Location: Twentymile Creek, New York
Year: 1785
Although most of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania lies south of New York State, in 1785 New York ceded to Pennsylvania a small area of its extreme western frontier, giving the Quaker State access to Lake Erie. This created a longitudinal north-south border between New York and Pennsylvania at a right angle to their shared latitudinal east-west border. The borderline is mostly straight, a surveyor's plumb line on a map.
The small tributary of Twentymile Creek, a popular bass fishing site, rises in western New York State, and meanders across the State line into Pennsylvania, tending northwestward to Lake Erie.
At the point where Twentymile Creek crosses the State line, a slight curve in the river marks the extreme western border of New York State at 79.76 West.
The spot is in the Township of Ripley, New York, modestly famous as the terminus of the New York State Thruway, and the onetime home of tire magnate B.F. Goodrich.
Location: Montauk Point
Year: 1664
Montauk Point at the end of the south fork of Long Island is New York State's easternmost point, at 71.9506° West.
Although apparent visual isolation and distortions in map projection sometimes make it appear that the eastern point of Fishers Island is east of Montauk Point, Montauk Point actually lies three miles further east.
Location: Billops Point
Year: 1776
The Conference House (Bentley Manor) at Billops Point, Staten Island, is the only remaining pre-Revolutionary War manor house in New York City. It was built in 1680. On September 11, 1776, it was the site of an unsuccessful peace conference held between the British and Americans in hopes of ending the Revolutionary War without further bloodshed. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and William Rutledge refused the British terms for the Patriots' surrender.
Billops Point overlooks Raritan Bay. It is the southernmost point in New York State, at 40°30′10.3″ North, and lies in the neighborhood of Tottenville, in the Borough of Staten Island (County of Richmond), of the city of New York.
Location: Barnhart Island
Year: 1783
It was not until the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that most of the northern limits of the United States, including New York State, were formalized along the 45th and 48th parallels. The international boundary with Canada divides a portion of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes (except Lake Michigan, which lies wholly within the United States). The northernmost point of land in New York State is Barnhart Island (Robert Moses State Park), part of the Township of Massena, in the St. Lawrence River, at 45.01 degrees north.
Location: Central New York
Year: Circa 10,000 B.C.E.
The Finger Lakes are a parallel series of long narrow longitudinal bodies of water that were created during the last Ice Age as the retreating glaciers scoured out deep rifts in the earth's surface. The hilly, wooded "Finger Lakes Region" of New York State is famed for its pastoral beauty, popular for its beautiful springtimes and glorious autumns, and notorious for its hard winters.
Cayuga Lake is the longest of the Finger Lakes. It is just over 38 miles long, just under 2 miles wide, covers 66 sq miles, and is 180 feet deep on average. Its deepest point is 433 feet. It has one island, Frontenac, which is one of only two islands in the Finger Lakes.
The area around Cayuga Lake is mostly agricultural, with dairying being the largest industry. Viniculture is also a crucial industry, and many of New York State's best wines come from the area. Recreational fishing is also very popular.
Ithaca, New York, the home of Cornell University, lies at the extreme southern end of Cayuga Lake.
Location: New York, New York
Year: 1883
"Typhoid Mary" Mallon (1869-1938) was an Irish immigrant from Cookstown, County Tyrone, who settled in the New York City area in 1883, and worked as a hired domestic. She was the first asymptomatic carrier of a disease documented by medical science. Scientists have only recently concluded that, unknown to her, she had suffered a salmonella typhi infection at some point in her life, and that the typhoid bacterium managed to adapt itself successfully to Typhoid Mary's immune system, living in her microphages. She shed bacteria wherever she went, she was highly contagious, but she showed no symptoms.
Exactly how many people Mary Mallon infected with Typhoid Fever will never be known. Estimates range into the hundreds. At least five deaths (but almost certainly scores more) have been attributed to her.
Throughout her life, Mary Mallon claimed she was unjustly persecuted, and refused to cooperate with authorities at all.
One of the difficulties in determining Typhoid Mary's history was her habit of frequently changing employers, using pseudonyms, and moving from location to location. Thus, it is impossible to know if she was the vector for Typhoid Fever outbreaks in other cities and states.
Her New York area history is reasonably well-documented at least after 1900. Shortly after arriving in New York, she went to work as a domestic. Eventually, she discovered she had skills as a cook, and apparently very fine ones, which gave her a good income for the time. Exactly when she became a cook is uncertain. However, in 1900, she began working as a cook for a family in Mamaroneck, New York. Within two weeks, everyone in the family developed fevers and morbid diarrhea. Mary moved on to another job, and then another.
