The Rise and Fall of a Frontier Entrepreneur: Benjamin Rathbun, "Master Builder and Architect"

by Roger Whitman
Edited by Scott Eberle and David A. Gerber

Syracuse University Press and Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society
1996
241 pp.

Contents

Illustrations	vii
Preface David A. Gerber	ix
Author's Preface Roger Whitman	xv
Benjamin Rathbun in His Time and Our Own Scott Eberle and David A. Gerber	xvii
1. Shadows of the Future	1
2. Buffalo's Eagle Tavern	13
3. The Forest Recede	22
4. The Opportunist	35
5. Stagecoach Entrepreneur	49
6. Banking and Building in Buffalo	60
7. Booming Business	69
8. The Great Speculation	82
9. "Experiment," "Enterprise," and "Encourgement"	99
10. "A Spledid Pyramid Based on a Peg"	112
11. "Under Whip and Spur"	128
12. Convulsions and Reckonings	153
13. The Wheels of Justice	169
14. The Wind Shifts	184
15. The Penalty	193
16. The Return	205
17. "Ralf a Century Too Soon"	216
Bibliography Roger Whitman	225
Index	229