ostrander - loomis

The following information was posted on a genealogy site by Edith Stanton -- from this post I would guess she is a distant cousin. As you may remember from the Loomis genealogy, Welton Ostrander was the son of Lucy Elizabeth Hicks from her first marriage. Welton named his daughter after his mother.

Ostrander, Loomis & Co., 28 and 30 James St. Syracuse New York ...Welton Benz (Bens) Ostrander was my great-grandfather. His daughter was Lucy Loomis Ostrander. I had many stories but only knew that the company dealt with tea, coffee and spices. Welton's father died at age 30 and his mother remarried, Chauncy Chester Loomis. I heard that there was some insurance money which allowed them to start a country store on the Erie Canal. Welton was only about 5 years old at the time, but learned the business as he grew up and eventually became a partner. They began the coffee, tea and spice business when he was old enough to help run the business. They built it up to include horses and wagons for deliveries, teasels for the carding of wool, peach and apple orchards, willow trees to use for making baskets for the fruit, as well as a large warehouse for their products. He also had an interest in the Quaker Yeast Co. They had a coffee roasting plant as well. They did very well and were considered moderately rich. However, in the 1880's when Welton Bens Ostrander was in his 40's, he thought he had either tuberculosis or tea poisoning from his business, so he changed his plans. He sold the business to Col. O. V. Tracy and began a project for a ranch in Texas.... One time, an order was received from Syracuse, NY for 20 horses. Somehow the order was read as twenty carloads of horses. About 200 horses arrived in Syracuse and had to be herded through the streets to a corral. Apparently they were not trained horses and went quite wild after riding the train and arriving in a strange and noisy city....

Second: M. J. Myers, Cashier, State Bank of Syracuse, No.3 basement, Onondaga County Savings Bank building. My grandmother, Lucy Loomis Ostrander [Welton's daughter], married Matthew Jervis Myers, the son of this M.J. Myers. This M.J. Myers was Matthew Joseph Myers. (One story is that he and his wife took the train to the South early in the Civil War. The Bank had a branch down there and they withdrew their capital of GOLD and brought it back to Syracuse in little pockets attached to her hoop skirt. If this is true it must have been a great adventure.) This Matthew Joseph Myers was also connected to the first telephone company in Syracuse. His son, Matthew Jervis Myers, invented a patented "Break Finder" for the telephone lines. Welton Benz Ostrander hired him to come to Texas to his huge ranch project in order to find the breaks in their wire fences. Lucy Loomis Ostrander met him there (the story goes) and they were later married in Syracuse.