Most Western New York natives mourn the end of pleasant summer weather or autumn's brilliant colors, but winter could be the most appropriate time to celebrate the life of an almost completely forgotten local hero. Modern technology makes what he pioneered seem routine today, but General Albert J. Myer (1828-1880) was eulogized for his "revolutionary application" of meteorology in the progressive decade of the 1870s. We can also claim that the first daily exchange of international weather reports "for the benefit of all," his crowning achievement, was connected to the notoriously fickle Great Lakes weather pattern and the Niagara Region's commercial prominence.

To read more of Bob Gilbert's's story, see page 8 of the Winter 2010 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!

If Hollywood undertook a biography of Cyrenius Chapin, most movie-goers would dismiss the story as a work of fiction, and yet, like many of the early settlers who helped carve the settlements of Western New York from the sylvan wilderness, larger-than-life stories seemed to be commonplace. Chapin embodies a unique dichotomy. A physician with the restless spirit of a pioneer, he put aside his Hippocratic Oath for the call of his country in a time of war.

To read more of this story by C. Douglas Kohler, see page 28 of the Winter 2010 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!