An ElderHostel guest at Watson Homestead told me that she had been on the Greek island of Corfu, when a voice behind her said, “Now there’s someone from Rochester, New York.” She turned around, and it was Mitch Miller – oboist, Columbia Records mogul, host of the wildly popular Sing-Along Gang on early 60s TV. When she asked him how he had known, he said, “I recognized the accent.”
In his line, Mitch must have had a superbly-trained ear, and he’d had plenty of time to study the accent. Born in Rochester, he went to East High, then Eastman School of Music, then played with the R.P.O. until lifting his sights to New York City.
So Mitch was a card carrying Finger Laker. Of course we know about such luminaries as Glenn Curtiss, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Susan B. Anthony, but who ELSE hails from the Lakes Country?
*Multimillionaire John D. Rockefeller was born (much poorer) in Richford, outside Owego.
*Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling was born in Syracuse. He then grew up in Binghamton, but summered almost every year of his adult life in Interlaken, and named his company Cayuga Productions.
*Cab Calloway was born in Rochester on the Fourth of July, four years ahead of Christmas baby Mitch Miller. Famed for his scatting vocals, Cab was a renowned big band leader, back in the days when jazz was jingling and swing was king.
*While making his way from Vermont to Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas paused for three years to attend Canandaigua Academy and begin the study of law. He beat out Abe Lincoln for a senate seat in 1858, and two years later was the only presidential candidate (out of four) with strong support in every part of the country. But this time it wasn’t enough to beat Lincoln, or to hold off the Civil War.
*President Millard Fillmore was born in Moravia, and grew up in Cayuga County except for an unhappy apprenticeship in Sparta. President Chester A. Arthur lived for a short spell in York (Livingston County). Curiously, they each became president on the deaths of their predecessors, and did not serve a second term.
*Many an aspiring president started out young by figuring ways to finagle “Robert’s Rules of Order.” General Henry M. Robert married and settled in Owego in 1901, when he retired from the army. He died 22 years later in Hornell.
*Like Mitch Miller and Cab Calloway, Joe Simon was born in Rochester. He went to high school there and then worked as a cartoonist for one of the city newspapers, then moved to Syracuse and did the same there. Moving to New York City at the age of 23, he fell into the brand-new field of comic books. He worked there for decades and had many accomplishments – but most memorably of all, he created Captain America.
*Daniel Shays fought at Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, but never got paid. Broke, indebted, and behind on taxes, he helped create the United States – by leading a rebellion in 1786. It failed, but it scared George Washington and other national leaders so much that they drafted a new constitution to strengthen the federal government and prevent (or crush) insurrections. We’ve been using it ever since. Pardoned, pensioned, unhappy and alcoholic, Shays drifted westward and finished his days in Sparta.
*By the way, Rochester must have had something very beneficial in its water way back when. All born within a six-year period, Cab Calloway lived to be 86, Joe Simon 98, and Mitch Miller 99!
We’re From the Finger Lakes — Bet You Didn’t Know!
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