy New Year’s festivities in peace with dances, horse races, concerts and parties (with the possible exception of late December, 1837, when Canadian militiamen, led by a British Navy officer, captured and destroyed the steamship Caroline in the Niagara River during the Patriots’ War, briefly prompting some worries of another invasion by the British).
By the late 1850s, fears of another war were materializing, not with Canada or Britain, but with fellow Americans. On New Year’s Eve, 1860, the Lockport Daily Journal & Courier wrote, “We can only wish our readers one and all a happy New Year, hoping and trusting that justice, liberty, Union, and the equal rights of men, will be as familiarly associated with the American Union as the 34 or 35 stars that will then appear on its folds.” Despite the war, President Lincoln, and the rest of the divided country continued the tradition of welcoming guests into their homes on New Year’s Day.
The acts of “calling” and “receiving” were still the custom in the 1870s but may have been fading as evidenced by an editorial in the Lockport Daily Journal of January 4, 1879. “…Lockport was almost entirely given over to unsociableness on New Year’s Day. Only a very few formally ‘received.’ The day was doubtless improved by a few to make calls upon old-time friends in an informal way, but as a rule, dullness ruled the hours. Next New Year’s Day, Lockport ought to make a desperate effort and endeavor to do better. 1880 will open a new decade. Perhaps that fact will inspire our ladies to give out their intention to open their homes to their friends. We make the suggestion now so that all may have sufficient time to meditate upon this serious matter.”
In other parts of the county, people were celebrating the end of one year and the start of another in different ways. A “Grand Concert” was held at Pickwick Hall in Youngstown (still standing but now apartments) in early January, 1882, to welcome “a happy return of the New Year” and to benefit St. Bernard’s Catholic Church in that village. In Niagara Falls, the International Wheelmen (a bicycle club) held their second annual Ball on New Year’s Eve, 1889, at the Orpheus Park Theater. It was declared “a splendid success socially” and “was one of the most fashionable ever given at Niagara Falls.”
The 19th century ended with all of Western New York eagerly anticipating the upcoming Pan-American Exposition. Despite the fact that Niagara Falls, specifically Cayuga Island in LaSalle, had lost the site of the Expo to Buffalo through some shady dealings, the Cataract City would benefit greatly from the electric power generated there and from all the new industry starting there to take advantage of it. It would be a bright new year and century for Niagara Falls and all of Niagara County.