Emigrants from Upstate New York

“Go West, young man!” said Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and many Upstate New Yorkers did. The dream of moving west or south is common to this day. Here is a list of Upstate New Yorkers who in Huck Finn’s phrase, “lit out for the territories”:

• George T. Anthony, Governor of Kansas, born in Mayfield, New York
• Charles Reed Bishop, born in Glens Falls, husband of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Confidant of Hawaiian Royalty.^[1]
• William Henry Bissell, Governor of Illinois, born in Hartwick.
• Aaron T. Bliss, Governor of Michigan, born in Peterboro
• Gail Borden, the inventor of condensed milk. He was born in Norwich and emigrated to Mexican Texas, where he became a newspaper editor and later the Republic of Texas Customs inspector for Galveston. He returned to Upstate New York to establish the first milk condensing plant in Wassaic.
• Phil Bredesen, Governor of Tennessee, raised in Shortsville.
• The Blessed Marianne Cope, O.S.F., who grew up in Utica and lived for many years as a member of the member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, before answering a call to serve leprosy sufferers on Molokaʻi in Hawaiʻi.
• Charles Crocker
• Edwin B. Crocker, born in Jamesville, justice of the California Supreme Court.
• George H. Eldridge, born in Sacketts Harbor, soldier in the Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Medal of Honor winner, and California resident.
• Josiah Failing, the fourth mayor of Portland, Oregon, born in Canajoharie
• Abijah Gilbert, born in Gilbertsville, was a United States Senator from Florida.
• Irving Gill, San Diego architect born in Tully
• William H. Gray, born in Fairfield, was a pioneer of the Oregon Country in the present-day U.S. state of Oregon. He was an active participant in the efforts to organize a government in the region. Gray came to the Oregon Country as a lay member of the Spalding-Whitman missionary group, but resigned his position and went to the Salem area in 1842 to work at the Oregon Institute.
• Bret Harte, born in Albany
• Mark Hopkins, Jr.
• Henry E. Huntington, born in Oneonta was a railroad magnate and founder of the The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California near Pasadena.
• Charles "Pa" Ingalls, born in Cuba, Dakota Territory homesteader and father of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who had for his entire life a strong case of wanderlust. He is quoted by Laura in her "Little House" series of books as saying: "My wandering foot gets to itching".
• William Henry Jackson, artist and photographer of the American West, born in Keeseville.
• Grove L. Johnson, U.S. Representative from California, born in Syracuse.
• Gerrit P. Judd, born in Paris, became a physician and missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii and later a trusted advisor and cabinet minister to King Kamehameha III.
• Joseph Ladue, born in Schuyler Falls, prospector, businessman and founder of Dawson City, Yukon.
• Edward Livingston, a prominent American jurist and statesman, born in Clermont, Columbia County, New York. He was an influential figure in the drafting of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825, a civil code based largely on the Napoleonic Code. He represented both New York, and later Louisiana in Congress and he served as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1831 to 1833.
• Julius Sterling Morton, born in Adams, moved to Michigan as a child and as an adult became a newspaper editor in Nebraska. He was appointed Secretary of Nebraska Territory by President James Buchanan, as the US Secretary of Agriculture under Grover Cleveland, and was the founder of Arbor Day.
• Carol Newell, born in Ogdensburg[1] and a 1979 alumna of St. Lawrence University, is a philanthropist in Vancouver, British Columbia. She was honoured with the Order of Canada in 2007 [2] and with a Doctor of Humane Letters by her alma mater in 2008.[3]
• Algernon Sidney Paddock, was born in Glens Falls. He attended Glens Falls Academy and Union College. He became Secretary of Nebraska Territory, Governor of Nebraska and United States Senator from Nebraska.
• Legrand W. Perce, born in Buffalo, became a member of Congress from Mississippi.
• John A. Quitman, born in the parsonage of the Old Stone Church in Rhinebeck, became a Mexican-American War general and the governor of Mississippi.
• Justus H. Rathbone, born in Deerfield, was a teacher in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the founder of the international fraternal order of the Knights of Pythias.
• William Harrison Rice, born in Oswego, became a missionary teacher in the Hawaiian Islands and managed an early sugar plantation there.
• William Wallace Barbour Sheldon, born in Westport, was an architectural engineer and pioneer of California.
• Henry Harmon Spalding, born in Bath, and his wife Eliza Hart Spalding were Presbyterian missionaries and educators working primarily with the Nez Perce in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The Spaldings and their fellow missionaries were among the earliest Americans to travel across the western plains, through the Rocky Mountains and into the lands of the Pacific Northwest to their religious missions in what would become the states of Idaho and Washington. Their missionary party of five, including Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa and William H. Gray, joined with a group of fur traders to create the first wagon train along the Oregon Trail.
• Leland Stanford, railroad tycoon, Governor of California and founder of Stanford University. Stanford was born in the town of Watervliet. He attended Clinton Liberal Institute, and studied law at Cazenovia Seminary.
• Henry Benjamin Whipple, born in Adams, became the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota.
• Dr. Marcus Whitman, physician and missionary in the Oregon Country, born in what is now Rushville
• Narcissa Whitman, missionary in the Oregon Country, born in Prattsburgh
• Frances Willard, an educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth (Prohibition) and Nineteenth (Women Suffrage) Amendments to the United States Constitution. Willard was born to a schoolteacher in Churchville, but spent most of her childhood in Janesville, Wisconsin.

Show biz

To make it in show business, one must migrate to New York City or California:

• George Abbott, born in Forestville, theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than seven decades
• Lucille Ball, from Jamestown
• Tom Cruise, born in Syracuse
• William Devane, born in Albany
• Kirk Douglas, from Amsterdam
• Annette Funicello, born in Utica
• Vincent Gallo, born in Buffalo
• Richard Gere, graduate of North Syracuse High School
• George 'Gabby' Hayes, born in Wellsville
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, born in Rochester, New York
• Mary-Margaret Humes, born in Watertown
• Grace Jones, graduate of Central High School in Syracuse, who studied theater at Syracuse University
• Michael O'Donoghue, from Sauquoit
• David Hyde Pierce, born in Saratoga Springs
• Bill Pullman, born in Hornell
• John Sayles, from Schenectady
• Rod Serling, from Interlaken
• the Shubert Brothers, from Syracuse
• Maureen Stapleton, born in Troy
• Fran Striker of Buffalo, a writer for radio and comics who was best known for creating The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet.
• George Verschoor, raised in Hoosick Falls

References

1. ^ Kamehameha Schools - Charles Reed Bishop