A Royal Time

OCT. 27, 2003 - by Lynne Belluscio - Her name was Mary Lundie Cox. She was born in 1842, the youngest of fifteen children. Her father was Samuel Cox - - the Reverend Samuel Cox. Her mother was Abiah Cleveland Cox and was forty-six when Mary was born. Samuel was forty-nine when his youngest child was born and he was at the peak of his career as a Presbyterian minister in Brooklyn, New York. He was a founder of New York University and for thirty- six years, served as a director of Union Theological Seminary.

In June, 1853, his voice having failed, he moved his family to the little upstate New York community of Owego, where he purchased "Vesper Cliff" and planned a life in retirement. But within two years he was approached by Marietta and Emily Ingham, who convinced him that he should come to Le Roy to become the Chancellor of Ingham University. He arrived in1856 and bought the old LeRoy family mansion on East Main Street from Alfred F. Bartow.

Mary Cox was only fourteen when she came to Le Roy. Later, in 1921, she wrote about the house: "At that time it was a most attractive, old fashioned home." She remembered that her mother used the room to the left of the front door (now the land office) as a sitting room. "We kept very warm. I confess that Mother shut up the back parlor in winter. We would have a large log fire in the huge fireplace. Well, I remember the spacious old house, its great hall running from the front to the back and the large dark green blind doors that kept it so dim and cool. The piazza at the back was immense, with great wings extending north and forming a large stone paved court."

The green blind doors that she mentions, were louvered doors that were closed, but allowed the main doors to remain open. Before screened doors, these louvered doors allowed the breeze to blow through the house, but gave security and privacy inside.

Mary wrote that Mr. Bartow had built large barns behind the house that were filled with "choice fowls" of many kinds, including two great peacocks, that, "were part of our inheritance with their disturbing screams. My father greatly enjoyed these buildings for his numerous pets and I revelled in dogs of various breeds; many of the village boys, at that time, were presented with guinea pigs, rabbits and pigeons of all descriptions, in which my father delighted. The fence was low, running along the top of a stone coping. Small black wooden rails, giving the appearance of iron, and at the entrance, which was semi-circular, were four large, high black filigree iron posts."

When Mary was sixteen, she was enrolled in Ingham - - by that time - known as Ingham University. Mary remembered Marietta and Emily Ingham. She liked Marietta: "She was the worker of the whole establishment. She was wonderful. Mrs Staunton (Marietta's sister, Emily) was popular among a certain few. She was not popular with the girls. I do not know any of the girls who cared for her at all... Mrs. Staunton was just the show card, the figurehead. She did not know enough to teach anyone anything. Marietta kept up the whole establishment. The Inghams were not teachers any more than I am."

Mary's father was described as brilliant but eccentric. He spoke in Latin and Greek and his sermons were known to be long and verbose, yet Mary said that her father had a great sense of humor. One evening, when the entire faculty was attending a concert in town, the students abandoned their studies and had a dance in the upper hall. Mary wrote, "We thought we were wicked. We had a regular dance. We lost our souls that way but we had a lovely good time. We heard some of the teachers coming back. We hid under the beds. We got away. I came home and it was all right, but the plaster in the hall below came down - a perfect avalanche of plaster."

Mrs. Staunton summoned Mary's father and told him that the girls had been dancing and suggested that he have a service with the entire faculty and the students. When he came home he asked Mary about the episode. "I answered - We had a royal time!" At chapel, Rev. Cox rose and asked the young ladies involved in the incident to stand. The first one to stand was his daughter, Mary, "and he laughed at me!" Then all the girls stood up and father could hardly keep his face straight. Young ladies, you know you were breaking the rules. That was very wrong to do. I am sorry you did it. I do not know all your names and I am very sorry to have to ask you to stand up in such a way as this. I beg you never again to do it deliberately what you know will do damage. Now you may all sit down."

And apparently that was all there was to it. Mary noticed that "Mrs. Staunton did not look very well pleased." Mary's mother died in 1865 and her father resigned his post at Ingham.

Mary never graduated from Ingham, and in 1866, married the son of the Bartows, who had sold her father their house. Her husband's name was Perit Lathrop Bartow. His mother was the son of Joshua and Rebecca Lathrop. Joshua Lathrop was the first mayor of Le Roy and had succeeded Jacob LeRoy as the land agent of the Triangle Tract. Perit had grown up in LeRoy House.

Mary and Perit were married in New York City and in 1871 they had a baby boy, Frank, who tragically died fifteen months later. They never had any more children. Mary died in 1923.