TOMPKINS COUNTY Navigating A Sea Of Resources PUBLIC LIBRARY Title: The first hundred years : a history of the Cornell Public Library, Ithaca, New York, and the Cornell Library Association, 1864-1964. Author: Call number: LH-CASE 027.409 Peer Publisher: [Ithaca, N.Y.?] : [s.n.] 1969. Owner: Ithaca - Tompkins County Public Library Assigned Branch: Ithaca - Tompkins County Public Library (TCPL) Collection: Local History (LH) Material type: Book Number of pages: 1 30 pages THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS A HISTORY OF THE CORNELL PUBLIC LIBRARY Ithaca, New York and the CORNELL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 1864 - 1964 by Sherman Peer THE AUTHOR It's good to think of the new library so well organized and increasing in service. I am happy to have lived to see it functioning fully and so well received by the people of Tompkins County. Letter from Sherman Peer, dated February 2?, 19^9, to Mrs. John Vandervort, chairman of the trustees of the Tompkins County Public Library. Sherman Peer searched the records of the Cornell Library Association, many other written sources, and his own rich memories to write this history. A prominent Ithaca attorney who enjoyed writing and story-telling, Mr. Peer completed his work on it in 1964, when he was 81 years old. The epilogue was written by Mary Tibbets Freeman, and the manuscript was prepared for presentation at the formal dedication of the Tompkins County Library Building on April 20, 19&9. The historian also shaped the library's history by assisting in its successful rebirth as a public institution in its second century. He was convinced that the Cornell Public Library, operated since 1866 by the private Cornell Library Associa tion founded by Ezra Cornell, needed public funds for a new building and continuing support. Mr. Peer personally raised more than $65,000 from local corporations and friends in the late 1950s, and with this fund as a beginning, he approached the City of Ithaca and asked it to construct a new library. After several years of indecision, Tompkins County accepted the challenge in 1964. The library was con structed at 31 2 North Cayuga Street and opened its doors under county operation on February 3t 19&9* Mr. Peer's determination, despite those who tried to persuade him that the library could survive on private funds, was important to the success of efforts to win public sponsorship. the son Sherman Peer was born September 11, 1882, at East Palmyra, New York, boyhood of Frank Sherman and Harriet Reeves Peer. He often spoke of his happy in Morris the Genesee River Valley, but considered Ithaca his home. He attended Mt. which he and Ithaca high schools before entering the Cornell Law School, from graduated in 1906. After a year of study at New College, Oxford University, established a law England, he was admitted to the New York State bar in 190? and practice in Ithaca. He was an infantry major in World War I, and at the war's end was liaison officer between the War Department and the National Training Detach ment, which directed the training of enlisted men at universities. During his professional career, he was an attorney and trust officer for the Tompkins County Trust Company, counsel to Morse Chain Company, and, starting in 1936, general counsel for the Cooperative Grange League Federation Exchange, the post from which he retired in 1947. In 1947-52 he taught courses in cooperative law at the Cornell Law School, holding the rank of professor. He was instrumental in organizing Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, was president of the Cornell University Research Foundation, and a founder of the Ithaca Foundation which supported many community projects. For many years he served as a director of the Tompkins County Trust Company and the National Cash Register Company. Also he was a president of the Tompkins County Bar Association and the Federation of Bar Associations of the Sixth Judicial District. His novel Sabbatic Leave was published in 1946. He also wrote magazine articles and unpublished works another including novel, The Genesee Valley Newcombs , Country," and a collection of historical sketches, "Genesee River on file at the public library. With his father, he was a foxhunter and an accomplished horseman, and rode with the Genesee Valley Hunt. His last home in the Ithaca area v/as a century-old II mill that he remodeled on Salmon Creek, near Ludlowville Mr. Peer's association with the library began in 1947, when he was elected a trustee. He was president of the Cornell Library Association in 1951 and 1952, and in 1955 the Association named him Statutory Librarian, which involved service as a Cornell University trustee. He retired from the post in 19^4, and the Association then awarded him the title of Honorary Life Trustee. Quietly and anonymously he made countless gifts to the library. An avid reader, he often asked the librarian to purchase current books for him, and then gave these to the library collection. When the Association found it necessary to hire a consxiltant and architect, he made a substantial gift, and later made two more financial contributions one in memory of his parents and the other to qualify the library for federal funds under the Library Services and Construction Act. The program for the cornerstone-laying ceremony on April 22, 1968, said, "His deep concern for proper housing of the library and untiring efforts in soliciting funds launched this building project." Although he was happy to learn that the new library had opened, he never saw the building in which he had played such an important role. He and his wife Muriel had moved to and . Florida, he died in Tampa on March 31 , 1 969 A son, two daughters, and eleven grandchildren survived him in addition to his wife. At the library's dedication, the meeting room was named the Sherman Peer Room in his honor. --Jane Marcham III FOREWORD A history of the Cornell Public Library and of the library building is not a symphony in words, but like a symphonic composition it has four themes: Ezra Cornell, the Library and its building, the People of Tompkins County, and Cornell University. The dominant themes are Ezra Cornell and his public Library. This manuscript will avoid, except when and where desirable, details of the life of the Founder because excellent books covering his life and works have appeared regularly between 1884 and 1952. This manuscript is designed to cover the first hundred years, beginning April 5i 1864 (the date of the Library Charter) and concluding with the centennial celebration. There are a number of reasons why a history should be written. Source material is widely scattered among minute books recording the proceedings of the Library Association, transactions of the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the University, letters to and from Ezra Cornell, anecdotes in scrap books and other unexpected places, and, generally speaking, all sorts of material in nooks and corners, subject to the hazard of fire. Another reason is that although all biographies of Ezra Cornell and histories of the University make casual mention of the library building, none gives any adequate account of it as the cradle of Cornell University. The Library was a going concern in 1865, whereas it took the University all of five years (1868-1 873) just to get its feet firmly planted on the Hill and another five years to feel at home there. Subsequently Cornell's expansion and growing reputation as a great institution of learning was so swift, so dramatic, that Mother" the part played by its so-called "Foster has been overlooked as men of letters all over the world have been paying court to the "Daughter." Even the people of Tompkins County, for whom the public Library was founded, are aware of the humble origin of the University, which grew into being in a brick building at the corner of Tioga and Seneca Streets. Secretaries of organizations similar to the Cornell Library Association seldom, if ever, write for posterity. Instead, they write for the week or month, too often merely to record minor detail. It may be that the important transactions which interest the historian either are not at the moment seen in perspective or are so well known at the time that mention in the minutes of discussion, of arguments, of human reactions, and even of final actions taken is often omitted from the Record. This history will, at times, "read lines" between the to supplement missing data. Sherman Peer CHAPTER I The story begins in April 1828 with a young man, aged twenty-one, walking along the south bank of Fall Creek, probably in the late afternoon, for he has been walking since dawn from his father's farm near De Ruyter. Now, following the old road from Dryden, he has been in sight, off and on, of the waters in Fall Creek and has noted how the gorge deepens as he moves westward to his journey's end. We are told that over his shoulder he carried dangling from a stick a box in which were carpenter's tools and very likely personal belongings wrapped, no doubt, in a threadbare coat. These articles and a slender purse comprised his worldly assets as he found himself in a clearing where one would naturally stop, weary and probably hungry, having walked out of one world into another which he now saw for the first time, although he had heard about it and had decided to live in it in case it was as represented. On his left the view opened to the south and west.