Hiram W. Bostwick was bom at New Milford, 

 Conn., Aug. 28, 1802. At the age of sixteen he 

 went to Albany, N, Y., as a clerk in a whip manu- 

 facturing establishment. 



In 1820 he married Mary Rowley. In 1824 he 

 removed to Laurens, Otsego Co., N. Y., and formed 

 a co-partnership with his brother in a general mer- 

 chandise store, where he remained until about 1836, 

 when he removed to Painted Post, this county, and 

 engaged in lumbering at the mills now known as 

 the ^' Gang Mills.^' Soon afterwards, as one of the 

 Corning Company, he removed to the present site of 

 the village of Corning, and became the general 

 manager of that company, and so continued until 

 its dissolution in 1855; and to him more than to 

 any other one ' person was the prosperity of the 

 village due. He was president of the Bank of 

 Corning, of the Tioga Iron, Mining, and Manufac- 

 turing Company, which built the railroad from Corn- 



ing to Lawrenceville, Pa., connecting there with the 

 Tioga Navigation Company, owning the railroad 

 from Lawrenceville to Blossburg, constituting the 

 first outlet for bituminous coal from the Pennsyl- 

 vania mines. 



He was one of the chief promoters, and for a time 

 president of the Buffalo and Conhocton Valley Rail- 

 road. 



After the great fire at Corning in 1850, he, with 

 Major Andrew B. Dickinson, built the " Dickinson 

 House'^ and " Concert Hall," thereby stimulating 

 others to erect many of the finest buildings now in 

 Corning. 



In 1863 he went to Nicaragua as an assistant of 

 Major Andrew B. Dickinson, who was United States 

 Minister to the government of that country. He 

 returned to the United States in 1866, and established 

 his residence at Vineland, N. J., where he died 

 April 8, 1868. 



