EXHIBIT: EARLY YEARS

Slave trade outlawed
Robert Fulton builds first succesful steamboat.

1807

Born, Westchester Landing, son of Elijah and Eunice Cornell.

James Madison wins presidential election

1808

War with Great Britain

1812

James Monroe wins presidential election

1817

Spain cedes East Florida to the US.
Panic of 1819

1819

Family relocates to DeRuyter. Elijah Cornell operates pottery.

Missouri compromise: Missouri and Maine are admitted to the Union keeping the balance between free and slave states.

1820

Monroe doctrine against further colonization of the Americas by European nations.

1823

John Quincy Adams wins presidential election

1824

Elijah has new pottery building constructed. Ezra Cornell learns the carpenter's trade.

The Erie Canal, linking the Midwest with the Hudson Valley, is completed.

1825

1826

Syracuse, works as a journeyman carpenter. Moves to Homer, works as a mechanic.

EXHIBIT: IN ITHACA

Andrew Jackson wins presidential election

1828

Arrives in Ithaca. Works as a mechanic at Otis Eddy's cotton mill on Cascadilla Creek.

1829

Begins working for Jeremiah S. Beebe overhauling and repairing plaster mill on Fall Creek.

1830

Plans and supervises construction of Fall Creek tunnel.

1831

Fall Creek tunnel completed. Marries Mary Ann Wood. Builds the Nook at Fall Creek and begins housekeeping.

Samuel F. B. Morse developes the first practical telegraph.

1832

First child, Alonzo B. Cornell born. Cornell takes charge of Beebe's concerns at Fall Creek.

Oberlin is the first college to admit women students.
Steel plow manufactured by John Lane.

1833

Second child, Charles Carrol Cornell born. Cornell working for Beebe and speculates in real estate.

Cyrus McCormick patents automatic grain-reaper.

1834

Rise of the Whig party

1835

Elizabeth Percival Cornell born.

Creation of the independent Republic of Texas
Martin Van Buren wins presidential election.

1836

Panic of 1837

1837

Builds new mill for Beebe and constructs stone dam on Fall Creek (forming Beebe lake).
Active in local politics and is delegate to Tompkins County convention of the Whig Party.
Charles Carrol Cornell dies.

1838

Son Franklin Cuthbert Cornell born.

EXHIBIT: MAINE TO GEORGIA AND BEYOND

The establishment of the Liberty Party signals the entry into politics of antislavery forces.

1839

Cornell leaves Beebe's employment and turns to farming.

William Henry Harrison wins presidential election.

1840

Son Charles Carrol Cornell (second child with this name) born.

1841

Ithaca's prosperity declining. Cornell makes two trips East representing Ithaca as a center for trade and industry.
Charles Carrol Cornell dies.

1842

Purchases patent rights to Barnaby and Mooers side hill plow for the states of Maine and Georgia. Travels to Maine. Meets F.O.J. Smith, publisher of the Maine Farmer.
Son Oliver Hazard Perry Cornell born.

Beginnings of political nativism: anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant movement.

1843

Travels to Georgia. Does much on traveling on foot, 40 miles a day.

EXHIBIT: THE TELEGRAPH

1843

Returns to Maine, meets with F.O.J Smith and becomes associated with the infant telegraph industry. Cornell designs a machine to lay a test telegraph cable underground.
Samuel F. B. Morse goes to Maine for demonstration of pipe-layer and approves the design.
Cornell goes to Baltimore and Washington to begin work on laying the telegraph line.

Test line in operation between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Morse sends first telegraph transmission: "What hath God wrought?"
James K. Polk wins presidential election

1844

Cornell presents telegraph exhibitions in Boston and New York during the summer and autumn.

EXHIBIT: THE BUSINESS OF THE TELEGRAPH

Annexation of Texas

1845

Magnetic Telegraph Company organized for the extension of the telegraph from Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York.

War with Mexico

1845

New York, Albany & Buffalo Telegraph Company builds line from New York to Buffalo, Cornell erects portion of line between New York and Albany.

Telegraph industry expands as incorporated companies. In the next three years lines are extended to nearly every important town in the United States and Canada.

1846

Settlement of Oregon question with Great Britain

1846

Employed as the Superintendent of the New York, Albany & Buffalo Magnetic Telegraph Company.

