Ancestor Trees   |   Genealogy Reports and Notes   |   Family Photos   |   More Links   |   Home

From a Lyons, NY newspaper article, date unknown:

    John and Mary Hano, who made their reputation as host and hostess of Congress Hall a few years after the close of the war, deserve conspicuous mention in any history of Lyons, for they represented the thrifty, well-to-do German families that settled here in the early period of the village.  Mr. Hano came to this country in 1839.  He was born in Gerbach Rhine, Bavaria,  June 1, 1818.  Mrs. Hano (Mary Martin) was a native of Ormsheim, Darmstadt, Germany, where she was born May 9, 1812.  They were married February 2, 1840.

Congress Hall Hotel - Lyons, NY 1870

    Mr. Hano came west from New York on a canal packet, going to Buffalo where he worked in brick yards.  Intending to return to New York, he boarded a packet.  At Lyons he saw standing on the dock an Althen who was from his old home in Germany, so he concluded to settle here.  First he worked for Mr. Wakeman at Mud Mills; then for John Stanton in his wagon works, which six months later Mr. Hano bought.  He carried on wagon making seven or eight years, then started a grocery business on Water street which he ran for fifteen years.

John (Johannes) and Mary Martin Henno

    Being appointed postmaster by President Lincoln July 16, 1861, he sold out the grocery.  He served as postmaster, exclusive of two months prior to his regular appointment when the president named him as deputy, a full term and at its conclusion he went into the hardware business with Thomas Bourne.  In the meantime Mr. Hano had build Congress Hall which was run by William Smelt for some time.  On December 10, 1869, Mr. Hano took possession and conducted the hotel until July 7, 1874, when it passed into the hands of N. A. Langdon.  Upon disposing of the hotel, Mr. Hano retired from active business and lived with his wife and three of his eight children, Elizabeth, Henry and William at 78 Broad Street.  He died October 19, 1890.  Mrs. Hano's death occurred August 28, 1896.  

Excerpts from: EARLY WAYNE COUNTY SETTLERS AND THEIR RHINELAND ORIGINS
By Lloyd Espenschied
Originally published in The Lyons Republican and Clyde Times, 1958 

The Genial Inn-Keeper
    Philip Dorsheimer was born about ten miles south of Bingen-on-Rhine in the village of Wöllstein , Hesse-Darmstadt, more recently in Rheinhassen, on April 15th, 1797. He married in Pennsylvania Sarah Gorpas; 1821, Aug. 23. Upon the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825-6,      Dorsheimer was attracted to Lyons as a flour miller, and a few years thereafter became an inn-keeper. He operated first the Wayne County Hotel (earlier Princess Tavern, later Congress Hall, located on Water Street where is today the Wayne Hotel), and next, as of about 1833, the Lyons Hotel on the northeast corner of William and Montezuma Streets.

Coming from a range of ten to fifteen miles from Dorsheimers home village, we find other migrants that may have been influenced by Dorsheimer: Dr. Franz L. Brunk was born in 1810 in Kanton Obermoschel in the Palatinate southwest of Wöllstein .  He migrated in 1834 to Lyons. There he married an American girl, removed to Indiana, thence to Buffalo where he practiced medicine and became a newspaper editor, and there he introduced to Dorsheimer Gustav Koerner, to whom we are indebted for the inn-keeper's biography. Dr. Brunk finally returned to Germany, evidently disappointed in the "land of unlimited opportunity". 
    Lastly, we recognize two more immigrants who may have owed their Lyons residence to Dorsheimer. John Hano, (Johannes Henno) who in turn became an inn-keeper, stopped off from a canal boat upon seeing on the dock an old friend from his home town, Philip Althen. Althen is reported to have been born about 1810 in Gerbach, Rhine Bavaria, and to have migrated in 1835. This village is some ten miles south of Dorsheimers Wöllstein on the brook Apfelbach, in the Rhine Palatinate. Here we appear to have two more recruits to credit to the magnetic circle of the personable inn-keeper. Doubtless there were many more, and still more attracted secondarily. 

In the 1867-1868 directory:
Althen, Philip (P. Althen & Son Charles, clothing and gents furnishing goods

INDEX TO GRIP'S SOUVENIR OF LYONS, N.Y. & VICINITY - 1904:
Under CARRIAGES, WAGONS, HARNESS:
Hano Wagon Works, page 102
Note that both the Hano's and the Leidinger's were in the carriage or wagon business.