In 1901, Mary went to work for a family in Manhattan. There was a typhoid outbreak in the home. One person died. Mary moved on again, taking another job, where ten of eleven family members came down with typhoid. Yet again, Mary moved on. In every place where she took employment, Typhoid Fever followed in her wake.
In 1906, she was hired by the noted New York City attorney, Charles Henry Warren, to work as a cook in the family's summer house in Oyster Bay, on Long Island. The entire family took ill. Leaving the Warrens, she worked for other Oyster Bay families, and sickness spread throughout the town. There were several deaths. This was really the first conclusive evidence that Mary Mallon was involved in the outbreaks, since Typhoid Fever was uncommon in Oyster Bay as opposed to the much grimier city of New York.
A private investigator hired by several Oyster Bay families tracked Mary down to a Park Avenue address, where she was working as a cook, and where (unsurprisingly) family members were ill and one had died of Typhoid Fever. Utterly convinced now that Mary Mallon was the common link, he tried to get her to turn herself over to the Public Health authorities. She refused, and moved on again --- and again, Typhoid Fever broke out where she was working.
The Private Investigator wrote of their meeting:
I was as diplomatic as possible, but I had to say I suspected her of making people sick and that I wanted specimens of her urine, feces and blood. It did not take Mary long to react to this suggestion. She seized a carving fork and advanced in my direction. I passed rapidly down the long narrow hall, through the tall iron gate . . . and so to the sidewalk. I felt rather lucky to escape.
New York City officials arrested her in 1907, and quarantined her at their Infectious Disease facility in Riverside Hospital on lonely North Brother Island in the East River. In interviews, an angry Mary refused to accept that there was any problem at all. She said she did not believe in "germs," that handwashing was not necessary in her work, and that she was being persecuted. However, cultures of her bile, urine, and stool were alive with the typhoid bacterium. It was suggested she have her gall bladder removed. She refused.
Mary Mallon's first arrest was described in detail:
She came out fighting and swearing, both of which she could do with appalling efficiency and vigor. I made another effort to talk to her sensibly . . . but it was of no use. By that time she was convinced that the law was wantonly persecuting her, when she had done nothing wrong. She knew she had never had typhoid fever; she was maniacal in her integrity.
Many people were outraged that Mary had been bodily carried off by the police, and she became a sympathetic figure and a cause celebre of civil libertarians. "How was she supposed to know she was sick?" they asked, and it was a good question. She was released from North Brother Island in 1910, on condition that she not work as a cook.
Mary immediately went back to the kitchens of New York, and did not follow any of the suggested prophylaxis. Typhoid outbreaks followed, but Mary had become canny about hiding from the authorities. It was not until 1915, that a mass typhoid outbreak in the Sloane Hospital For Women pinpointed Mary's location. This time, because she had intentionally hidden her identity, she did not have the public's sympathy.
When
finally found working as a family cook on the North Shore of Long
Island, she was arrested and re-quarantined, this time for the rest of
her life. She died in 1938 on North Brother Island.
She wrote a sad letter to the authorities during her quarantine:
This contention that I am a perpetual menace in the spread of typhoid
germs is not true . . . I am an
innocent human being. I have committed no crime and I am treated like an
outcast --- a criminal. It is unjust, outrageous, uncivilized. It seems
incredible that . . . a defenseless woman can be
treated in this manner.
Modern-day commentators have been critical of the roughshod way Mary was treated, and the lack of Due Process in her case. However, it is fairly clear that neither Mary nor the authorities fully understood her condition, and that Mary, at least, was in violent denial of it, refusing any treatment. Given the relatively crude state of medical science in 1900, and Mary's inflexible insistence on working as a cook, it is a matter for debate what could have been done to protect the public weal and Mary's rights as well.
Location: Chenango County
Year: 1857
Gail Borden Jr., the inventor of the milk condenser, established the Borden Dairy in Chenango County in 1857. Borden's became successful during the Civil War as the primary purveyor of condensed milk to the Union Army.
In 1875, after the Civil War, Borden's began selling pasteurized and homogenized milk commercially, and pioneered the use of glass bottles (as opposed to tins or cans) in 1885. The company invented evaporated milk in 1892. During World War II, it invented non-dairy creamer, instant coffee, and other food products which became part of the standard c-rations of the miltary.
Borden's was for a long time the largest diary in the United States, manufacturing cheese, cheese products, ice cream, and snack cakes. Poor business planning led to the contraction of this vastly diversified company in the 1990s.
At its peak, and taking advantage of its vast cattle herds, the company went into the adhesives and chemicals business and invented the popular product Elmer's Glue-All, which was, in fact, made out of Elmer.
Elsie The Cow (presumably Elmer's wife) was introduced as the company's spokescow in 1937.
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