1847

Submits resignation to Theodore Faxton.

Sick with typhus, Daughter Mary Emily Cornell born.

Erects telegraph line from Troy through Vermont to Montreal, under contract with the Troy & Canada Junction Telegraph Company. Cornell produces an assignment from Smith making him and J.J. Speed sole agents for the Morse Patent in the five western states. Organizes the Erie & Michigan Telegraph Company to provide a telegraph line between Buffalo and Milwaukee, by way of Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago.

California Gold Rush
War with Mexico ends with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. New Mexico and California ceded to the U.S.
Seneca Falls Convention under the leadership of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Zachary Taylor wins presidential election.

1848

Erie & Michigan line completed. Cornell organizes the New York & Erie Telegraph Company for the purpose of building a telegraph line from New York to Dunkirk through the southern tier of counties of New York.

1849

New York and Erie line completed.
Son Ezra Clayton Cornell born. Daughter Elizabeth Percival Cornell dies.

Compromise of 1850, settling differences between North and South, including the organization of the territories aquired from Mexico and a controversial Fugitive Slave Act.

1850

1851

New York & Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company started by Hiram Sibley and Judge Samuel L. Selden.
Cornell's son Ezra Clayton Cornell dies.

Franklin Pierce wins presidential election.

1852

New York & Erie Telegraph Company fails, Cornell buys it back and renames it the New York & Western Union Telegraph Company. Cornell works as Superintendent of the company.
Daughter Emma Pettit Cornell born. Cornell family leaves the Nook and moves into the village of Ithaca.

Introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which implicitely repealed the Missouri Compromise
Creation of the Republican party.
Lincoln's "Peoria Speech," his first public denunciation of slavery.

1854

1855

Has accident and severely injures his arm.

James Buchanan wins presidential election.

1856

Cornell joins interests with Sibley and associates to form Western Union Telegraph Company.
Goes to Pittsburgh as New York State delegate to the first Republican National Convention.

EXHIBIT: TOWARDS A NEW AGRICULTURE

Dred Scott Decision, the Supreme Court declares Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.

1857

Purchases and moves to "Forest Park."
Conducts agricultural experiments, and raises short horn cattle, and sheep. Organizes Ithaca Farmers' Club.

First commercial oil well drilled in Titusville, PA

1859

Abraham Lincoln wins presidential election
South Carolina starts secession crisis

1860

Visits oil wells in Titusville, involved in telegraph business, coal oil business, and the New York State Agricultural Society.

EXHIBIT: CIVIL WAR

Confederate constitution adopted at the Montgomery convention.
Civil War begins with confederate attack on Ft. Sumter.
Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph.

1861

At home in Ithaca, involved in the Tompkins County Agricultural Society, the Farmers Club, raising sheep and cattle, and collecting agricultural statistics.
Travels to Washington and attends Lincoln's inauguration.

EXHIBIT: A MAN OF POLITICS

Morrill Act provided for federal grants of land to states for the establishment of agricultural colleges.

1862

Serves in the New York State Assembly. Also elected president of the New York State Agricultural Society. Attends the Great International Exposition at London and travels extensively through England, Scotland, and Wales as well as through France, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, and Austria.

EXHIBIT: "TO THE POOR AND TO POSTERITY"

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

1863

Serves second year in New York State Assembly. Construction of Cornell Library underway. Nominated and elected State Senator.

EXHIBIT: THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Assasination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.
End of the Confederacy and the Civil War
Proclamation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery.

1865

Andrew Dickson White introduces bill in the Senate to establish the Cornell University and to appropriate to it the income of the sale of public lands granted to New York State.
Cornell University Bill formally passed in the Assembly and Senate.

1866

Takes trip to Wisconsin to locate lands. Involved in University.
Dedication of the Cornell Public Library Building.

1866

U.S. buys Alaska from Russia.

1867

Cornell declines reelection to State Senate.

Ulysses S. Grant wins presidential election.

1868

Cornell University opens.

U.S. transcontinental railroad completed.

1869

Construction starts on Cornell villa. Cornell moves downtown to the corner of Tioga and Seneca.

1869

Cornell involved in photo-lithography business, Albany Agricultural Works, and development of the University.

1874

Death of Ezra Cornell.