Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/112

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

100 AUBURN ciples', and 1 Universalist ; and it is the seat of a Presbyterian theological seminary founded in 1821. To this has been recently added a large building for a library, the gift of William E. Dodge of New York and E. B. Morgan of Au- rora. Auburn also has an orphan asylum, a home for the friendless, a young men's Chris- tian association with reading-rooms, one high school, six district schools, and a young ladies' institute, eight banks, several hotels, and two opera houses. Two daily newspapers, four weeklies, and one monthly are published hee. Water works on the Holley plan supply the city. The Auburn state prison, founded in 1816, is conducted on the " silent system." It is a fine massive structure of limestone, cover- ing, with its cells, yards, and workshops, 12 acres. The prison buildings are arranged in the form of a hollow square, standing at a dis- tance from the outer wall, which surrounds them. This wall, which is 3,000 ft. long, 4 ft. thick, and 12 to 35 ft. high, is manned night Auburn State Prison. and day by guards. The prison has usually over 1,000 convicts (in 1872, 1,100), who are employed in a variety of manufactures, the proceeds of which are generally sufficient to defray the expenses of the institution. Each convict on arrival is assigned to work at the trade with which he is familiar, or, if ignorant of any, is taught one. Among the principal of these are the hame shop, tailors', shoemakers', cloth and carpet weaving, cabinet, sash and blind, cooper, stone-cutters', tool, axletree, smith, and machine shops. The convicts make such articles as they use, and build such struc- tures as they occupy. They sleep in separate cells, but at meals and in the shops are together. No communication by word or sign is allowed. In an adjoining enclosure of nine acres is the state asylum for insane criminals, founded in 1857. It has usually 80 to 100 inmates. The Owasco lake supplies one of the best water powers in the state, which is utilized by nine AUBUSSON dams, the river falling within the city limits 160 ft. There are upward of 20 factories and mills, the chief of which are those of cotton and woollen fabrics, carpets, agricultural imple- ments (many of which are exported to Europe), machine shops and tool factories, flouring mills, and breweries. These manufactories employ a capital of from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000. Valuable limestone quarries are worked within the city limits. One of the two branches of the New York Central railroad runs through Auburn. The Southern Central railroad also passes through it, connecting it with Lake On- tario and the Pennsylvania coal mines. Au- burn, formerly called Hardenburgh's Corners, was first settled by Capt. John L. Hardenburgh in 1793. At a short distance from the court house stands an elevation called Fort Hill, in the forest on the summit of which were found the ruins of an ancient Indian fortifica- tion and relics of its former occupants, such as arrow-heads, tomahawks, and pottery. It is now the site of a cemetery, - - - , prominent among whoso monu- ments is one to the memory of Logan, the Cayuga chief. Al l!l SS<, a town of central France, capital of an arrondis- sement of the department of Creuse, built in a picturesque gorge near the river Creuse, 20 m. S. E. of Gu6ret; pop. in 1866, 6,625. It is celebrated for its manufacture of carpets, which employs the majority of the inhabitants. Woollen and cotton goods are also made, and there are dye houses, tan yards, and factories of various kinds. The town was founded in the 8th century, and was subject to a feudal lord, the ruins of whose castle are still visible. A! IJISSOX Pierre d', grand master of the hospitallers, or knights of St. John of Jerusalem, born at La- marche, France, in 1423, died in 1503. He is said to have first served in the Hungarian armies against the Turks. In 1444 he accom- panied the dauphin, afterward Louis XI., in his campaign against the Swiss. He next re- paired to the island of Rhodes, where he was admitted as a knight of St. John. He soon became a prominent member of the order, and on the death of the grand master Des Ursins he was unanimously elected his successor. When Mohammed II. threatened Italy, D'Au- busson had Rhodes strongly fortified, at the same time forming an alliance with the bey of Tunis and sultan of Egypt. Mohammed sent against Rhodes a fleet of 160 sail, carrying an army of 100,000 men, under the command of the apostate Misach Palseologus (Messih Pasha). The Turks invested the town of Rhodes at the end of May, 1480. D'Aubnsson, who made an admirable defence, was so se-