Birth and Early Life
He was born in Westchester County, New York, the son of Eunice (Barnard), and a potter, Elijah Cornell, and was raised near DeRuyter, New York. He was a cousin of Paul Cornell, the founder of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. To the north Cornell is also a distant relative of William Cornell, who was an early settler of Scarborough, Ontario and named used for the planned community of Cornell, Ontario. Having traveled extensively as a carpenter in New York State, Ezra, upon first setting eyes on Cayuga Lake and Ithaca, decided Ithaca would be his future home.
The emigrant Thomas Cornell was probably Puritan at first then a follower of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson drifting into Quakerism which seems to have been the religion of his descendants. Written by John Cornell at the Cornell Homestead in So. Portsmouth, Rhode Island and dated August 7, 1901. Portsmouth, RI is noteworthy in American history for the 1638 Portsmouth Compact declaring for a separation of church and state rivaling the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657 declaring for religious tolerance in New Amsterdam, Quakers in particular.
Read more about this topic: Ezra Cornell
Famous quotes containing the words birth and, birth, early and/or life:
“The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Alas! The time is coming when man will no longer give birth to stars. Alas! The time of the most contemptible man is coming, one who can no longer despise himself. Behold! I show you the last man.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I would observe to you that what is called style in writing or speaking is formed very early in life while the imagination is warm, and impressions are permanent.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I love long life better than figs.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)