[ad_1]
Editor’s note: This column was first published in 2018.
MAll Rockport residents know that what is now Davison Road between East Avenue and High Street was once known as “Lovers Lane.” Few people know why the name was changed and who it was named after.
The northern section of High Street existed before 1850, but it is unnamed on most maps. When the Niagara County Infirmary opened here in 1915, “convicts” (the term at the time) demanded that the road be renamed something else. William Shapley, a Lockport businessman who lived on East Avenue near that road, paid homage to his father-in-law, John Lester Davison, a local ornithologist who studied and collected bird specimens in the area. I suggested naming it this way. In March 1918, the Lockport Common Council officially changed the name from Lovers His Lane to Davison Road, but it took many years for the new name to catch on.
John Lester Davison was born in Teresa, near Watertown, Jefferson County, in 1833. In his youth, he worked in towns along the Erie Canal in the eastern part of the state, including Utica and Little Falls. In 1854 Davison visited Lockport and he must have liked what he saw. Nine years later he moved here with his wife Mary and his young son Wilfred. Two more of his children were born while living in Lockport: Arthur (1868) and Frances (1870).
In 1863, Davison and many other Lockport men, including Washington Hunt, opened the Lockport Knitting Mill in the old Holley Manufacturing building just down the hill on the south side of Market Street. (later the Boston and Lockport Block Company building before being destroyed by fire in 1909). According to a 1909 article about the Buffalo Express fire, “This was the first time knitted goods were made in America. The company’s reputation was so great that the entire 63, 64, and 65 product line was Sold to the U.S. government for use by the Northern Army.”
At the height of the Civil War, Davison placed an ad in a local newspaper announcing “500 Hands for Heel and Toe Stockings for Lockport Woolen Company.” Although he was still running a knitting company in his 1870s, he moved to a new business at some point during his next five years.
In the late 1860s, John L. Davison’s brother Jerome came to Lockport and operated a “jewelry and men’s furniture and supplies” store at 44 Main Street. By 1875, Jerome had become an insurance salesman and John took over the business. , then located in the Hodge Opera House block, sold only watches and jewelry. Hodge in 1881. This business was destroyed in a fire in his opera house, and Davison began working as a bank bookkeeper, from 1881 he worked for the First National Bank until 1890; Until 1893, he began working for the Merchants Bank.
All the while, Davison continued to live in the same house he had purchased in 1863 at 55 Waterman Street. His wife Mary died in 1897, and two years after her, his daughter Frances married insurance agent William Shapley and the couple moved in with him. .
It is not clear when Davison became interested in birds, but he joined the American Ornithologists Guild in 1885 and identified himself as a “naturalist” on the federal census after retiring from banking. In addition to his research on birds in Lockport, Davison traveled throughout the United States and Europe to add more specimens to his collection.
In the early 20th century, Davison was considered an authority on New York state birds and wrote articles for local and national publications. He donated some of his rare species to the Smithsonian Institution, and a few years before his death he donated his collection to the former Lockport High School on East Avenue for display.
In 1915, the Shapley family moved to 620 East Avenue, just down Lovers Lane, and Davison joined them. Now in his 80s, he continued to travel and work tirelessly on birds. In 1923, the family moved again to 700 East Avenue. In June 1925, Davison stayed with his son Wilfred in Buffalo, where he died on July 8, two months before his 92nd birthday. He is buried in Glenwood Cemetery.
In the early 1980s, Davison Road was extended south from High Street to Lincoln Avenue.
[ad_2]
Source link
